[plug] Intel's stupidly fast PO(ST) [was: Re: boot times and software suspend]

[Craig Ringer]

>>That's one of the advantages of the Intel desktop boards - stupidly fast 
>>POST, usually faster than the monitor can come out of standby.
> 
> Is this because it is genuinely fast or is it Intel's previous practice
> of "Power On hard drive, Skip Tests, pray other devices responded"?

A bit of both but mostly the latter. You can enable a more thorough POST 
in BIOS (more than an extended "memory test" that will test memory 
that's not present). I've almost never seen a PC's POST find a real 
problem anyway, so I tend to think that Intel's POST method is not so bad.

Craig