How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

[wazza300]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

i searched for f6d bios,theres one but its in german (the extractor text)please makesure its the right one

heres a download link

2shared - download ep35ds4f6d.exe

[ed1]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

After seeing this thread, I turned off (in the bios) these:

1. Gigabyte SATA (GSATA) controller - my drives are connected to Intel SATA ports
2. USB 3.0 controller
3. eSATA

My boot time (bios portion) dropped by about 12 seconds and my shutoff time dropped by 1 second. Previously boot time (bios portion) was 20 seconds after Gigabyte logo screen, now 8 seconds. Windows takes another 20 seconds to desktop. Shutoff time is now about 6 seconds.

This is on a UD7 board running Win7 64 on an SSD, 6GB RAM running at 1500Mhz, and i920 set to run at 3.150Mhz (150x20 plus turbo).

[Psycho101]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

It may be that some have seen the error in the way you describe, but having the controller in AHCI and a drive on the first port is definitely not 100% the cause of this error. It seems to be drive dependant too. Ie some drives on AHCI SATA 0 report the error and other brands do not.

As long as you've checked the drive, any are happy with the results, you may well be experiencing some kind of bug/conflict.

I have had many a drive on port 0 in AHCI mode and never experienced this issue (with AHCI 1.07 etc) but it doesn't mean that some won't/don't.

On a side note, it may also be that swapping the drive used on that controller port may also work. It's not crucial but is quite strongly recommended to have the boot drive on the first SATA port, be it labeled Port 0 or Port 1. A single optical should really be attached to the last port. Sounds a bit petty but believe me, people have had issues with everything from data loss to failed Firmware flashes and Windows installs until configuring the ports this way.

If you fancy changing boot drives too, to find the fastest drive for your OS (Strongly recommended) then use CrystalDiskMark. Pay little attention to sequential speed and more to random 512K and 4K read and writes. Most OS and program loading is a hybrid of randoms and sequentials, so as long as the drive in question can handle about 85-90MB sequential read and 80MB/s write go for the drive with the fastest random throughput and you should notice some difference.

With my SSD's, the sequential performance degrades with use, but the OS and program loading is still as quick as ever.

[jojesa]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

It may be that some have seen the error in the way you describe, but having the controller in AHCI and a drive on the first port is definitely not 100% the cause of this error. It seems to be drive dependant too. Ie some drives on AHCI SATA 0 report the error and other brands do not.

As long as you've checked the drive, any are happy with the results, you may well be experiencing some kind of bug/conflict.

I have had many a drive on port 0 in AHCI mode and never experienced this issue (with AHCI 1.07 etc) but it doesn't mean that some won't/don't.

On a side note, it may also be that swapping the drive used on that controller port may also work. It's not crucial but is quite strongly recommended to have the boot drive on the first SATA port, be it labeled Port 0 or Port 1. A single optical should really be attached to the last port.

If I connect the boot disk (seagate 320GB) to the first SATA port 0 the system does not boot. I can see the drive listed on the AHCI list, but it doesn't appear in the BIOS, thus I cannot select it as the boot disk...

I was trying several scenarios and I found out that if I connect the boot drive by itself in any of the SATA ports in AHCI I cannot boot. Weird!!!! I have to connect my storage drive then it will boot. Weird!!!!

[ed1]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

jojesa, just checking:

Are you connecting to the Gigabyte or the Intel SATA ports? If to the Gigabyte ports, are you sure they are turned on in the bios?

The bios has some options, I believe, regarding Gigabyte ports (controller) to be turned on and run in either IDE or SATA mode? Are those settings applicable and correct?

Are you sure you are not booting from the storage drive? Is there a prior Windows installation on it? Verify that your boot drive order is correct in the bios.

I had trouble booting from an SSD when I had previously moved the pagefile off of it to the storage drive. I had to first delete the pagefile file from the storage drive and then the SSD booted.

Just some ideas. . .

[Psycho101]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

the reason the drive doesn't boot is because the OS boot fles have probably been placed on whichever drive was in the Port 0 position when you installed the OS. All other files will be on the OS drive as normal, but without the drive containing the boot loader in the system you'll get an invalid system disk error. The only way to correct this is to remove all but the boot drive, then install the OS with it connected to port 0 and add your storage drives back after the install is complete. As you discovered, adding the storage drive back in means there is a valid bootloader and Windows will start. This is definitely not an ideal situation to be in. It means that if your storage drive should fail you'll end up with a machine that can't boot.

In AHCI mode you won't find any HDD's listed in the BIOS. This is working as intended. In AHCI mode it's no longer the BIOS's job to detect and sort out HDD's and boot order, it's down to the AHCI BIOS. As far as the P|C is concerned, until the AHCI BIOS is run and detects the disks, there are no hard drives for the BIOS to see.

[jojesa]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

jojesa, just checking:

Are you connecting to the Gigabyte or the Intel SATA ports? If to the Gigabyte ports, are you sure they are turned on in the bios?

The bios has some options, I believe, regarding Gigabyte ports (controller) to be turned on and run in either IDE or SATA mode? Are those settings applicable and correct?

Are you sure you are not booting from the storage drive? Is there a prior Windows installation on it? Verify that your boot drive order is correct in the bios.

I had trouble booting from an SSD when I had previously moved the pagefile off of it to the storage drive. I had to first delete the pagefile file from the storage drive and then the SSD booted.

Just some ideas. . .

Hi ed1,

Yes, I am using only the Intel SATA ports.
Yes, the Gigabyte SATA ports are disabled.
I have SATA AHCI enable

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the reason the drive doesn't boot is because the OS boot fles have probably been placed on whichever drive was in the Port 0 position when you installed the OS. All other files will be on the OS drive as normal, but without the drive containing the boot loader in the system you'll get an invalid system disk error. The only way to correct this is to remove all but the boot drive, then install the OS with it connected to port 0 and add your storage drives back after the install is complete. As you discovered, adding the storage drive back in means there is a valid bootloader and Windows will start. This is definitely not an ideal situation to be in. It means that if your storage drive should fail you'll end up with a machine that can't boot.

In AHCI mode you won't find any HDD's listed in the BIOS. This is working as intended. In AHCI mode it's no longer the BIOS's job to detect and sort out HDD's and boot order, it's down to the AHCI BIOS. As far as the P|C is concerned, until the AHCI BIOS is run and detects the disks, there are no hard drives for the BIOS to see.

Hi Psycho101,
I updated the BIOS to F6d and everything is fine.
I was thinking the same but when I installed Windows I did not have the storage drive.
I know that the drives are not listed in the BIOS under Standard CMOS Features but they are still listed in the BIOS under Advanced BIOS Features where you can configure the device boot order (see image below). That's what I was referring before, I couldn't see the drives.
Thanks for all your input

NOTE:
I was living with this issues for several months, I didn't paid to much attention to the AHCI while booting, till I saw another system with a Gigabyte mobo going thru POST in 11 secs. After the BIOS update, it takes only 67 secs. for the whole system to boot, instead of 96 secs.

Hi wazza300,
Thanks for finding the F6d BIOS, that solved my problem. It also cut 11 seconds during POST.

[jojesa]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

I got rid of the error but the BIOS still takes around 26 seconds in AHCI mode.
It was kind ok (it was taking 16 secs.), until I connected the other HDD. Every hard drive I connect adds more time to the boot time in AHCI mode.

[Acebmxer]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

yes because it scans each port separately i believe. so each drive you connect is gonna take that much longer to get throw that stage of booting.

[Psycho101]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

For me, AHCI 1.20E takes the same amount of time to detect a single HD|D as it does to detect my 4 + DVD. I currently have two Corsair X32 in RAID0, a single Intel X25-M and a WD Caviar Blue 640GB both in JBOD (Non RAID Members) and it takes approx 5-6 seconds to complete.

Have you tried disconnecting your DVD drive and seeing if AHCI completes quicker? Some SATA DVD/CD drives can cause issues with AHCI detection.

If all else fails I would recommend switching to IDE mode with Native mode enabled. From the looks of your drives you don't have any equipment that really benefits from NCQ. Those drives aren't fast enough for it to make a difference and the small difference it would make with even a 10K-14K RPM drive is only seen in a server environment with a lot of queued I/O. I ran AHCI when I had my X25 as the boot drive purely because it was fast enough to benefit, increasing speeds by around 5-8% in random read/write. A regular HDD is so slow that randoms are low even with NCQ on. It's like fitting a forced air induction kit and wide boared exhaust to a car. Fit the mods to a car generating 75BHP and you might get another 2-5BHP out of it. Fit them to a car that develops 250BHP and you might get another 20+ BHP. The car/HDD has to be a certain speed/power to benefit from additional help.

You will find detection in IDE mode to be virtually instant if you use Native mode as the BIOS will skip assigning IRQ's and let the OS do it.

[jojesa]

Re: How do I shorten BIOS POST time?

For me, AHCI 1.20E takes the same amount of time to detect a single HD|D as it does to detect my 4 + DVD. I currently have two Corsair X32 in RAID0, a single Intel X25-M and a WD Caviar Blue 640GB both in JBOD (Non RAID Members) and it takes approx 5-6 seconds to complete.

Have you tried disconnecting your DVD drive and seeing if AHCI completes quicker? Some SATA DVD/CD drives can cause issues with AHCI detection.

If all else fails I would recommend switching to IDE mode with Native mode enabled. From the looks of your drives you don't have any equipment that really benefits from NCQ. Those drives aren't fast enough for it to make a difference and the small difference it would make with even a 10K-14K RPM drive is only seen in a server environment with a lot of queued I/O. I ran AHCI when I had my X25 as the boot drive purely because it was fast enough to benefit, increasing speeds by around 5-8% in random read/write. A regular HDD is so slow that randoms are low even with NCQ on.

You will find detection in IDE mode to be virtually instant if you use Native mode as the BIOS will skip assigning IRQ's and let the OS do it.

I think it should take the same time for one HDD as it does if there were three or at least a second or two.
I disconnected the SATA DVD+RW drive but it did nothing, still takes the same time.
I have a Corsair P128 SSD, and I thought it will be faster if I enabled AHCI.
The BIOS takes the same time as Windows to load with the SSD.