A PC that might make working with LabVIEW 8 bearable...

[crelf]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-51784544344753709

[Mike Ashe]

Interesting, I for one have never understood why we cannot have our PCs start up in 2 seconds. I mean, I understand the architecture, hw & sw, etc, I mean the design decisions. Why not state retrieval from flash ram? Considering how many complaints users have made over the years, this basic feature should have been taken care of a decade ago and made standard mobo equipment & functionality.

[crelf]

Why not state retrieval from flash ram?

I hear ya - I usually just hibernate my laptop (it has real difficulty shutting down) - if only I could just hibernate it to flash then it'd start up much faster. That said, is flash more stable these days? (ie: how many read/write cycles can it go through before giving up? I vaguely remeber a rumour about it being very low... )

[Mike Ashe]

I hear ya - I usually just hibernate my laptop (it has real difficulty shutting down) - if only I could just hibernate it to flash then it'd start up much faster. That said, is flash more stable these days? (ie: how many read/write cycles can it go through before giving up? I vaguely remeber a rumour about it being very low... )

Over 100,000 write cycles. Lets say you startup, shutdown cycle 4 times every single day

100, 000 = 25,000 days /365 days per year ....

You get the idea. With Moore's Law still valid, most of us are upgrading our systems long, long before the flash chip would go bad.

[crelf]

Over 100,000 write cycles...

That's not bad - not bad at all...

[Yair]

I hear ya - I usually just hibernate my laptop (it has real difficulty shutting down)

I hear you. Mine takes a couple of minutes to shut down and several more to start up in the morning (and I still do it). When travelling I go into sleep or hibernation modes and it's definitely much faster.

BTW, what do you do about the battery? My laptop (an HP) is usually connected to the wall with the battery inside and it took about 2 to 2.5 years of this to get the battery to a state where it barely holds for a few minutes. I now switched to using the old battery at the office and putting the new one in only when going out and that should hopefully make that new one last much longer.

By the way, it is also claimed that Windows Vista will do this and that most modern PCs can do this on a clean installation of windows XP (and that video looked like a clean installation to me).

[didierj]

Interesting, I for one have never understood why we cannot have our PCs start up in 2 seconds.

Maybe because Windows works more stable (with all the installed 3rd-party stuff) when a clean boot is performed from time to time (meaning on a regular basis every morning).

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

BTW, what do you do about the battery? My laptop (an HP) is usually connected to the wall with the battery inside and it took about 2 to 2.5 years of this to get the battery to a state where it barely holds for a few minutes. I now switched to using the old battery at the office and putting the new one in only when going out and that should hopefully make that new one last much longer.

By the way, it is also claimed that Windows Vista will do this and that most modern PCs can do this on a clean installation of windows XP (and that video looked like a clean installation to me).

Unfortunatly Lithium batteries have this characteristic that they will age independant of their useage. While it does probably make a difference if you use your computer often, unlike the well known problem of older battery technologies where not discharging a battery completely would considerably detoriate on the life time of the battery, Lithium batteries suffer from a general aging process that is mostly independant of their use. This means that such a battery stored for 2 years somewhere won't be much better than one that has been used for 2 years on a daily base.

This is a general rule which has been described in several places. Of course there are differences. Some batteries will be absolutely useless after two years while others seem to be able to handle aging better. My former Dell had first a battery that was completely gone after less than a year (and I got a replacement under warrenty for it) The second battery which was used just as much did last 2 years and still was fairly well. My current Sony VAIO is about one year old and still going strong with somewhere around 3 hours of power outlet independant operation.

But from what I have read so far it seems safe to expect that Lithium batteries usually won't last longer than about 3 years even if not used. I believe there have been recently new technologies introduced that should make the manufactering of Lithium batteries both cheaper and increase their life cycle too.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[Yair]

Thanks, Rolf.

I couldn't find any decent info about this when it became clear that it's time to replace that battery, so it helps to know this is common. I'm going to keep doing what I outlined because replacing the battery is not a problem as long the computer is connected to the outlet. The only time I could run into problems is if there is a power outage and I have to shut down the PC in order to replace the battery.