Move over Bios, UEFI to speed PC start up
04 Oct 2010
Thanks to a new development, booting PCs will now happen in just seconds. The latest technology update will phase out one of the oldest parts of desktop computers, the start-up software call Bios that initialises the system so that its operating system can take over.
According to analysts the original code was not intended to last this long and its adaptation to modern PCs is one of the reasons it PCs take that long to warm up.
The replacement known as UEFI is set to predominate in new PCs by 2011.
UEFI is acronym for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and as the name suggests it is designed for greater operating flexibility than its venerable predecessor.
According to Mark Doran, head of the UEFI Forum, overseeing development of the technology, conventional Bios is there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been around the PC since 1979.
He adds that the original Bios creators only expected it would have a lifetime of around 250,000 machines, a figure that has long since been surpassed.
