Will an SSD speed up bios boot time?

[assasingreed]

I have an Asus z68 v pro motherboard and it takes about 30 second for the bios to boot and load windows. It also takes roughly 20 seconds to load windows itself after that. The total time it takes for me to boot into windows is about 50sec-1min and I'm using a regular 7200rpm drive.

I'd like to know if an ssd will really boot into windows as fast as I read reviews out there. I read people saying it takes 15 seconds to boot into windows. But it's unclear what they're counting as booting into windows. Does it take 15 seconds from the second you press the power button? Or are they counting as soon as windows logo shows up?

 

[beenthere]

The BIOS is not on the SSD or HD so no it won't speed up the BIOS boot but it will speed up the O/S if it's on the SSD. BIOS boot is pretty quick depending on how much hardware you have to be detected.

 

[assasingreed]

I have 3 hdds, a bluray burner, dvd burner, and a memory card reader hooked up. Bios takes about 30 seconds and I wouldn't call it that fast. So what do people really mean when they say their SSDs load windows in 15 seconds?

If they are talking about once the windows logo appears then its not that fast because it takes me 20 second on a mechanical hhd.

 

[ojas]

beenthere is right, bios booting has nothing to do with the SSD. It'll detect stuff and start the bootstrap process. You could set the SSD/HDD to the highest boot device priority so that the bios doesn't try and boot from the CD/DVD drive first, which may shave a second or two off your total boot time.

Though i'd just like to add that bios booting speeds also seem to depend on how new the bios is (consequently firmware must have a part to play as well). My old p4 system has a longer bios boot time than my current Core 2 Quad system. There are more devices on my current system though.

 

[assasingreed]

Thanks. That explains it a bit.

So can anyone answer how people in reviews calculate "15 second boot time?"

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The system BIOS is located on the motherboard and is separate from Windows on the ssd. The BIOS checks the motherboard and components connected to the motherboard. The system BIOS has to finish before Windows can start. I've got Windows 7 Pro 64. Right after the BIOS finishes I get a message on screen that Windows is starting. That's when the timing starts.

The Windows boot time will vary depending on the configuration and start-up items. Some start-up items can be disabled if they are not needed right away.

 

[tomskent]

You are asking the same question over and over again and people are giving you the same response.
Typically reviewers are timing the loading of WINDOWS, not the bios post.
Also, different bios's take different amounts of time to post.

 

[mugenkid18]

I know what the OP is asking. Will caching windows onto an SSD improve boot up time? From all the reviews I've read the answer is yes. Any programs, including the OS, that are cached onto the SSD should load more quickly. That's why my new system build was started using a Z68.

Your bios sounds like it is booting somewhat slowly actually. My current core 2 duo / g965 gets to the windows splash screen in like 15 seconds. Windows XP SP3 takes another 30-40 seconds though, because of the startup items I have checked.

 

[jitpublisher]

An SSD will greatly improve Windows boot speed. The BIOS however, is what it is. But the BIOS can be streamlined so that it does not have to "search" for everything every time you boot. Turn off all devices you don't actually use (SATA Controllers, USB headers, secondary Lan devices, etc.) Make sure you only have your OS drive listed as a bootable device, and the only device in the boot order. You can shave a lot of boot time by doing this, and yes, an SSD will boot windows in about 15 seconds, or less. Mine takes about 15 seconds, but it pauses to ask for a password, if I disabled that, it would probably be about 12 seconds to load, yes they amazingly fast and I would never have another PC that did not use an SSD for the OS.

 

[mugenkid18]

^^ that's the input I needed too.

I recall from my old dell bios that there is an option for a quick boot. It asks if you want to skip the hardware detection step. If yes, it assumes your hardware is unchanged from the last boot. I guess that's why mine booted through bios so quickly.

 

[assasingreed]

Best answer selected by assasingreed.

 

[Victor Lockwood]

I added a 249G SSD and the boot time is 15 seconds from the Bios post. I am running Windows & Ultimate 64 bit OS. I have two hard drives and two dvd blue ray burners, also a 7800 video card. The real change is the overall feel of the PC with the SSD. There is no response time, now. It never hangs and it has changed the way my PC works for the better all around. The cons are you must back up the drive. You never know when a ssd will fail to start. Then you are screwed. No way to recover the data. I suggest get the cheapest SSD drive over 200 gigs. Use a disk cloning software to clone your drive. Then install the SSD. Transfer the data to the new drive and take out the old one. Now take out the one you used to clone to and save it for the future. It is worth the hassle, trust me.