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Boot Windows Vista In Four Seconds
arcticstoat writes "Asus' budget motherboard wing, ASRock, claims that it's found a way to load a clean boot of Windows from a full shut down in just four seconds, using its new Instant Boot technology. The technology takes advantage of the S3 and S4 features of ACPI, which normally enable the Sleep/Standby and Hibernation modes in Windows respectively. However, by calling them at different times in the boot-up and shutdown process, Instant Boot enables you to boot up to your Windows desktop in three to four seconds, even after a proper shut down. Two modes are available; Fast mode, which uses S3 and boots up in around four seconds, and Regular Mode, which uses S4 and apparently takes between 20 and 22 seconds to boot. The advantage of Instant Boot when compared with normal Sleep and Hibernation modes is that you get the advantage of a clean boot of Windows, without what ASRock calls 'accumulated garbage data,' and you also get the security of knowing that you won't lose any data if there's a power cut and you lose AC power. There's also a video of it in action at the link above."
Those guys in the video are having WAY too much fun with their jobs. "Why your computer boot so fast? I must get ASRock motherboard!"
Now I know why ASUS mobos tend to be so good. They encourage a fun workplace. ;-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
ASRock is not ASUS. Hua Ching, the subsidiary that was spun off from ASUS is not any longer a part of the ASUS organization. See http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2002/11/05/asus-distances-itself-from-asrock-subsidiary for details. There are a number of companies locally and elsewhere that have been pushing cheap ASRock mainboards as being the same quality as ASUS mainboards. We have seen many issues with the ASRock mainboards, both in premature failure and incompatibilities, that we have not seen at all in ASUS mainboards. ASUS has its own low-end set of mainboards and they are much better than the ASRock, from my experience. The sooner this sort of misinformation gets sorted out, the better informed the consumer will be.
These are the good old days you'll be telling your children about. Make them worthwhile.
Unfortunately a proper shutdown takes 2 minutes ....
I wonder if something like this could be done with Linux now that 2.6.27.5 has been out for a few days and that situation with the RESET_REG_SUP bit has been resolved. This certainly is great news for Vista users looking for a new board.
I'd boot Vista off my work PC in a millisecond if I could
It sounds like all they did was allow you to store a Hibernate to Disk snapshot of your system at startup before anything else gets done- which is technically cheating. ANYTHING can boot up in about 4 or seconds that way. :-D
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And you're posting on Slashdot. What have you done to help save the economy?
Seriously.
It is exactly like hibernate, but instead of saving the memory image after hours of use it saves an image just after boot.
They never show the shutdown process - my guess is that when you shutdown, it actually reboots, then right after Windows boots it puts it to sleep or hibernate (S3/S4). When you turn it back on, it wakes it and looks like you "just" booted up.
Not really a bad idea I suppose - moves the boot time from boot to shutdown, when you are less likely to care.
Of course you can get the same effect yourself by rebooting then just putting your machine to sleep when you want to shutdown. Someone could probably even write a simple software solution for this rather than requiring a whole new motherboard.
FTFA: Instant Boot will also only work on Windows systems (XP or Vista) with a single-user account and no password protection.
If you're looking to combine rage and the internet, the best place to start would be a little known site http://youtube.com/ There are a few entries there which fail to call attention to the current fiscal difficulties of major world economies.
That was my first thought too. Do they make any attempts at detecting whether the OS was updated, or new software was installed that requires a reboot, so they can perform a full boot and update the startup snapshot when needed?
Does it come prepackaged with winrar serials, cracks, M$ documents and source code?
Given the flowcharts (not the shiny video that catches your attention first) it appears that instead of shutting down, they simply reboot the system and once it reaches the state where the OS has finished loaded it then goes to sleep or hibernate. Once you power it back on it just returns to the freshly loaded OS.
So it appears that while it starts up faster, you should end up spending more time shutting down (actually rebooting and reloading the OS). You could also do this manually by rebooting Windows and once it gets to the desktop/login screen go into hibernate/sleep.
Instant Boot will also only work on Windows systems (XP or Vista) with a single-user account and no password protection.
from the article..
oogly boogly!
My guess, is that it wouldn't matter. As when you turn off their computer, they probably behind the scenes turn it back on again. Then hibernate. So a normal "reboot" would be a little slower than usual, and to a user every power on is like opening a fresh copy.
I pulled on a pair of boots and managed to beat their time by more than 3 seconds.
A lot of us don't actually know what S3 and S4 are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACPI#Power_States
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Also, (sorry about another post) they couldn't advertise "not worrying about losing your data if there is a power cut" if the image was taken straight after boot, because it wouldn't have any of your data in it, just OS stuff.
A lot of us don't actually know what S3 and S4 are.
You will after reading this article...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Not quite as useful as it seems at first glance...
You're absolutely right: it only works for about 95% of home users out there (a conservative estimate). Now, if it booted Linux as well, then it would be useful!
Surely the faster Windows can boot, the more work can be done by employees? :o)
This is still cheating - it's first of all not actually booting but suspending/resuming (albeit smartly).
Most importantly the system is not actually shut down, so it still draws power to refresh the memory. This will likely suck on high-performance laptops where the large amounts of ram with high voltages will suck the battery dry in a substantially short time.
And worse, this technology will take a _long_ time to shutdown. It's sacrificing a lot. We can (really) boot+shutdown a linux box in +- 10 seconds. Would you want a 3 second boot if your shutdown time becomes one minute?
For people who are on the go a lot and tend to open/close their laptops a lot, this may actually reduce their effective work time a lot.
Leave Anonymous Coward alone!!!!!! *tears*
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Correct. That is exactly what they do. So they just shift the boot time to be part of the shutdown time, so when you arrive at your computer again, and turn it on, you are just unsuspending it, or are loading an unusually clean hibernation file. This is a very interesting idea, but it is one that doe not need motherboard support. This can be done by the OS alone.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
What it looks like they're doing:
1. They're taking a snapshot of the system that was made when you hibernated, and restoring that snapshot.
2. Next time you shut down it restores the same snapshot you made the first time, after your original clean boot.
The only real issue I see is that your file system cache (and any other file system state) now contains garbage, and will need to be invalidated (NOT FLUSHED). If the cache was left out of the original snapshot then just remounting the file system from scratch should solve that. This isn't really booting (you'll need to repeat the whole process after just about any time you modify system state, including a lot of things like registry changes), but it's also not specific to Windows and should DTRT with Linux, etc...
The motherboard is not required. Just have your OS automatically hibernate (or for the 3 second boot, automatically suspend) on each clean boot. Then to "shutdown" your computer, just reboot it. Your OS will shut down, and then start again, and enter sleep or hibernation just after it finishes it's restart. So when you approach your computer again, and push the power button, the computer "boots" with very high speed.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
S3 is about as fast as opening the lid of your Macbook, after you've closed it without shutting down.
S4 is about as fast as powering up your Mac from scratch ;-)
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I've tried to relieve my pent up agression by on posting it on Youtube, but the audio preview always makes me feel bad about myself.
this is Slashdot....news for nerds, stuff that matters.
Emphasis on "news for nerds"....it's not news for "stocktraders" or "economists" or even "lawyers".
it won't boot vista in 4 sec, never. at startup 3 expired anti virus programs, 4 messengers, 3 weather programs, 2 ad block...
I wonder if something like this could be done with Linux now that 2.6.27.5 has been out for a few days and that situation with the RESET_REG_SUP bit has been resolved. This certainly is great news for Vista users looking for a new board.
It's been done in 5 seconds..
Doesn't even require a special motherboard, they did it by modifying Fedora on a EEE pc (something not known for it's speed)
http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/
Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/arjanintel
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
The US Government is on the verge of nationalizing 3 failing automakers and you're concerned with how fast you can boot windows? Seriously? The failed
financial bailout may cause the US government to declare bankruptcy and you care about this shit? Get some priorities!
Okay, fine, instead of considering product purchases that would fix the economy, I'm going to take your advice and worry about the gubment bailing companies out.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!
THey're spending monEeeez to bail them outz!!!!
I'm so nervous! Worry worry worry worry worry!!!
Oh noes!!! Waaahhhh!!!1111
Wow, I see your point, that was so much more worthwhile than what I was doing before I read your post.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The video suffers from YouTube syndrome. Symptoms of this condition include one or more minutes of stuff we don't care about. The condition is most extreme when the event we care about is of short duration. Although it is not entirely curable, it can be treated by posting the time of the interesting event in the comments section. In this case, the event in question occurs at 2:38. Remember, this is a treatment not a cure. The treatment still consumes bandwidth and time. In the future, we may have a Flash plug-in where the annotation feature can be used to denote points of interest, with the ability to skip to a keyframe just before said point. Until then, only video posters can prevent YouTube syndrome. Remember, if the event of interest in your video is of short duration, the video should not be any more than twice as long as the actual event. Introduction, at most, should identify you and/or your company. Anything that can be explained more efficiently as text should be put in the little text section that appears in the upper right.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This used to be called "cutting part off the string on this end and tying it to the other end". The technique is sometimes useful, but in this case, what if you're also concerned about shutdown time? For instance, I sometimes shut down my laptop at the end of a meeting for various reasons. Shutdown time is important because I have to wait until it shuts down completely before closing it, else it'll suspend and then resume shutting down when I'm trying to boot it up.
Windows *already* takes too long to shut down -- I'm not sure I want to wait even longer so it can also do prework for the next boot. Instead of tricks like this, why not load less cruft at boot?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Because there is none of your data in RAM.
When you shut down, it actually reboots normally. Once the system comes back up, it automatically and instantly goes into S3 standby mode (suspend to RAM). As someone else said, you're basically making startup faster at the expense of making shutdown longer... but who cares when you just hit the button to shut down and walk away?
Since you did a proper reboot first, all your data was (presumably) saved to disk. Since it sleeps immediately after a fresh startup, there was never a chance for you to open up applications and have unsaved data in RAM.
=Smidge=
I've virtually NEVER had windows work reliably after a hibernate/resume. I acknowledge that there is probably a hardware/software combination out there that can do it, but I've never encountered one.
For me, things just get unstable, and after 2 or 3 hibernates without a full shutdown, the whole system fails (if it didn't fail on the first resume).
So although this may work on a pristine install, the thought of owning one of these after a few patches from Microsoft, installing an anti-virus and a few drivers would scare the living crap out of me.
Reliable suspend alone is the justification I used (to myself) to move to the Mac.
How about a vote? I'm willing to wager a little karma on it. If you have a similar experience, mod me up--if windows suspend/resume works perfectly for you, mod me down.
Psst,
You are part of the government.
If you think you are living in an island, you are about to be surprised.
And unions have nothing to do with the current Automaker woes. Not. A. Damn. Thing.
It's upper managements fault for not preparing for the change in markets.
Parasite? what the hell are you talking about? Are you saying people shouldn't be paid for work?
God you are an idiot.
His post was not insightful, it is ignorant, emo, and self centered to the point of harm.
OTOH I should expect this from someone who can't even grasp why the current pledge of allegiance is a prayer.
ON a side note, at least we live in a society that allows you to go on and on spouting your ignorant drivel...no thanks to you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
clean boot of Windows, without what ASRock calls 'accumulated garbage data,'
you also get the security of knowing that you won't lose any data
You insensitive clod! All my data IS accumulated garbage!
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm really beginning to like ASUS. Not only do I like their approach to hardware a lot, but that was the most straight forward, unintentionally entertaining, non-bullshit video I've EVER seen from a corporation. I mean, yeah, it was dippy YouTube stuff, but seriously; Can you imagine any other main stream computer company allowing their tech monkeys to represent the mothership without the message first passing through a legion of marketing directors, lawyers and various haircuts in suits? Hell no!
Imagine the plasticy, dumbed down crappola video with gawdawful elevator music and bad overlay graphic effects you would have gotten in nearly every other situation.
Damn. ASUS is run by humans!
-FL
It's been done in 5 seconds..
Doesn't even require a special motherboard, they did it by modifying Fedora on a EEE pc (something not known for it's speed)
And above all the strategy behind the speedy boots are completely different :
- Linux basically Just boots in 5 seconds. In a plain normal fashion. Everytime you push the button, no matter what, the system is up in 5 seconds (well except if you trashed your machine and disk have to be rechecked).
But it's a plain standard boot.
- Whereas, for Windows, ASRock has to resort to abusing the sleep/hibernate system. With the subtle difference is that they are not actually suspending the system to RAM/disk (in order to avoid accumulating garbage, as they say).
They are resuming a special suspended "freshly booted" state.
i.e.: when in fast boot mode, you are not actually booting Windows. You are resuming an image of a "Windows-that-just-got-started" suspend on RAM.
The main implication is that the first time you boot, and after each system update (and you know that, given microsoft's track of security, you're still going to have patches coming often) or any other change that might render the pre-suspended image obsolete, you can't do this. You have to go through a slow boot, rebuild a pre-suspended state, and only after that it'll work.
It's not a standard boot. It's not as robust as a real boot, and frequently it won't work. (not to mention that these pre-suspended image will be the perfect place to inject a vm-based rootkit).
In short : not as useful as you would hope.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Four seconds? That's nothing. I booted Windows Vista the very second I got my new machine to make way for Ubuntu.
What's that, you didn't mean literally kick? I see.
I think this is an excellent time for a car analogy. In the coldest of winter, I sit in my tiny subcompact sedan for 10 minutes waiting for it to reach a normal operating temperature. Would it be so bad if they found a way to make the car warm up in 4 seconds, with the side effect being it takes an extra 15 minutes go cold again after I turn it off?
At the risk of sounding self-centered, I think a lot of computer users are like me. They approach their computer and want it to start working as quickly as possible. When they're done with it, it doesnt matter how long it takes to shut down because they're not waiting on it. Concerning your laptop, I think the problem is more with you having it set up to suspend when you close the lid, rather than a slow power down time. Maybe you should set it up so it suspends with a key combination rather than a screen closing event?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
[...] I must get ASRock motherboard!"
No you don't :)
As I understand from their diagram they are, probably quietly, rebooting the system and putting it immediately into an suspend state afterwards.
So I emulated their technique with a batch file.
http://bigfatflat.net/public/fastboot.bat
REM *** fastboot.bat v0.1 *** 081113 :) :) Enjoy! >> Usage below...
REM
REM ASRock InstantBoot Batch-File Emulation
REM Call fastboot.bat in a link with ACPISTATE
REM Parameter S3 or S4 - fastboot.bat [S3,S4] and
REM also put into your autostart without params.
REM
REM It's a good Idea, but they are also just cooking with water *g*
REM They reboot the system and put it immediatly after the fresh boot
REM into a Standby/Hibernation state.
REM
REM So you can shutdown your computer it will be fresh booted and is in
REM waiting state for the new day.
REM
REM Because I like to automate things and I liked the Idea very
REM much, I decided to emulate it.
REM
REM The 'easy' Ideas everyone thinks after, damned that could be from me,
REM are mostly the best
REM
REM And by the way... use it on your own risk! Don't blame me if you
REM cant read and understand or are unable to use your favourite search
REM engine.
[...]