Ron Schenone

AMD & Phoenix Promise Warp Speed Bootup

Posted by on Nov 5, 2007 | 7 Comments

Wasn’t it Bill Gates of Microsoft fame who promised us a PC system that would boot up really fast? A PC that would take us from the push of the on button to Windows up in running in under a minute or less? What ever happen to all of these promises? Well hopefully this will not be another of those idle promises that pass by in the night, only to keep us users waiting for some 3 minutes or more for our systems to fire up during daylight hours.

The people from Phoenix have joined forced with the folks at AMD and are promising us something from what sounds like a Star Wars term called ‘HyperSpace’. In their press release Phoenix states:

MILPITAS, Calif., Nov 05, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Phoenix Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: PTEC), the global leader in core systems firmware, today announced a technology partnership with Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) that is designed to ensure that the new Phoenix HyperSpace™ platform is optimized for AMD Virtualization™ (AMD-V™) technology. AMD-V powers high-performing, flexible and secure client virtualization solutions. HyperSpace is an innovative platform that promises to ignite a PC revolution by transforming the mobile personal computing experience. It provides a unique computing environment that enables PC designers, security innovators and content providers to create instant-on applications that are available before, during and after Windows boot up and shut down.

By optimizing for AMD-V and input/output memory management unit (IOMMU) technologies, Phoenix expects to ensure that applications running within the HyperSpace environment deliver fast and interactive performance along with graphics functionality, when running HyperSpace on AMD processor-based PCs. The HyperSpace platform provides PC users with a secure and always available (reliable) computing environment.

“HyperSpace offers a revolutionary transformation of the user experience. PC system vendors gain the ability to remotely restore customers’ PCs and deliver security that is far more powerful than what is possible today. In addition, PC users can avail of one-click access to everything from media, messages, safe shopping and web browsing, gaining the parallel computing experience they have always wanted,” said Dr. Gaurav Banga, CTO & SVP of Engineering at Phoenix Technologies.

I am in favor of anything that would kick my computer experience right in the butt and get me up and running quickly. And you can call it anything you want as long as it works. :-)

Comments welcome.

Full article here.

[tags]amd, phoenix, hyperspace, boot up, time, speedup, warp speed, star wars, [/tags]

  • marc klink

    This sounds suspiciously like Extensible Firmware Interface, with just enough chnages to bypass patent concerns.

    It will be nice, but it will require at least an AM2 processor, so no retrofitting will be possible, as there is none of the virtual support built in to the Socket 939 and older chips.

    There are a great many fast iron 939 (and even 754) systems that will be left out, as those people will not see enough reason to swap CPU and motherboard.

    Ah, such is progress!

  • Scott King

    Sounds like a hyped up version of suspend-to-Ram….which never worked well. I’ll keep an eye on this……….and the other one peeled for flying pigs.

  • Don Naphen

    Ron, I’m certainly not a defender of MS or Bill Gates, BUT in all fairness to his empire, even you must concede that many factors are involved in how fast a pc boots up. My trusty 6 year old Gateway desktop with XP Pro w/P4 Intel and 768 Mb of RAM usually takes around a minute. All depends on how each user has things set up. Some (for whatever reason) have almost every piece of software running in the background at bootup time. I blame most of this on the software vendors who have their installation default settings set to practically take over … auto updates, auto scans, etc. etc. That can easily run bootup times into the next Millenium! LOL

    Norton’s AV especially is a huge offender of this practice, and for the newbees out there who aren’t aware of these practices, they’re clueless as to what’s going on inside the box. It doesn’t take too many programs to bring things to a crawl, even on brand new pc’s, what with all the bundled crappola software that’s installed.

    The first thing I’d recommend to anyone purchasing a new system, is to do a disk format, reinstall the OS and then carefully install just the software you use, making sure to have all the necessary drivers. That’s what I did with my son’s new Gateway lappy. It was awful as it came out of the box. After I got through with it, it went from a snooze boot to a fast wakeup call. AND, I made sure I didn’t install Norton! The free version of AVG does it all and more, along with a ZoneAlarm router by Check Point for superb protection. Those last choices btw are thanks to your excellent comments in previous blogs. You sold me! LOL

  • Don Naphen

    Just as an added thought here Ron: I buy a new car with an EPA rating of X miles hwy, X miles around town. I get close to it. My neighbor buys the same car … his gas mileage sucks! Why? Well, he’s heavy on the foot and I’m not.

    Bottom line … all depends on how you drive.

    Same with computers. I tend to keep a lean and trim machine … others amass tons of junk over a few years and never even do a defrag or delete unused or obsolete software that’s STILL running in the background!

    Now, if only Fred Langa was still around to guide those poor souls! Ah, with all the money he made with THE SWINDLE, he’s probably lounging around at a Tiki bar in Key West laughing his buns off at us.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Guys,
    Thanks for all of your input. It should be interesting to see how this works.

    OK Don – be nice to poor old Fred! :-) Speaking of Fred, has anyone heard anything about him lately ?

  • Don Naphen

    I’ll probably never run into Fred Langa, as his columns only appear in the PAID version of Windows Secrets. A shame for those who never had the oportunity to read his articles, at least when he had articles.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Don,
    I think you are correct. Neither of us will be seeing him anytime soon. :-)