Traditional BIOS set to be 'retired' in 2011

quote BBC Source (Click for full article)

New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.

The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.

Bios' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.

The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.

"Conventional Bios is up there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been kicking around the PC since 1979," said Mark Doran, head of the UEFI Forum, which is overseeing development of the technology.

Seems that the boot time of computers will be cut to seconds.

If this is as good as they say over the old BIOS, then I can see this catching on... not being completely hardware savvy though, how I go about getting this 'installed'? I've heard it doesn't completely replace BIOS though as some things will still require it like POST, but should replace it fully... apparently it also means that things won't need to follow the Intel X86 architechture.

I know for a fact you couldnt just "install" this as its a core part of the motherboard that they are re-doing. It would have to be built into the motherboard as a separate chip.

About time we saw BIOS being phased out.

"At the moment it can be 25-30 seconds of boot time before you see the first bit of OS sign-on," he said. "With UEFI we're getting it under a handful of seconds."

I dont know where they are getting their boot times in just seconds from. I've seen manufactured computers go through the POST and bios crap in just 5 seconds before it started loading windows. Custom build computer motherboards on the otherhand... I've had one that took a full 45 seconds. This will be very nice to have, though it will probably be something after sandybridge comes out.

I guess I can start planning an upgrade to a UEFI based motherboard when they come out .

I'm not sure about the custom PC market, but UEFI fast boot time is alot of bull crap as far as servers are concern.

We use the IBM X-Series server and it used to boot up fast, however with the newer servers with faster hardware, the "BIOS" running UEFI takes at minimum of 5 minutes to boot up. I am hoping that this is just a problem with IBM, but it's ridiculous at how much time is spent on boot up. Once the OS start loading, then it takes approximately 30 seconds to get to a logon screen. UEFI needs to be streamlined for servers as they tend to load up so much crap to make sure all hardware is functional. This is nice and al, but I'm positive that something can be done to make the hardware checking quicker.

i dont know where they get their boot up times- i have no SSD, but my boot up time is less than 25 seconds. to the desktop.