This Application claims priority of Taiwan Patent Application No. 100134295, filed on Sep. 23, 2011, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods for speeding up the boot time of electric devices, and in particular relates to electric devices using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a boot process is generally required prior to starting an operating system of an electric device. The boot process typically involves hardware initialization, hardware detection and operating system guidance and so on, consuming considerable time.
Speeding up the boot process of electric devices is an important issue in related technical fields.
A method for speeding up the boot time of electric devices and electric devices using the same are disclosed.
In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method for speeding up the boot time of electric devices comprises the below steps. According to the method, the power consumption of an electric device is measured in a boot process of the electric device, and it is determined whether the power consumption is greater than a threshold value. When the power consumption is greater than the threshold value, a connector port controller initialization procedure is executed during the boot process to initialize the connector port controller. When the power consumption is not greater than the threshold value, a simplified form of the connector port controller initialization procedure is provided during the boot process, to speed up the boot process.
An electric device in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the invention comprises a connector port controller, a power consumption measurement module and a memory. The connector port controller is operative to control an external device. The power consumption measurement module is operative to measure power consumption of the electric device in the boot-up process of the electric device. The program code for establishing a basic input/output system is loaded in the memory. The basic input/output system provides the boot process, and modifies the boot process according to whether the power consumption measured by the power consumption module is greater than a threshold value. When the power consumption is greater than the threshold value, the basic input/output system executes a connector port controller initialization procedure during the boot process. When the power consumption is not greater than the threshold value, the basic input/output system provides a simplified form of the connector port controller initialization procedure during the boot process.
A detailed description is given in the following embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The present invention can be more fully understood by reading the subsequent detailed description and examples with references made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following description shows several exemplary embodiments carrying out the invention. This description is made for the purpose of illustrating the general principles of the invention and should not be taken in a limiting sense. The scope of the invention is best determined by reference to the appended claims.
A processor 102 may communicate with other components of the electric device 100 by a chipset consisting of a northbridge module 104 and a southbridge module 106. The northbridge module 104 is for high-speed data transmission, and, as shown, may be connected to a memory 108. The southbridge module 106 is used in communicating with peripheral devices. For example, the southbridge module 106 may be connected to connector ports 110_1 and 110_2 to communicate with external devices 112_1 and 112_2.
Further, the southbridge module 106 may be coupled to a memory 114. The memory 114 may be a random access memory (ROM) or a flash memory (FLASH) or an electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), on which a program code for building a basic input/output system (BIOS) is loaded (hereinafter the program code is symbolized as BIOS as well). The program code BIOS is executed to build the basic input/output system (BIOS) for providing a boot process for the electric device 100.
Further, when being implemented as a portable electric device, the electric device 100 may use a smart battery 116. As shown, the smart battery 116 is coupled to the southbridge module 106 by a keyboard controller 124. The smart battery 116 has a controller chip 118 which provides information about power consumption of the battery.
The southbridge module 106 is generally designed with a connector port controller 112 (or, in some exemplary embodiments, the keyboard controller 124 is designed within the southbridge module.) The connector port controller 122 is operative to control the external devices 112_1 and 112_2 connected at the connector ports 110_1 and 110_2. The connector ports 110_1 and 110_2 may use a universal serial bus (USB) protocol, and the connector port controller 122 may be a USB controller. The keyboard controller (KBC) 124 is also known as an embedded controller. Concerning the applications of the embedded controller, the smart battery 116 may communicate with the keyboard controller 124 by a system management bus (smbus).
The basic input/output system is specially designed in this disclosure. During the boot process, the basic input/output bus (BIOS) may communicate with keyboard controller 124 via a memory space or input/output space, to control the keyboard controller 124 to obtain the information about power consumption (via the system management bus) from the controller chip 118 of the smart battery 116. Thus, the power consumption of the electric device 100 is evaluated and the operations of a power consumption measurement module are completed. By determining whether the power consumption of the electric device 100 is greater than a threshold value, the basic input/output system (BIOS) modifies the boot process. For example, when the power consumption is greater than the threshold value, it may be determined that the connector ports 110_1 and 110_2 are actually connected to external devices 112_1 and 112_2. Accordingly, the basic input/output system executes a connector port controller initialization procedure (e.g. an USB controller initialization procedure) to initialize the connector port controller 122. The connector port controller initialization procedure enumerates and initializes the external device 112_1 and 112_2. Otherwise, when the power consumption is not greater than the threshold value, it may be determined that a lesser number of external devices (e.g. only 112_1 or only 112_2) or even no external device is connected to the electric device 100. Accordingly, the basic input/output system BIOS provides a simplified form of the connector port controller initialization procedure during the boot process. In one exemplary embodiment, steps for initializing external devices are removed from the connector port controller initialization procedure, to speed up the boot time. In another exemplary embodiment, the connector port controller initialization procedure is completely removed. In this case, the initialization of the connector port controller 122 is not performed until being required, and the initialization is performed by the operating system.
Note that the structure shown in
A basic input/output system nowadays may be developed by an extensible firmware interface, as know as EFI BIOS (or UEFI BIOS).
As shown in
While the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of the preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements (as would be apparent to those skilled in the art). Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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100134295 | Sep 2011 | TW | national |