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Swedes Show Intel Sandy Bridge Running BIOS-Successor UEFI

Posted by timothy on from the oofi-is-swedish-anyhow-isn't-it? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "SweClockers.com has gotten it hands on a Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard running Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, the long awaited successor of age-old BIOS. Among the differences is a significantly more user-friendly interface, the ability to boot from drives larger than 2 TB and faster boot times. Check it out, on video, in Swedish." Here's an Google's translation of the article.

1 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Diagnostics, system configuration, etc by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are plenty of reasons to want BIOS/UEFI access. The problem with having a totally inaccessible one like Apple does is that if anything goes wrong or you need to change something, well then you are fucked. Apple "just works" until it doesn't and then it can often be more of a problem to fix. I am reminded of a Douglas Adams quote: "The difference between something that can go wrong and something that can't possibly go wrong is that when something that can't possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."

    So simple tasks that the BIOS/UEFI/other firmware provides are things like checking the RAM configuration and hardware monitors. In the event there's a problem with the system you can see things at a lower level, like which RAM slots are acknowledging what RAM or if there is a temperature or voltage problem. It can also be used for configuration tasks. Some mundane, like turning off integrated components (sound, net) if they aren't needed, some complex like overclocking.

    There's good reasons for access to it. Most people probably never need it, but it is good to have it there for those that do. All the functions are there, might as well have an interface so people can control them if required.