Optimize the BIOS, let Win8 boot speed fly to

Let everyone expect Windows 8 to be officially sold, and many hardware on the market are now marked with "Windows 8 Ready" logo. As far as the motherboard is concerned, some motherboards have this LOGO, which not only means that Windows 8 can provide the drivers required by the motherboard, but also means that these motherboards may adopt a new BIOS that supports Fast Boot, and this function is Can make Windows 8 boot speed a lot faster. Why is Windows 8 booting faster? The BIOS POST detection time before entering the operating system will affect the boot speed, because there are many functional chips such as SATA, USB, audio, and network integrated on the motherboard, and the hard disk, optical drive, and card reader plugged into the motherboard at the same time. There are also a lot of devices, and they all need to go through a series of searches, confirmations, startups, etc., so they will consume some time. The more functional chips and devices are more time consuming, the more efficient way to reduce the initial detection time of the boot is to turn off unnecessary hardware. So Microsoft designed the Fast Boot fast boot function for Windows 8. It is based on the UEFI architecture, which improves the BIOS settings, thus shortening the self-test time of the computer and bringing a faster boot process to the user. Set up Fast Boot, let Windows 8 fly, such as ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock and other motherboard manufacturers have updated the special version of the BIOS, the introduction of motherboards that support Fast Boot, such as AMD platform 990FX, 970, 880G, A75 and A55 chipset, Intel's Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge's full range of chip platforms, which means that mainstream products on the market are included. Let's take the ASUS P8Z77-V PRO motherboard as an example to see the features of Fast Boot. In the "Boot" menu of the BIOS, a "Fast Boot" option has been added. After setting it to “Enabled”, several additional options will appear below it. ▲ Fast Boot option in ASUS motherboards The USB Support option is a USB device support mode, which can be set to Cancel, Full Initial and Partial Initial. Full Initial will detect all USB devices, and the time will be extended with the number of devices; Partial Initial will only scan the USB keyboard and mouse, and will not detect USB flash drives, card readers and other peripherals, which can save a lot of time. The PS2 Devices Support” option is set for the PS/2 interface device. Since there are currently a limited number of users using the PS/2 interface keyboard and mouse, set it to Auto. The “NetWork Stack Driver Support” option is used to select the network driver and has a certain impact on the boot speed. Select Normal Boot in the startup mode, so that you do not need to re-detect every time you turn it on. After you enter the Windows 8 system, you can complete the necessary detection actions. This design is more reasonable, because projects such as CPU, memory, I /O resources, etc., are fixed and will not change under normal circumstances. Boot time test We use P8Z77-V PRO motherboard with Core i7 and independent display as the test platform, only connect the SSD with the operating system, use the USB interface keyboard and mouse, and turn on the sound and network functions on the motherboard, while other add-ons The functions are all turned off. In order to speed up the boot speed, in addition to the Windows 8 system, you must use the UEFI mode to install the operating system before it can function normally. Test platform: CPU: Intel Core i7 3770 Motherboard: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600× 2 Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX560Ti Hard disk: SSD SATA 6Gbps 120GB BIOS self-test time into Windows time Total time off Fast Boot 21 seconds 5 Seconds 26 Turn on Fast Boot 10 seconds 5 seconds 15 When the Fast Boot function is turned off, it takes 21 seconds for the BIOS to self-test, and then quickly enters the Windows 8 Metro interface in 5 seconds, which plays the role of SSD. Advantage, the total time is 26 seconds. After the Fast Boot function is enabled, the power-on self-test can be completed in 10 seconds, and then quickly enter Windows 8 in 5 seconds, with a total time of 15 seconds. In the end, the time difference between the two is 11 seconds. BIOS self-test time enters Windows time Total time Close Fast Boot 24 seconds 5 seconds 29 seconds Enable Fast Boot (USB Full Initial mode) 13 seconds 5 seconds 18 seconds Turn on Fast Boot (USB Partial Initial mode) 10 seconds 5 seconds 15 seconds Then A USB card reader is inserted into the motherboard. When the Fast Boot function is disabled, Windows 8 is used for 29 seconds. The Fast Boot function is set to "USB Support" and "Full Initial" and "Partial Initial" mode respectively. 18 seconds and 15 seconds. It can be seen that plugging in the USB card reader wastes 3 seconds of BIOS self-test time. If there are more devices, the more time is wasted. The Fast Boot feature can be used to set up some non-core devices. After turning off these unnecessary devices, the BIOS self-test time can be shortened, thus speeding up the Windows 8 boot speed. Because various manufacturers have different strategies for "Windows 8 Ready", some motherboards do not include the Fast Boot function. This requires users to pay more attention to the manufacturer's official website. If they provide the corresponding new BIOS, then you can download the update. Opportunity to experience the charm of Fast Boot.