New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.
The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.
The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.
Bios' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.
The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.
"Conventional Bios is up there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been kicking around the PC since 1979," said Mark Doran, head of the UEFI Forum, which is overseeing development of the technology.
Mr Doran said the creators of the original Bios only expected it to have a lifetime of about 250,000 machines - a figure that has long been surpassed.
"They are as amazed as anyone else that now it is still alive and well in a lot of systems," he said. "It was never really designed to be extensible over time."
AMI is a firm that develops Bios software. Brian Richardson, of AMI's technical marketing team, said the age of the Bios was starting to hamper development as 64-bit computing became more common and machines mutated beyond basic desktops and laptops.
The Bios tells the computer what input and output devices are installed
"Drive size limits that were inherent to the original PC design - two terabytes - are going to become an issue pretty soon for those that use their PC a lot for pictures and video," he said.
Similarly, he said, as tablet computers and other smaller devices become more popular, having to get them working with a PC control system was going to cause problems.
The problem emerges, he said, because Bios expects the machine it is getting going to have the same basic internal set-up as the first PCs.
More info: BBC News - Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds
