Hey everyone,

I've been struck by almost every possible bios(related) bug over the past years - from the occasional bios-self-reset, over extremely buggy bios versions, to failed bios updates and spontaneous self-destruction.
IMO it's about time this ancient piece of buggedness is being replaced - rejoice, EFI is coming!

...or is it?

Apple has been using EFI for quite a while now, Vista is getting it's EFI-compatibility, the standard is(/seems to be) solid and has been around for quite a while...
But where is the hardware supporting EFI?

Spending some hours on google, I found that MSI's P35 Neo3 will be the first Mainboard (targeted at desktop PCs) featuring EFI. But looking at their product page, I only find AMI Bios...
Plus, the board isn't quite what I want/need... not a big fan of Intel CPUs, only 1 PCIe (besides graphics), 1 LAN, no firewire, limited (fake)raid, limited SATA, etc...

So I was wondering if anyone knew anything new about new boards coming with EFI, what manufacturers will most likely be the first to release something and how much longer I have to bear this nightmare that's labeled "BIOS".

regards.

PS: or maybe someone know of an open source project like LinuxBios - just for EFI instead?

It looks like AMI is the main one right now. I don't think that EFI is going to solve your buggy BIOS problem. Maybe any new mobo would do the trick. Post your specs, you might have multiple problems. I'm sure you would get plenty of suggestions.

well, it's not exactly "one" bios problem, it's plenty.
for example my MSI 3 years ago had buggy bios which would occasionally restart the PC, updated, broke fake-raid, tried to downgrade, broke my windows...
my asus died of spontaneous self-destruction: shut down one evening, tried to boot up the next day, bios settings still in place (auto-started on power-up), suddenly shut down during bios initialization. tried to restart, settings were all gone, died again. tried like 20 times with several ways to reset the bios, nothing worked, got replacement board...
which is a gigabyte... 1 PCI slot inaccessible by default (can't figure out whether it's the bios or the hardware - tried all IRQ settings etc), onboard fake-raid doesn't work, AHCI seems bogus, onboard LAN has invalid MAC address, etc... might all be the hardware but it might also just be the BIOS...

the list of issues I had with mainboards and bios in the past is VERY long, the above is just a (small) subset of that list...

so, rather than buying ANOTHER mainboard in the hope it will have a STABLE and COMPLETE bios, I'd rather go with something that isn't from the ground-up designed to be incompatible, inextensible and unstable and then was hacked, chewed up, swallowed, digested, spit out, and rearranged over and over again to be barely usable with modern hardware...
as a software developer I know that a stable/powerful platforms have a higher rate of stable software, and EFI is a far more stable and powerful platform than BIOS.

right now I am looking for a new board (as mentioned above PCI is broken and I need (a lot) more SATA slots than 4) - but I will not rush into buying another mainboard that will most likely die by my hands again because it's BIOS is crap and takes ages to fix.

regards.

It's unfortunate that you have had such a nightmare with all of the BIOSs that you have encountered. I don't think that is the norm. I have not had problems to the degree that you have. I know that buying a more expensive mobo isn't the answer, because I have had the occasional problems with mobos and there doesn't seem to be a correlation. Maybe the answer for you is a server platform. If, as you say, the mobo mfgs can't implement a basic BIOS what makes you think they will do better with the more complex EFI?

for one, because Intel provides the basic framework for EFI.
and the guys at Intel are really, REALLY good with that kind of software - and that's still an understatement...
... to get an idea on how good they write their frameworks, you take a scale from 0 to 10, put creative-drivers at 0, put microsoft at 1, put apple and id-soft around 3 or 4, put the better linux-hackers anywhere between 3 and 7... then you put intel at 9. if they do frameworks, they do it right.

next, the EFI design is far more powerful. for one it's "Extensible" (that's what the 'E' stands for). Which means that extensions like AHCI aren't hacked into some ancient set of bytes that noone really understands, but cleanly implemented as an module.

furthermore, BIOS is STILL using 16bit "Real Mode" - which is essentially turning your 64bit quadcore powerhouse with Gigabytes of ram into a 16bit pocket-calculator with 1MB of RAM.
such limitations mean: BIOS implementations need to "fit", not to be well-designed.
hence, BIOS is developed in Assembler, not C nor any other higher language (which would reduce the likely hood of silly bugs ALOT).
... and piecing together a program byte-by-byte is asking for trouble/bugs.

all in all I am realist enough to realize that it will NOT be perfect - especially not the first versions.
but beyond that, I am software-engineer and idealist enough to know that it HAS to be better than BIOS.

regards.

I guess no more floppy BIOS updates. I'm up for it, as long as my machine doesn't get flaky, luckily I just bought and it works. When the Nehelem w/ IMC is cheap enough for me, maybe EFI will have been implemented and debugged. Until then I must have faith in Gigabyte.... Wait... now I'm getting a little scared.

Maaaah........who needs floppys any way. Just use a USB floppy drive.

Don't take my floppy away from me, I need it like a banky.

In reality I update from a FAT partition on my hard drive, and I know the floppy is dead. For $6 I'll install it anyway. Unfortunately $6 doesn't get you much in the way of reliability, which ties into the problems that zeroflag is having with the Chinese mobos. Where's the beef, I mean quality.

interesting, I haven't heard of this technology before, thanks for bringing it to my attention