Assuming you are NOT using the onboard video (meaning you actually have a physical video card and not just the video from your motherboard) Assuming you are using the only USB for your mouse and keyboard and NOT Ps/2 port mouse and keyboards Assuming you are NOT using an old printer which uses a parallel port If all above is true, continue... If not all true, please stop now. Log into your BIOS or UEFI Disable the assigning of parallel port addresses. Which seems to be found on even motherboards which have no parallel port -- On some motherboard's it will simply be labled as the automatic assignment of IRQ addresses via the CMOS (Disable the whole thing if you can). Reboot Speed. Nothing but pure speed. Bonus: Disable ps/2 port for older mouse and keyboard (assuming you are using USB) Disable onboard video (assuming you're not using it and actually do have a video card installed) The 1st two I've always done. It is only recently that I've learned just how much disabling the parallel port has its advantages. For years, I've always left that alone and wow, was I surprised to discover just how smooth it all works without it. It suddenly feels as though I have all new computers.
Another thing that helps speed up your computer at least in the System startup on newer motherboards or recently new computers is to switch from Legacy Bios to UEFI Bios Setup. A lot of machines still run on legacy due to the slic Table that is required for the earlier operating systems windows 7 and earlier but windows 10 doesn`t use a slic table. .
I recently did this to all my computers at home and they all feel as though they were brand new or something. It's impressive. On one of my motherboard's it was not labeled as a parallel port, but rather the automatic assignment of IRQ addresses via the CMOS / BIOS. Which seems to amount to the same thing since the motherboard's who had the "parallel port" option all had to do with that assignment. I have not found or notice any issues disabling this and only have seen an improvement.
To each their own on that one. I still prefer my legacy bios and believe the boot time of legacy to be just as fast (if not sometimes faster). Of course, I do have the option to switch between the two.
Easier boot management. Seriously, read this forum or even google search and the 1 problem repeated over and over is how folks end up with problems trying to boot stuff with UEFI. Hell, we have a dedicated forum here on MDL for folks who need bios updates so that their UEFI will work just to boot up stuff. MDL is not alone, there are whole forums dedicated to resolving UEFI management problems (again, Google it). Legacy, I pop in whatever I want, whenever I want, and it just works. Period.
Been booting UEFI for years, no issues at all, my UEFI BIOS was last updated in 2012, final BIOS, still no issues today Sounds more like people don't understand how to use UEFI
No issues on mine either, but a quick Google search tells you a different story. I don't doubt that. Most home users would be overwhelmed by either UEFI or your standard bios. At least, the folks I end up helping. But recently, I encountered someone's DELL Computer and seriously, the legacy option was the only way that USB drive was going to boot. The simplicity of pressing a key on the keyboard to bring up your boot menu or your PC automatically detecting that there is another boot decide, without having to configure anything, is always going to be a blessing.
I can still hit F12 to load boot options after POST with UEFI and select a USB drive to boot from Nothing from legacy is missing from UEFI that I have found
For USB? Doesn't really bother me, just as quick to select FAT32 as it is to select NTFS when formatting, and I use UEFI GPT anyway so always has to be FAT32
Dell Computers. You either love them or hate them. We tried everything from F1 through F12, nothing. The only option was to either boot the CMOS, boot legacy, or run their system diagnostics. Even called Dell to confirm. Once in legacy, the USB boot just fine. Outside his computer, I do not see any real advantage over UEFI other than a mouse pointer.
Sure it wasn't using secure boot? Maybe moving to legacy disabled secure boot and allowed you to see the USB boot drive My first experience with secure boot drove me mad, I knew I was making the flash drive correctly, done a million times, but the laptop refused to see it or boot from it, took a good while to work out I needed to create the flash drive as FAT32 / GPT / UEFI, after that it saw the drive and booted from it fine Oh, and I hate Dell computers They are designed to F**k with techs
It could have been the secure boot, but I don't use FAT32 and likely will never do so. My smallest USB drive is 64 GB and Fast 32 has a limit of 32 GB and I'm not going to partition USB drives (or use 3rd party software) just to get it to work with UEFI. I do not particularly like DELL either. I prefer to build my own or if I were to buy one, I'd go with HP. Anyways, this thread is really getting off topic now. The point of this thread was that once you disable the automatic IRQ assignment (either from Bios or UEFI), things seem to become faster.
But for normal use Legacy BIOS works just fine. On current laptops/desktops there is not much choice, they will be UEFI only, but many (if not all) single sold Mobo's will have both options available. My system boots up in 6 seconds, UEFI or Legacy BIOS, just because of using an SSD as systemdrive.
SSD as main here too, and it did boot up in a similar time, but I went RAID0 with 2 x SSD and it seems the RAID controller has slowed things down considerably for some reason, even once it has handed over to the OS it just spins and spins, haven't taken the time to investigate yet though
I think this really comes down to preference. I notice no difference in boot time. -- Although on 1 of my PC's legacy is faster by 1/2 a second. Although most would never notice. I do not use sleep or hibernate functions. A standard legacy bios is just as stable and uses just as much power. This whole thread is how disabling that function made all my computers faster, so .... This option is there even with a normal BIOS. Newer expanded bios have this too (not just UEFI) I actually do not like this. If I get a bad driver, I can uninstall it or replace it (or recover in safe mode). If worse comes to worse, format and start over. If you get a bad driver via UEFI... You've got problems!
Haven't played around with IRQs since the 90s, but I wouldn't expect disabling automatic assignment of IRQs would be a great idea, it might not cause any issues after Windows is already installed and configured, but on clean installs, I would have thought the OS would need auto IRQ assignments, correct me if I'm wrong, like I say I haven't messed with them since the days computers would cause themselves IRQ conflicts and you'd have to manually assign them Maybe the OS is smart enough now, no idea EDIT - your last comment, if you get a bad driver with UEFI you've got problems? Where did you hear that? People get bad drivers with UEFI all the time, no different to legacy, you fix it the same way In fact I see a few problems with some of your replies There is no secure boot with legacy, secure boot requires UEFI Modern PCs ship with a feature called “Secure Boot” enabled. This is a platform feature in UEFI, which replaces the traditional PC BIOS