UEFI BIOS: what can it do?

[Ketchup]

Ok then, other than the glitzy GUI that I could care less about, how does AHCI benefit me once I'm in the O/S?

Is there any reason you can't google this?

https://www.google.com/search?q=ahc...x-a#q=ahci+ide&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

 

[westly197]

AHCI has no interface, it's a communication standard, it helps the I/O performance of the SATA devices like the hard disk over the legacy IDE. It's been in use a long time going back many generations of chipsets, and is available on regular BIOS boards that don't support UEFI. It really has nothing more to do with the UEFI you dislike, then say USB 2.0 or 3.0 does. UEFI has support for USB and AHCI, but so does non-UEFI standard BIOS. AHCI benefits you in that you get better performance, regardless of whether you have regular bios or UEFI bios. It's probably required on newer boards, as it makes no sense to have old IDE standard on a new UEFI board, but that's about it.

 

[videobruce]

Is there any reason you can't google this?

No, but I was looking for input here.

But, according to this, the answer is 'not a whole lot'.

[1) There is nothing magical about AHCI. About all you will gain is the ability to hot-plug drives. That may be worthwhile if you use an external HDD connected by eSATA. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.

From what I've read, NCQ is only of real benefit in an environment where the disk is being accessed constantly, such as server. Normal desktop users probably won't see any measurable benefit.

 

[Bryf50]

For people saying a traditional BIOS boots faster than UEFI, this is how fast my HTPC boots using the Super Fast Boot feature. You can only use Super Fast Boot with Windows 8 installed in UEFI mode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n0xRlbasaE

 

[ViRGE]

No, but I was looking for input here.

But, according to this, the answer is 'not a whole lot'.

AHCI in a nutshell: hotplugging drives, staggered drive startup, faster transfer speeds, advanced power management, native command queuing (better perf on both HDDs and SSDs), and TRIM support for SSDs. AHCI won't set your world on fire, but you should always be using AHCI when possible.

 

[RU482]

whats the point/benefits of UEFI for a home builder?? I came to this thread to find it out...nothing found yet.

I know on Win8 and Win7 systems I have built, it seems to add to boot time....I hope I am doing something wrong

 

[ViRGE]

whats the point/benefits of UEFI for a home builder?? I came to this thread to find it out...nothing found yet.

I know on Win8 and Win7 systems I have built, it seems to add to boot time....I hope I am doing something wrong

Short term: faster booting, faster at entering and leaving sleep/hibernation, secure boot, much better UI (than BIOS), GPT boot disk support, simpler model for finding the boot sector (no more MBR), sane model for expanding it for new hardware.

Long term: BIOS is a gorram mess. To give you an idea of how bad (and old) it is, it runs in x86 Real Mode. It's being ditched as fast as humanly possible.

 

[videobruce]

TRIM support for SSDs

Isn't that a function of the O/S?? Someting XP didn't have and Win7 & 8 does.

 

[ViRGE]

Isn't that a function of the O/S?? Someting XP didn't have and Win7 & 8 does.

I'm not a storage guy, but my understanding is that Windows won't pass TRIM over IDE.

 

[Mushkins]

Isn't that a function of the O/S?? Someting XP didn't have and Win7 & 8 does.

It's a function of both working together, really. The OS needs to know what TRIM requests actually are and what to do with them. XP does not, Win7/8 do. Likewise, the BIOS handles all the communications between the OS and that SSD. IDE does not support TRIM, AHCI does, so if the BIOS says "this is an IDE hard drive" it won't know what to do with those TRIM commands handed down from the OS.

 

[videobruce]

Which kinda eliminates having a conventional BIOS since I have a SSD. But, there are programs that can be used in XP that produce the trim command. No idea how they work or how well.

 

[hot120]

UEFI sucks if you are trying to uninstall W8 for W7. Granted, it's really only a few settings you need to change, but it is still a pain. And then if you are upgrading to an SSD, trying to get the old drive to be formatted for MBR. Granted, that too is a few setting changes, but if you don't know where to start, that can be a pain too.

 

[videobruce]

Sounds like more reasons to stay with a conventional BIOS.

 

[Ketchup]

UEFI, IMO, is just an evolution of the BIOS. It was time we got away from having to go into two separate entities to configure our computer. Do I think it's perfect? no way. But I think it will grow into a "how did we get along without this" feature.

 

[videobruce]

What do we do in the meantime??

 

[hot120]

Maybe I am one of the few who actually likes the BIOS instead of UEFI. But then, I am certain there are people who still prefer MS-DOS to Windows. Go figure!

 

[Red Squirrel]

Maybe I am one of the few who actually likes the BIOS instead of UEFI. But then, I am certain there are people who still prefer MS-DOS to Windows. Go figure!

I prefer simple bios too. KISS. UEFI is a waste of resources, there's not really any reason for it, especially considering it's OS dependent now not to mention the boot time issue like I mentioned - which bios does by default and does not require windows 8 or other specific OS. It also makes it possible for hardware to be OS locked. Ex: Ms could pay enough money to companies like Asus to ensure you can't install Linux.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds like more reasons to stay with a conventional BIOS.

Sadly you don't have a choice. All the newer motherboards have it now.

 

[hot120]

I prefer simple bios too. KISS. UEFI is a waste of resources, there's not really any reason for it, especially considering it's OS dependent now not to mention the boot time issue like I mentioned - which bios does by default and does not require windows 8 or other specific OS. It also makes it possible for hardware to be OS locked. Ex: Ms could pay enough money to companies like Asus to ensure you can't install Linux.

Right on! It's already hard as heck for the average user to downgrade to W7 from W8!

 

[ViRGE]

I prefer simple bios too. KISS. UEFI is a waste of resources, there's not really any reason for it, especially considering it's OS dependent now not to mention the boot time issue like I mentioned - which bios does by default and does not require windows 8 or other specific OS. It also makes it possible for hardware to be OS locked. Ex: Ms could pay enough money to companies like Asus to ensure you can't install Linux.

Honestly if that's what you think then I don't think you've done enough research into the matter. Legacy BIOS has an incredible number of limitations - not the least of which is using x86 Real Mode - that device makers are dying to get away from. UEFI isn't going to revolutionize the world, but it's going to get us away from the terrible price of basing modern PCs on a 30 year old underlying technology.

 

[videobruce]

Sadly you don't have a choice. All the newer motherboards have it now.

I'm glad you used the word "sadly".

1. The glitzy GUI is of, but wasn't really needed. It is obviously a CEA type selling point. I will admit the old style could of used a change in color.
2. The mouse interface is ok also but that wasn't really needed. I never had any trouble navigating around any conventional BIOS.
3. This new AHCI is maybe ok, but couldn't that of been adapted with the existing interface?
4. But, having 6 ports on one interface without any ability to isolate any of them is short sightedness. Assuming no one would want to block/isolate/disable other drives is just a bad assumption.

 

[bgt]

Can you point to where that came from since it is opposite from what I have read.

Exactly, win 7 has great UEFI support. Installed it on a 1090T cpu with 970 chipset mb. No problem.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Oh I'm talking before the OS even starts to boot, it's bloody slow. Linux boots up in like 10 seconds once the BIOS is finally done crapping around with the 10 second black screen and the 10 second splash screen. Guess it depends on the motherboard though, some are faster than others. My motherboard is a Gigabyte X79-UD3. All the motherboards I had before that were normal BIOSes and were way faster to POST.

check your boot sequence. I found during a recent install that having dvd/cd as part of sequence caused slow down.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

UEFI sucks if you are trying to uninstall W8 for W7. Granted, it's really only a few settings you need to change, but it is still a pain. And then if you are upgrading to an SSD, trying to get the old drive to be formatted for MBR. Granted, that too is a few setting changes, but if you don't know where to start, that can be a pain too.

Amen. Had a horrible time getting a re-install of win 7 to occur from dvd drive. Could not get it to boot from disc. Probably my user error or I just didn't check the right settings. May not even be UEFI fault at all but I'm going to blame it cause I can.

Now a nice feature of this UEFI allowed me to boot from thumb drive so I put win 7 .iso on it and it worked great.

 

[Red Squirrel]

check your boot sequence. I found during a recent install that having dvd/cd as part of sequence caused slow down.

Worth a shot but I doubt it would do anything, the slow down is before the bios splash screen even appears. I don't know the technicalicites of how bioses work but given UEFI is much more heavy than a standard bios, if there's any kind of loading into memory that has to happen, that's probably the part that's taking longer.