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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Instant Boot

At the beginning when I used to get so amazed to see that “Loading Windows” screen [1st  was introduced to windows later other OSs ].  After an year or 2, I used to get amazed to realize that the behind that boring screen so many drivers were being loaded, so many things are happening behind the screen. And finally the OS logon screen appeared. WOW.
And now, I feel like throwing my PC if takes to much time to boot. “60 second to boot!! I rather keep in on”. :P
Many people does keep their PCs on, as because the boot time is too much for them. Power isn’t cheap. IF every one can save 1Watt/month, that could serve someone or few with no power at all.
Apart from the Nobel thoughts, keeping the PC ON, reduces the device lifetime and there are other side effects also. So the Idea of Instant boot was in the dreams for a long time.
And voila, Microsoft hints for an 8 second boot Windows 8. With Intel’s SandyBridge processors, It may be possible to provide boot time less that 8sec.  Microsoft didn’t promise anything but they are working on the feature called “Instant ON”.

While this stays on the drawing board, there are a few products in the cloud that could give people a taste of the “POOFFF!!! __ON”  action. A popular tool called SplashTop/QuickWeb, which can be installed parallel to the standard OS in a PC and it will integrate with the BIOS and will allow a 4 sec boot to that app. SplashTop/QuickWeb app. has the facility of Browsing, Listening to music ,viewing Photo Gallery, check emails Etc. Now this is a very promising tool. Its very useful to access the Websites and listen to music without waiting for the boot time. IF we want to get in to the main OS, there is a button on the app to boot into the OS.

Yeaah.. that’s awesome.. But that doesn’t comply to the challenge of instant booing to the Main OS with full features…
ASRock came up with some thing called “Instant BOOT”. This brand new technology allows to boot supported motherboards within a blink to the fully functional OS. It not only saves energy but helps system running speed.
The function is effective iff u hav a single user account with no password to their system. The boot time will depend on the H/W config.

At the beginning when I used to get so amazed to see that “Loading Windows” screen [1st  was introduced to windows later other OSs ].  After an year or 2, I used to get amazed to realize that the behind that boring screen so many drivers were being loaded, so many things are happening behind the screen. And finally the OS logon screen appeared. WOW.
And now, I feel like throwing my PC if takes to much time to boot. “60 second to boot!! I rather keep in on”. :P
Many people does keep their PCs on, as because the boot time is too much for them. Power isn’t cheap. IF every one can save 1Watt/month, that could serve someone or few with no power at all.
Apart from the Nobel thoughts, keeping the PC ON, reduces the device lifetime and there are other side effects also. So the Idea of Instant boot was in the dreams for a long time.
And voila, Microsoft hints for an 8 second boot Windows 8. With Intel’s SandyBridge processors, It may be possible to provide boot time less that 8sec.  Microsoft didn’t promise anything but they are working on the feature called “Instant ON”.

While this stays on the drawing board, there are a few products in the cloud that could give people a taste of the “POOFFF!!! __ON”  action. A popular tool called SplashTop/QuickWeb, which can be installed parallel to the standard OS in a PC and it will integrate with the BIOS and will allow a 4 sec boot to that app. SplashTop/QuickWeb app. has the facility of Browsing, Listening to music ,viewing Photo Gallery, check emails Etc. Now this is a very promising tool. Its very useful to access the Websites and listen to music without waiting for the boot time. IF we want to get in to the main OS, there is a button on the app to boot into the OS.

Yeaah.. that’s awesome.. But that doesn’t comply to the challenge of instant booing to the Main OS with full features…
ASRock came up with some thing called “Instant BOOT”. This brand new technology allows to boot supported motherboards within a blink to the fully functional OS. It not only saves energy but helps system running speed.
The function is effective iff u hav a single user account with no password to their system. The boot time will depend on the H/W config.
The following block diagrams taken from the ASRock site, explain the process:




The System Power States:


The states S1,S2,S3,S4 are3 the sleeping states where the system cant perform any computational task. While the S5 state is the complete shutdown state. A sleeping state allows to retain memory state of the system eighter in hardware or in some other storage media.
Devices may be able to wake up on occurrence of certain incidents.  e.g. call to the modem, alarm on the mobile phone etc. with the increase of the sleep state index the System goes into deeper sleep starting from shutdown of processor clocks(S1) to loss of total system hardware contex(S4).
During the Hibernate method the memory is written to a Hibernate file. During hibernate, all sort of power consumption is off. The operating system context is retained in a hibernate file.  Before restart, the system loads the hibernate file and reads for the jump location and returns to the previous state called the prehibernation location. If AC power is lost, the system cant wake up from S1,S2,S3 states and requires to boot up to S0 state. But S4 state retains the memory due to the hibernate file.


Power consumption
Software resumption
Hardware latency
System Hardware Context
S1
Less than S0.
Processor clock off
BUS clock off
Control Starts Where It Left Off
Typically not more than 2 seconds
All Contexts Retained & Maintained by H/W
S2
Less than S1
Processor off
BUS clocks off
BUS might have power
At wake-up control starts from processor’s reset-vector
2 sec of more
CPU context & System cache context lost
S3
Less than S2
Processor off
Some chips may be off
At wake-up control starts from processor’s reset-vector
Almost same as S2
CPU, Cache, Chipset context lost
System memory retained
S4
Off, except the trickle current to the power button
System reboots from the Hibernate file
Undefined and considerably  long
Nothing retained. System loads from the hibernate file

So there u have it.. if your mother board is Instant boot enabled go for it. Or if you hav a new ASRock/ASUS motherboard, download the Instant boot tool from the ASUS website.
Otherwise.. hang out with the QuickWeb or SplashTop..
Thank you for reading.
Plz give comments on the article.