BIOS old, old tech

The screen that you see when your computer first starts is known as the BIOS, and it’s based on a really old technology that is finally being replaced with something better—and it will make your PC boot faster, too.

The new BIOS replacement is known as UEFI, or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, and according to the BBC, it’s going to be the default in new PCs by 2011, bringing lots of benefits including serious speed enhancements:

the biggest obvious benefit of a machine running UEFI will be the speed with which it starts up. “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.”

“In terms of boot speed we’re not at instant-on yet but it is already a lot better than conventional Bios can manage,” he said “and we’re getting closer to that every day.”

Change to ‘Bios’ will make for PCs that boot in seconds [BBC News]