Make change to 'Bios' for PCs that boot in seconds

Mark Ward technology correspondent, BBC News the BIOS in modern computer comes from the earliest IBM could PC of new PC in just a few seconds, start with an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will mean the end of known PC start up software for the 25-year-old as BIOS that initializes a machine so his operating system can get started. The code was not foreseen, almost the lifetime and adaptation to modern PC is one reason, you take as long as you do to warm up.

BIOS replacement, known as UEFI, will prevail in new PCs by 2011.

The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to more flexible than the venerable predecessor be. "Conventional BIOS around the PC since 1979, is until it with some of the physical pieces of the chip set, kicks were have", said Mark Doran, Director technology's supervision in the UEFI Forum. Mr. Doran said that creator of the original BIOS expects only has to have a lifespan of about 250,000 machines - a figure that long surpassed.

"" Are how than usual someone amazed that now it is still alive and well in many systems ", he said.""It was never really developed in the course of time be extended." AMI is a company, the BIOS software said entwickelt.Brian Richardson, AMI's technical marketing team, which was old BIOS start hindering development as 64-bit computing became more common and machines in addition basic desktops and laptops mutated.

Input tells the computer what the BIOS and output devices are installed "Drive size limits that were inherent in the original PC design – two terabyte - go to a problem are pretty soon for those who use your PC much for images and video,", he said. Similarly, he said, was more popular than tablet computers and other smaller devices having to you get was working with a PC control going to cause problems. He said the problem arises because BIOS expects that the machine is always the same basic internal set up as the first personal computers do.

As a result, which is add additional peripherals - such as keyboards on USB, rather than using the at-or PS/2 ports of past connect - technically far from been easy. Similarly, the BIOS forces either a hard drive or a floppy drive are identified as USB drives to a PC. This, said Mr Richardson could problems when the thumb drives are used, during the installation or reinstall of an operating system to get a system work. UEFI prints any computer around the blueprint and the original PC specification based free.For example, there is not connect a keyboard only through a specific port.

It says it all, is that somewhere in the machine it is a device that can produce keyboard type information, said Mr Doran. It is much easier for input from a soft keyboard UEFI gestures on a touch screen or any future input device will come. A blessing to this managing is loosely computers in data centers UEFI ."The Extensible part of the name is important because we have with this for a long time to live," said Mr. Doran. He added that UEFI life as a just Intel specification, known as EFI gestartet.Es turned into a general standard when replacing the need for industry-wide BIOS more widely recognised.

Alternatives to UEFI, such as open firmware and coreboot, exist and act on computers of the chips that run based on Intel's x 86 architecture. The first to see the benefits of swapping old-fashioned BIOS to UEFI system administrators who monitor hundreds or thousands of PCs in data centers or in offices around the world been. Before now, said Mr Doran, get these machines work was "pretty painful" because of the limited capabilities of the BIOS.

On the other hand, he said UEFI has much better support for basic net protocols - that should mean that remote management is easier upwards from the "bare metal". For consumers, Mr Doran said the most obvious advantage of a machine is running UEFI will speed with which it starts up. "He said"It can be 25-30 seconds of boot time before you see the first bit of the OS sign on at the moment,".""With UEFI we are among a handful of seconds always."

"Regarding the boat speed, we aren't at the instant-on yet, but it is much better than traditional BIOS to manage," he said "and we are getting closer and closer, the every day." Some PC and laptop manufacturers are already UEFI use as many companies that said embedded computer machen.Mehr, Mr Richardson, will lead as motherboard manufacturer it complete the shift to use. He said that 2011 year sales of UEFI machines start would be to dominate. "I would say we are now at the turning point," he said.

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