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Each user uses (or May not use) devices differently depending on the system setup. Nonetheless, some classes of devices are more commonly disabled than others. Knowing which ones will help you make your decision as to which devices you should disable. The following classes of devices are frequently disabled:

• Network adapters: Especially on notebook computers, there is often more than one network device. Disabling the network devices that you do not use will definitely save you some booting time.
• FireWire: If you have 1394 connections, otherwise known as FireWire, you might consider disabling them. Unless you are using your FireWire port to connect your digital video recorder to your computer, or have other external FireWire devices, you have no need to have this device enabled.
• Biometrics: Some of the latest computer hardware includes biometric sensor equipment such as a fingerprint scanner. If you do not use these security features, you can save time by disabling these devices, too.
• Modems: Do you have a broadband connection? If so, consider disabling your modem. If you rarely use it, why not disable it? If you ever need to use it again, just re-enable it.
• TPM security chips: Does your computer have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM)? These chips are typically used as a secure place to store an encryption key that would be used for something such as hard drive encryption. If you are not using any of these advanced security features of Windows Vista, disable these devices, too.
• Multimedia devices: Your computer has lots of multimedia devices. Take a look at the “Sound, video, and game controllers” section in Device Manager. You will find a lot of device drivers that are loaded during your boot. Some are used by all users, but you will find a few that you do not use. For example, I do not use my game port or my MIDI device, so I disabled both of those.
• PCMCIA cards: If you are a laptop user, consider disabling your PCMCIA card controller located under “PCMCIA adapters.” The PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) slot is a special expansion slot that is rarely used today on laptops except for wireless and wired network cards and card reader attachments for compact flash and other solid-state memory cards. Most laptops now have built-in network adapters, and some even have built-in wireless adapters. If you do not use your PCMCIA adapter, it is yet another device you can safely disable.

Important

All systems initialize in more or less the same way. During the POST mentioned earlier, the BIOS checks the hardware devices and counts the system memory. Out of all the different types of system memory, the random access memory, better known as RAM, takes the longest to be checked. Checking the RAM takes time, and on a machine that has large amounts of RAM, this calculation can take several seconds. For example, a machine that has 512MB of RAM may take up to 3 seconds just to check the memory. On top of the RAM counting, a few other tests need to be done because your computer wants to make sure that all the hardware in your computer is working properly.

The complete version of these tests is not needed every time that you boot and can be turned off to save time. Most system BIOSs offer a feature called Quick Boot. This feature enables the user to turn off the full version of the test and sometimes enables you to run a shorter quick check test instead. Other BIOSs allow you to turn off the Memory Check only, which will still cut down on a lot of time.

To turn on the Quick Boot feature or to turn off the Memory Check, just do the following:

1. Enter the system BIOS again by pressing F2 or the correct system setup Enter key on the POST screen for your system.
2. After you are in the BIOS setup, locate the text “Quick Boot” or “Memory Check,”. Navigate with the arrow keys until the option is highlighted.
   Use the Change Value keys to cycle through the options and select Enable for the Quick Boot feature or Disable if your system’s BIOS has the Memory Check feature.
3. After you have made the change to the setting, exit the system BIOS by pressing the Escape key. Make sure you save the changes upon exit.

Use of the Quick Boot feature or the disabling of the Memory Check will not do any harm your system. In fact, some computer manufacturers even ship their computers with these settings already optimized for performance. The only downside to disabling the tests is in the rare situation in which your RAM self-destructs; the BIOS will not catch it, and you might receive errors from the operating system or your system could become unstable. If you notice that your system becomes unstable and crashes frequently or will not even boot, go back into the BIOS and re-enable the tests to find out whether your system’s memory is causing the problems.