Phoenix BIOS Boots in 1 Second, Loads Win 7

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Not quite instant-on, but very-quickly-on.

One difference between many consumer electronics and the PC is the time it takes from hitting the power button until it's fully functional.

Now Phoenix has created a new BIOS that will boot (or POST) a PC in just one second. Such a quick boot process means that it can shave a significant portion of the total load time of a cold system, with the rest of the wait being the loading of the operating system.

Phoenix demonstrated its technology on a Lenovo T400s equipped with an SSD. Just one second after the system was powered on, the drive access light began to flicker and a clean Windows 7 was loaded to the desktop in about 10 seconds.

Check out a video of the technology in action at LaptopMag.

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
64 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gamerjames
    Impressive. Things keep getting more and more convenient :D
    Reply
  • tsk_cable
    Subarashi
    Reply
  • Damn, I can't get into the BIOS!

    Where's the Sledge Hammer?
    Reply
  • El_Capitan
    I hope they mark up the price an extra $100 for this special feature. F2, F2, F2.... damn it, missed it again! Reboot... F2, F2, F2... #@$!
    Reply
  • Scotteq
    Subarashi

    Yah - Wonderful ;)
    Reply
  • Seems like the bios is booting devices in parallel instead of in series, and also might make use of faster flash memory.
    Reply
  • They'll need to include a set of turnkeys unique to each individual motherboard to allow administrators to get into the system BIOS while at the same time keeping everybody else out. I button would be too simple.

    Honey, Where'd I leave my Keys?

    NOOoo, I did not want the car keys, I wanted the keys to my computer!!!
    Reply
  • myriad46
    scotteqYah - WonderfulROFLMAO!!!
    Reply
  • myriad46
    El_CapitanI hope they mark up the price an extra $100 for this special feature. F2, F2, F2.... damn it, missed it again! Reboot... F2, F2, F2... #@$!Wrong Quote, ROFLMAO inteded here.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    While instant-on OSes on a chip like Splashtop are nifty, getting rid of the BIOS for a faster boot would be nice. Of course this means giving up the ability to set the CHS values for your 10MB MFM and RLL drives.
    Reply