Asrock Instant Boot

[Lailoken]

http://www.asrock.com/feature/instantboot/index.asp

I just wanted to post this because I thought it could be extremely useful for a cabinet. I know it's not new, but I haven't seen anyone mention it on these forums. My HTPC has this feature and I can attest to the speed. It really does boot up from cold to being able to control XBMC in 3-4 seconds.

The catch is that it's technically a hibernate, which means:
1) It takes about 2-3 minutes to fully shut down (although it's not like you have to sit there and watch it)
2) For the fastest boot time it has to be connected to a power supply at all times, but there is a slightly slower option with which you can unplug it.

[djvj]

My htpc with xbmc-live installed to the SSD shuts down in about 2 seconds and boots to xbmc in 3-4. Why do you have such a long shutdown?

[Lailoken]

My HTPC has a full version of Windows 7 installed on it and a 5200 rpm 3.5" HDD (too cheap to buy an SSD for it). Normal boot from cold to using XBMC is around 40-50 seconds. Plus, having a fast booting machine with XBMC Live doesn't really help anyone trying to use HyperSpin. I only mentioned my HTPC because it has an ASrock motherboard with this feature.

The reason the shutdown is so slow is because the full process involves a restart and then a hibernate. If you just set a machine to hibernate every night it Windows would eventually choke, so the restart helps that.

Also, I have my HTPC set to start up a few programs on boot, so it takes longer than normal to go through the whole shutdown process. I think with minimal processes and programs on start up it's sub 2 minutes.

Anyway, ASrock Instant Boot = Windows machine with slow HDD booting to HyperSpin in ~3 seconds.

[djvj]

Ah, you didn't mention you are running win7. I have it dualboot xbmclive/win7 (for HS). I have the bootloader set so if it detects a USB thumbdrive in any usb port, it boots xbmclive. If I pull it out, it boots win7. This is to get around the need for a keyboard to select an OS on boot.