Boot time again!

Sorry guys,

I know have done a couple of threads on boot time already. What I am interested in finding out from non SSD owners is how fast people are able to boot windows 7. I have used soluto and msconfig to trim start up items. All I have is the essentials, alien respawn and mcafee running at start up but I still think it's too slow and want to compare against other standard 7200 hard drive owners. My spec is the m17 r3, single 750 gig hard drive (approx 400 gig used) 0% fragmented.

So my boot is approx as follows:

Power button to login: about 30 secs
After password / welcome screen with blue spinning circle: about 30 - 40 secs
Desktop appears time til usable: about 30 seconds

In event viewer my overall boot time by windows generally gets logged at about 95 seconds.

I think that is too slow even for a mechanical hard drive. Especially the welcome screen display of over 30 secs.

I have googled extensively. A common bug was having a solid background causing welcome screen hang of 30 secs but I use a jpeg background and still no better.

So what do others get on boot time?

Cheers,
Wayne

 

I got the same 30sec to login and another 40sec till mouse stop spinning.
There is no secret buddy, if you want faster than that, you gotta upgrade the HDD to 10k RPM, Hybrid, or SSD .

 

Cheers mate. At least I know there is not something off with the system! The machine is fantastic but I so regret not getting hybrid or SSD. I was priced out on the SSD. Its just such a blazing system badly let down by the hard drive. Trouble is even if I got SSD upgrade my windows image would not fit to it so would have to re install and start from scratch. So many games, so many patches! It would take months to get my machine how I want it. Time my wife won't allow, lol!

Cheers,
Wayne

 

For reference, my SSD is 18 sec from power-on to login screen and 3-4 sec from entering my password to having a usable desktop with all background services loaded.

 

Incredible. I didnt realise when i bought my machine how far ahead SSDs were. I guess the huge cost would of been worth it. Cheers for the comparison point. Am very jealous!

 

My results are:
30
29
36 BUT:
I have 5400 rpm 640GB HDD with 40 Gigs free
I have Ramdisk with 200 MB partition which slows boot significantly even with 200MB
I have eBoostr which loads 1.250 GB of memory to RAM.
And the most important I had DownloadMaster on which started to download everything which was planned right after blue screen ended or even earlier.

Man, how many partitions do you have why is your HDD so slow?

EDIT\\\ Without using Download master on startup my time increased on 5 seconds... somewhy

 

Exactly, I have my own windows 7 pro... thinking of setting it up again now after failing miserably yesterday... but well, you can always get the upgrade later and install it on your own. Should I succeed on installing it (Which clearly I intend to eventually, I ll post my new results my config spec is in signature...

 

No partitions. Just one single c: drive. Well, there is the hidden recovery partition but that's it. It's dissapointing! I think I should of got the seagate hybrid momentous XT but it wasn't on the options when I ordered. Best of both worlds, quick and decent amount of space. Oh well what's done is done. I may follow stampys lead at some point if I can't learn to live with it. Once system is booted it all runs fantastic. I guess I should learn to deal with it but it does bother me quite a bit.

Still interested in hearing anyone elses boot stats guys. Preferably mechanical drives on the m17 r3 for accurate comparison.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

Then I have a question... Why didn't you do OS partition???

Here is what I suggest you.
If you have where to save all your data then just save it on another HDD, download fresh official distributive of Windows with built in SP1 and other updates. It is legal until you download the same type of distributive (Home, Pro, Ultimate). You will use your serial key later. While install it delete big partition and create 1 little from 30 to 60 Gb. calculate 2 program Files folders and windows folder. How bid is it?

Then install windows on this 30-60 GB partition all other unallocated space will be for data partition and I may help you with all that.

 

Uninstall that garbage mc afee. Buy a SSD.

Mine did boot fully into Windows from a cold start in 18 sec. Timed with bootracer.

7200k HDD is old tech, its cheap and realible tech. but just too slow.

 

From post screen to login is 12 seconds. After entering my password, the desktop is usable instantly.

 

Using Boottimer im a little over 11 secs to desktop and I can start programs instantly.

 

I got 21sec to password, 30 till mouse is done rotating now .
That 128GB SSD sure was hard to install xD

 

Windows Expierience Index rates my SSD at 7.9... faster then my RAM which is 7.8. most 7200rpm HDD's get a 5.9 rating I believe. So yup, SSD's are hella fast

way to go if you unhappy with boot times.

** Edit, am bored and adding my boot utility time... can't beat rev ;(

 

Crucial M4.

​

 

I defragmented and followed the big key points to make the SSD faster, now 19sec till password, 29 till the mouse stop rotating (But really soon as password typed you can launch your things right away.)
MY windows index experience rate my SSD at 6.6 though... is it normal?
Some SSDs are just better than others?

 

Check here for some useful tweaks: The SSD Optimization Guide - The SSD Review. I ignore 11, 13, 14, 17 and 18 for my own use.

 

Did all those you did exept for pagefile, as I only have 4GB of ram and it says it doesn't boost performance.

 

Check if there is a firmware update? What are the read/write speeds from the spec. list? Is it a SATA3 drive?

 

Don't worry about the WEI. For some reason it doesn't immediately or fully recognize new SSD's. After a few more runs, it will normalize. I would expect your drive to be rated at 7.9 when the dust settles..

 

My hard drive is an old (lol, one year at least) kingston SNV425-S2/128 GB SSDNow V-Series, kingston's website is a BIG useless in terms of info.... so I don't know. I wouldn't expect it is the best out there. But 6.6 is quite disconcerting, especially since I did most tweaks from that site what ever I am happy where I'm at. (Though if you tell me a quick fix driver wise, I wouldn't mind, just couldn't find them.)

 

Oh, I thought you had one of the new Kingston HyperX SSD's. I don't know what kind of speed the older SSDNow drives have, but they are slower. Still, lots faster than a HDD.

 

I'll be all right

 

Hey stampy you said something about defrag and your ssd, don't defrag the ssd! Bad for it. Hope I didn't read it wrong.

 

Wondering why mine is so slow. Getting 25 Seconds load times with my M4 512GB. Wondering if it is because just set up in default at RAID. Wonder if it is the 5-7 Seconds it asks for Raid Utility Screen.

 

Even with auslogic?

 

Could be, also my toshiba was in raid (90% sure) it wasn't anywhere as fast as now, also did you do the big tweaks for it?
Also when I have a CD/DVD in, it adds up a good 5 seconds (if not more) during the alienface screen.

 

Wonder if I need to change the Boot order of which disk it is looking for.... Anyone know is it the Primary or Secondary Drive that should be list First in the Bios Boot order?????? Have my M4 in the Sata III slot.

 

no idea what sata III slot is. On my laptop (see sig) I put the SSD in the HDD module 1 (which was originally intended for the D drive not C, and the original C drive from Dell was in slot zero)as recommended by others, set BIOS to AHCI then INSTALLED windows 7 (don't change the settings in BIOS without running install from scratch, but if you do there are settings in regedit to do, but re-install is best), and since I reversed the C and D drive, in BIOS I put secondary drive on top of the list followed by primary (since for MY particular case secondary drive is SSD.)

 

Slot 1(in the middle) in the R3 is the secondary hard drive if you have two hard drives in. Slot 1 is what you should be putting your SSDs in.

 

And that secondary drive/boot drive should be first (or at least before the primary drive) in the BIOS boot order. However, I actually have the USB storage drive as first in the boot order to facilitate booting from a memory stick to flash bios(s) or emergency access, with the secondary/boot/SSD next in order.

 

The raid setting shouldn't be a problem. The raid setting incorporates the features of AHCI. I have an M4 in the secondary (drive 1) slot as the boot drive, the system is configured as raid (not ahci) and I get a ~10 second boot, 7.9 WEI, and CrystalDiskMark of
Seq 479.6 196.9
512k 362.7 179.3
4k 23.33 44.68
QD32 312.3 179.2

Incidentally, before I put in the M4, I had a 30++ second boot, 5.9 WEI and crystalmark of
Seq 126.2 124.5
512k 47.59 69.76
4k 0.668 1.295
QD32 1.590 1.359

And all that was with the 750GB Caviar Black (which I think is supposedly the fastest 2.5" mechanical drive). So yea, SSDs blow mechanical drives out of the water.

 

So my boot is still driving me mad. It's the 30 - 40 sec hang on the welcome screen. There is hard disk activity so the laptop is doing it's thing but it seems unfeasibly long (even for a mechanical hard drive). It even does it on a clean boot with all start up items disabled and all non Microsoft services disabled. Any ideas? Not sure if relevant to this but am on the A08 bios. But I think the problem has always existed even when I got the laptop with a03 bios. Although I think the welcome screen has gotten a little longer over time. Maybe to co incide with new bios. Other than that everything works great.

 

are you still running the original OS install, or have you ever reinstalled windows and started fresh?
what antivirus are you running?

I know it's not free, but a SSD is WAY faster... a really good SSD (128 GB crucial M4) can be picked up for ~$180 sometimes less if you find a good sale.

Here are some example benchmarks I've run... in some categories, the crucial is "only" 4 times faster but in others, it's hundreds of times faster. and those small, random files (the 4 k random on the bench) are what windows does on boot while it's looking for drivers and such.

Edit:
Sorry, just noticed I had already put some of those benches in this thread... I was only reading Scottie's post when I replied.

128GB M4 (16% full)
Seq 479.6 196.9
512k 362.7 179.3
4k 23.33 44.68
QD32 312.3 179.2

750GB Caviar Black (2.5" 2% full)

Seq 126.2 124.5
512k 47.59 69.76
4k 0.668 1.295
QD32 1.590 1.359

500GB Seagate momentus hybrid (2.5" ~70% full and run on an older core2 lappy with vista)
Seq 71.74 73.24
512k 23.02 32.52
4k 0.268 0.595
QD32 0.709 0.595

2TB Seagate usb3 external (3.5" 35% full)
Seq 123.1 121.5
512k 46.1 28.03
4k 0.565 0.326
QD32 0.598 0.325

Same 2TB drive as above but in a usb2 port
Seq 32.42 28.13
512k 20.69 26.55
4k 0.557 0.324
QD32 0.579 0.324

I will note that the momentus xt hybrid drive feels faster than it looks in the benchmarks because it selectively stores ~4GB of frequently used small files in flash; it selects the small files that get used a lot (like drivers while booting windows). That performance boost doesnt appear in a benchmark like this since the drive cant adaptively add the files that crystalmark writes to its flash cache.

Also, it does appear that the drive on USB3 is performing exactly as I would expect an internal 3.5" mechanical HD to perform, except USB3 appears to not allow high queue depths. the results are essentially unchanged between QD1 and QD32.

 

Still the original os. Done so much I wouldn't want to install fresh again. Anti virus is mcafee but it can't be that slowing it as I did a clean boot so only Microsoft services were running. Maybe something is timing out during that welcome screen. God knows what. Event log of the boot time hardly reports degradation of a service/start up item.

 

Listen, I know that usually people should reinstall Windows every year to have fast system. It works for XP and Vista. Windows 7 is less struggling in time but still you can make it work slow if you are making a lot of changes in it.

If you really want good working fast system then I suggest you to download distributive with integrated updates, install it, register using your key and be happy.
Also at least 2 partitoins: 1 for OS and other for DATA.

 

hmm... I try to make a point of backing up any major downloads and bookmarks and stuff so that I can reinstall windows with at most a half day of resetup... Sometimes it just gets unhappy and reinstalling is way faster than spending weeks trying to troubleshoot that weird BSOD or driver complaint, or the update that now refuses to run, or whatever.

It sounds like that long delay for login has been present since you got the machine? it's probably just a wonky windows install. If so, I don't think there's much to be done but start over.

The 2 partitions thing James mentioned is very helpful for reinstalling since you dont have to worry about data loss.

if reinstalling really isn't possible, microsoft has some suggestions. A lot of these are more for slow systems without video cards (like turning off aero) but there could be something that will help.
Optimize Windows 7 for better performance

 

Hi, what is distributive? I am not sure about making partitions etc. I want to maintain my current windows 7 installation but try and eradicate this 40 second lag on the welcome screen. All other parts of the boot are fine.

Most people replying gave boot times but they have SSDs. Anyone with 7200 rpm drives seeing similar?

 

The more I think about this. Maybe my boot time wasn't always as slow as this. I don't think it was ever great and I remember being dissapointed when I first got the laptop but it wasn't as bad & I could live with it fine. Looking at the event log under 'Diagnostics - performance' kind of confirms this. Early days windows 7 was logging boot time at average of approx 80 seconds whereas now it is regulary around 120 seconds.

I think maybe the boot has slowed a bit as a result of BIOS updates. Dell brought a glut of BIOS updates at one stage. I think originally I had either A03 or A04 with the shipped laptop but I updated with each BIOS update. Everything went smoothly and I have no performance problems or issues once windows has logged in. However I think the last BIOS (or even prior one)update added to the boot time. Although I am only speculating. The actual boot time to the windows login screen is pretty quick (about 20 secs) and once the desktop shows it is reasonable again (takes only 20 - 30 secs to fully load start up items and feel quick and usable). It's just this 30 / 40 second display of the welcome screen that I don't understand. This is the main culprit of the slow boot. It's not as if the hard drive is doing nothing during this period as I can see there is activity. I know having a mechanical hard drive does not help but I can't afford an SSD and I haven't got the time unfortunately to go through a windows 7 fresh install escpecially as so much has been installed /patched etc since that time. My vista (XPS M1730) machine boots slightly faster than this and googling arounds suggests others with mechanical drives & windows 7 (and much lesser specs) do get faster boots than me. I tried logging to the guest account but I get the same welcome screen pause, also happens when doing a clean boot with no start up items and only MS services running.

Once I am actually logged in and if I want to log off or switch user accounts then this problem doesn't happen and I can move to the new account very quickly. No pause on welcome screen presumably as Windows is technically already started. Or if I cold boot and reach the login screen and wait about 30 seconds before logging in then I don't get the welcome screen delay. Suffice to say something is slowing it right down. Unfortunately most people on the forum seem to have SSD drives but I really would like to hear from others with mechanical drives and find out whether they have long-ish boot times. It may just be a characteristic of the alienware M17rx3 laptops that are slow with the mechanical hard drive.

I did think about checking the dell drivers and downloads to ensure all the drivers are upto date. The only one that may not be (although I can't tell but I'm guessing as the driver date is end of April and I got my machine mid-april) is for 'Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver'. Should I run this driver update? Is it even relevant to me? I'm not entirely sure what it is. It sounds like it maybe RAID related which makes me wonder about it's relevance considering I only have a single 750 gb hard drive. I do have a startup item that I believe relates to the Rapid Storage Technology so I guess I do have this driver in my system. It's a stab in the dark but other than that I have no idea how to fix this issue.

Thanks in advance,
Wayne

 

IRST driver is what you really need to be updated. Even for HDD. I will edit soon.

EDIT: what version of this driver do you have now? And what chipset do you have? And when did you buy your laptop? Nobody knows what exact April it is.

EDIT again: Go here http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx?lang=eng and type IRST or Intel RSTY or Intel Rapid. Choose your OS and chipset. Decide what version to download. I suggest you to download F6 drivers. Then unzip them somewhere. Go to device manager, find Intel chipset under IDE/ATAPI controllers, push update and set to search drivers manual. Find that folder you unzipped where and update.

EDIT||| Download Registry Defragmentation and use trial version to defrag registry. Don't forget to back up registry using this program before doing defrag.

 

thats quite okay, since my PC take almost the same time
sometimes it even take like 20 seconds to tell me "You typed a wrong password" at login screen lol

 

That's excellent. Well not excellent but you know what I mean. I updated the IRST but no change. My chipset i believe id already ip to date, in devices it shows as 'Intel Mobile Express Chipset - SATA RAID controller'. Have always been keen to hear what other mechanical drives get. I guess its just the alienware characteristic for windows 7 on non SSD drives. Cheers for your help mate.