pure speed is not as good as "usefulness"

[tediber]

dunno where to post this .......

i've wondered how to make a PC as "useful" as an appliance .... like a CD player, DVD player , stereo, or watching TV without having to go through windows bulky OS

well Legend computers of china has dual Boot PCs where an extra power on switch ..... turns it on as an appliance with a toned down OS simply running the system as a "player" i think .....

http://www.legendgrp.com/images/product/con_pc/slimia.jpg

[tediber]

well i posted this because i live in a cramped space ..... so i use my PC as a TV, Dvd player, stereo as well ....... so in the pursuit of making things easy to use i learnt to overclock to the point of watercooling just so i could speed things up as well as using fast 10krpm SCSI drives just to cut down boot times. and i don't want to have to always "choose" an OS everytime you boot up as with most dual boot system . kinda neat when you can just push a simple button to use a small fast OS

[tediber]

i guess what i'm trying to figure out is ..... is it a special motherboard feature ?? most likely ...... can't be just an extra OS right since you chose an OS right at the power switch.

[c627627]

I have a Dual boot XP/Me.

Inside XP you can set the OS selection screen to 1 s.

Then you just keep pressing the arrow keys at boot if you need to stop the screen at OS selection point.

Otherwise the 1 s setting boots through into the default OS in less then a minute.


To set default operating system in Windows XP:

Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced TAB >
Under Startup and Recovery, Settings button > Default operating system


It modifies the usually hidden system file boot.ini on C:\ drive.

That means you can also copy both modified boot.ini files into two folders.

Then you can simply copy paste the boot.ini of your choice into C:\
overwriting existing file and restart the computer to boot into Windows of your choice quickly.


There is also Powerquest BootMagic sftware for this etc, but why bother when XP has it native.

Just make sure you install the other OS first, then Windows XP or Windows 2000.

[tediber]

yeah i know dual OS is no big deal ...... it's just neat you can choose Os before boot up ...... i guess this should at motherboard section ?? coz it says you can choose "mode" thru the powerswitch or PSU switch.

[funnyperson1]

The newer ASUS high end boards have a feature which allows you to play Cds without booting into an OS, dunno about DVDs though.

[snvpa]

you won't get dvd support without some type of os. the video card needs the proper codecs and drivers to display any type of motion video. the cd play feature is a neat idea though I have it on my asus board though I haven't used it yet

[Archangel8]

There is a hardware solution that allows you to choose between three different drives to boot from without messing with initialization files and creating a multiple boot disk. The name of the damn thing excapes me right now but it is a 51/2 bay panel that has a readout and a switch. With a little patience and time you could tear an OS down to its basics and run software that only does what you want it too. There quite a few things you could easily get rid of that would make it much like turning on your stereo.

[a c i d.f l y]

Sounds like Gateway's new Media Center PC's that come with the huge flatscreen. It does TV, DVD, Stereo, capture, digital recording, et cetera. Which is kind of neat, and the screen is really nice. Too bad ****ing Gateway created it.

-Frank

[ZSmitty]

funnyperson, I dont think that the music w/o boot feature has anything to do with the mobo but actually the sound card. Cause there's that little cord that connects from cd-rom to the sound card that allows you to listen to a cd without booting. I guess the mobo could be using integrated sound so thats how it would work, but really thats just a cd-rom sound card deal

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by ZSmitty
funnyperson, I dont think that the music w/o boot feature has anything to do with the mobo but actually the sound card. Cause there's that little cord that connects from cd-rom to the sound card that allows you to listen to a cd without booting. I guess the mobo could be using integrated sound so thats how it would work, but really thats just a cd-rom sound card deal

perhaps, but ASUS markets it as their motherboard. I would think that motherboard support would be required as the computer wouldn't turn on and go into this special OS if there wasnt mobo support.

All in all, I don't really know how they do it, I just know its a feature.

[Damian]

The motherboard needs to provide power to the sound card and needs to turn on power to the CD-ROM; thus, it needs to be a motherboard feature. The actual playing of a CD isn't a motherboard feature, if that's what you meant.