ENVY 14: Boot Time LOG

It's a lot faster. I have the 160GB SSD and booting from hibernation only takes a few seconds, 10 seconds at most. From shutdown it takes maybe 20-30 at most. But I did notice it booted faster after a clean install. Having a SSD is a great performance boost overall.

 

38 seconds - from power button push to when the coursor gets rid of the loading signal. Plus I had to type in the password. its about 30 seconds to icons.
clean Install
160gb SSD
i5-450
4gb 1 DIMM
AC

Something is definitely wrong with the ATI driver, my boots were about half that time before I installed the ATI driver.

 

Which release? Is your wireless working out of the box without hacking?

 

10.3 for me and yes

 

Thanks. I had issues with a Debian-based release.

 

Thats known to not actually DO anything.

 

Startup takes 38 seconds

i5 450
4GB RAM
500GB 7200RPM HD
A/C power

Factory install, all bloatware uninstalled and all instances removed from computer and registry.

I don't want to do a fresh install right now, I've heard too many problems.

 

45 seconds: icons (including typing password)
52 seconds: no more loading logo on cursor

i5 430
6GB RAM
640GB 5400RPM HDD
A/C Power

This is with a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate but I've been using it for a week and installing a lot of programs on it - 16 pinned applications. Most of my installed programs are not pinned to task bar. Updated ATI driver to latest (after installing HP drivers of course).

Dang, you guys' boot times really put mine to shame.

 

For some reason when i run bootime and it restarts, it doesn't give me any notification.

 

My "starting windows" screen lingered for too long (about 30-40 secs) when I first got my E14. I assumed it was due to the bloatware and especially HP QuickWeb. After uninstalling the QuickWeb, among most other stuff, and cleaning my registry with CCleaner, my boot-up time, inexplicably, slowed even further - the "starting windows" screen lasts about just as long as before but the other start-up processes following it now last longer, about 2-2 1/2 mins. versus 1 min. before. What could be the issue(s)? Thanks.

 

Did you check BIOS? Anything goofy going on in there?

 

What should I look for in there? What I'm concerned with is that it's now taking longer for everything to load up once the desktop shows.

 

Me neither...

 

No one here has swapped the HDD for a sandforce drive?

 

Using the utility on the first post I get 32.682s. I'll try and get it into the 20s now.

Oh - 120GB OCZ Vertex2E SSD, i5-460M, 8GB Ram...

Edit - Disabled Aero, got it down to 27.159s.

 

Using BootTimer, I'm getting 36-40 seconds, which seems a bit high with an SSD, but not terrible.

 

Boot Time: 34.56 seconds
Clean win 7 install or stock install: Clean Minimal Install
Storage: 256GB SSD
Processor: Core i5-560M
RAM: 8GB
Power: A/C

 

33 seconds to desktop
Clean Win 7 install
Crucial 128Gb SSD
i5 2.4Ghz
8Gb
Battery


Quite slow!
15 seconds, Acer 1820ptz
16 Seconds, Asus EP121

 

35 seconds to desktop, including loading about 11 startup apps.

7 second shut down

 

23 seconds to desktop
28 seconds to internet/network connected
i7 1.6ghz
120gb intel x25-m g2
6gb ram
clean install windows 7 ultimate
a/c power

 

well it's slow because windows does some weird stuff and takes like 10 to 15 extra seconds due to the switchable graphics.

not much we can do about it.

edit: well windows or the bios does some weird stuff. dunno which it is.

 

Around 38 seconds.

i5-580
8GB
Intel X25-M 120GB
AC
booting into discrete graphics
Clean install

 

Interesting how my HDD boots about as fast as most SDDs...

BTW, I'm using this guide to speed up my boot:

How to speed up boot process under Windows Vista or Windows 7 - MSFN Forum

(Warning, for HDDs only)

 

This is only true because of the Intel HD driver glitch in the Envy 14.

For an Envy 14 with an Intel X-25M 160GB SSD, the computer enters Windows 7 before the globes on the "Starting Windows" screen form the flag.

The big caveat is that Windows must be running on the "General VGA Graphics" drivers, instead of the buggy Intel HD Drivers!

 

After re-installing Windows 7 four times after getting my HP Envy 14 last month. My aim was to achieve the ultimate HP Envy 14 speed daemon. I thought I would summarise my observations so that we can get HP to fix what appears to be a common issue with the HP Envy 14 series:


Current state of my Envy 14
Envy 14-1002tx base (Core i5 520 cpu)
8GB of RAM DDR3
Intel X-25M 160GB SSD Generation 2 (Trim Enabled)
Other components are stock.

Boot time: Approximately 10 seconds to Windows Desktop.

Boot time based on "Starting Windows Screen": Enters Windows when the globes line up in an arc to form the Windows Flag (Yeah, that damn fast).


BIOS settings:
- Disable 'HP Quickweb boot'.
- POST wait is 0.


Windows: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Clean Install

Graphics Driver: Standard VGA Graphics Adapter Driver from Microsoft

Installed Software:
- LAN & WAN
- Intel Chipset and Intel Rapid Storage (this resulted in a boot performance increase and installed named drivers for the SSD)
- All required Windows Updates except for .NET updates and SP1.
- ZoneAlarm
- Microsoft Security Essentials

Problems:
- No LCD brightness adjust panel in Windows Mobility Center, as there is no Intel HD driver to manipulate the monitor.
- Windows Experience Index shows 1.0 (lowest score) for Graphics.
- No Windows Aero.



Observations of Current State

Boot time increases occur as follows:

- Installation of Intel HD Driver: Add 14 seconds to boot time. This is clear because the "Starting Windows Screen" freezes at the point in time it is ready to enter Windows (see globes line up above), and then the screen hangs for 14 seconds. I installed and re-installed the Intel HD driver about 20 times, and reproduced this result each and every time. There is a serious issue either the Intel HD hardware and this driver, or there is an issue in Hybrid / Switchable Graphics between the Intel HD software and the AMD hardware which is loaded by that software.

- Installation of HP 3D Guard: Add 10 seconds to boot time. In any event, SSDs do not need this protection, so doesn't need to be installed.

- Installation of Beats Audio Software: Add 1-2 seconds. Again, not sure if there is any use for this software, so doesn't need to be installed.

- Installation of Synaptics Touchpad Software: Add 0.5 seconds.



Attempt to Resolve Problems 1

Method: Install latest Intel / AMD drivers from HP website.

Failure: Boot time increased each time.


Attempt to Resolve Problems 2

Method: Install latest Intel / AMD drivers from HP website. Then, uninstall the AMD driver using Device Manager.

Failure: Boot time increased each time.


Attempt to Resolve Problems 3

Method: Install latest Intel / AMD drivers from HP website. Then, uninstall the Intel driver using Device Manager.

Failure: Because the Intel driver appears to load the AMD hardware, removal of the Intel driver disabled the Switchable Graphics. We were back to a notebook with a 'Standard VGA Graphics Adapter'.


Attempt to Resolve Problems 4

Method: Download other versions of the Intel HD driver and install.

Failure: Tried various versions, and boot time increased each time. Versions tried:

- All Intel / AMD versions from HP website;
- All Intel versions from Intel website;
- One Intel version from Lenovo website (this would not install).


Attempt to Resolve Problems 5

Method: Attempt to use the Advanced Bios Menu (F10 + A), to change the Graphics mode from 'Hybrid' to use the ATI HD Radeon 5650 only. This is done by setting 'Hybrid' to 'dGPU'.

Failure: On restart, BIOS changes the 'dGPU' setting back to 'Hybrid'. It is not workable to manually set 'dGPU' every time.



Attempt to Resolve Problems 6

Method: Attempt to use the Advanced Bios Menu (F10 + A) to disable the Intel HD graphics.

Failure: Could not locate a setting to disable the built-in CPU graphics.



Attempt to Resolve Problems 7

Method: Attempt to use the Advanced Bios Menu (F10 + A) to disable ATI Radeon 5650.

Failure: Successfully disabled Radeon 5650 by disabling all PCI Express ports in the Advanced BIOS Menu (including WAN and LAN. Doh!). However, boot time still increased each time.



Based on my Attempts, my deduction is that the Radeon 5650 is not the cause of the 14 second boot freeze. Even with the AMD hardware disabled, the boot time has been present.

As such, my observation is that there is either a conflict between Intel HD hardware and the driver. Or there is an issue with how the Intel HD hardware has been customised by HP/Intel for Switchable Graphics.

Thanks,

DarkIllusion

 

I think I'll wait the 30 extra seconds for three hours of battery life. I guess it would be cool for the i7 owners.

 

Holy cow batman, darkillusions you're my hero. I was wondering why it takes so freakin long to boot the envy when I used the same SSD on my old acer and got a 12 sec boot time.

ATI really screwed up big time here with the switchable graphics/intel graphics thing. I hypothesize that it is the same issue that causes such crappy battery life with our Envy despite every other core i5 laptop I've used can get about 6 hours with a 59WHr battery while we can barely squeeze past 4.
At idle, power consumption when ATI is turned on is about equal to when ATI is turned off. So there must be some really dumb driver issue that
1. Tries to use both intel and ATI at startup, causing extra long boot time
2. Can't completely power off ATI even in integrated gfx mode, causing unnecessary power drain.

If using nVidia's first gen switchable graphics (non-optimus, on an Asus UL50vt) taught me anything, is that the driver support for these is pretty much non-existent. They just put together something that has marginal functionality right off of the box but nothing more after that. We can hope for a driver fix for all the bugs, but it'll never come. ATI needs to get off of its butt and cook up something to compete with optimus, ALONG WITH the driver support.

 

Did you notice a difference in battery life using the VGA graphics?

 

@DarkIllusion

thank you for spending the time testing the various options Great work.

 

My guess is that the maximum brightness screen on the Standard VGA Graphics will drain the battery, but this could be offset by the Intel HD Graphics running on baseline performance.

I have installed the Osiris BatteryBar as per the Envy 14 Battery Log thread, and after measurement will post specific results in that thread.

No problem. We are all owners of the Envy 14, and in this together. Anything to avoid rework, and try to find solutions.

 

Has anyone tried not installed integrated graphics? And straight installing the discrete drivers?

 

Please see my 'Attempt to Resolve Problems 3'. In a nutshell, the Intel HD graphics driver contains the code to initiate the discrete drivers. So the latter does not work without the former.

 

38 seconds from button pushing to desktop icons displayed. (BootTimer says 31 seconds)

Clean Win 7 Home Premium install
120GB SSD (+ 500GB HDD)
i5 450M
4GB RAM
AC or battery makes no difference

Just 7 Startup apps:
envyTouchPad, BatteryBar, Microsoft Security Client (MSE?),
HP Wireless Assistant, DLCFCATS (printer driver?),
HotKeysCmds (needed?) and SynTPEnh (Synaptics driver?)

Similar spec Acer TimelineX 3820TG in the Post your Windows 7 Boot Time thread boots in about 15 seconds. Grrr

 

HP did something dumb with the switchable graphics when making the motherboard/bios/whatever.

slternatively it could also just be the UEFI bios being a bit slow too, I dunno.

 

I timed mine last night 30.1 seconds

Clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate
Core I7
500gb 7200rpm HD
4Gb Ram

When I started it was 54 seconds but I did an O&O boot time defrag and took a few things out of start up. I think this is about as fast as I can make it without getting a SSD.

 

wow very nice 30.1 seconds with hdd

 

Yeah, like I said it is a very clean install. I did a full defrag of the HD then did a separate boot time defrag. 5 or 6 seconds of my boot is the BIOS splash screen and a couple of seconds to type in my password to log in. I think it is about as streamlined as it can be.
I am thinking if I had a SSD i could get it into the low 20's, but seeing as my 500gb is already full, SSD is not an option.

 

32.76s with i580 6gb ram 256gb ssd optical drive first boot and clean install.

Got it down to 30s with optical drive off

 

i did clean install with ssd.. before the switchable graphics driver, windows started before the four orbs could come together to make the windows logo. but now after the ati/intel driver it pauses at the logo for about 10 seconds..

 

that's just how the computer is.

hp/ati/intel or all three screwed up somewhere and made the bios and/or windows (probably just windows) spend like 10 seconds checking stuff (initializing the gpu or whatever)

 

Hey guys, I have the Envy CTO 1100. i7 with ati 5650 and 7200 RPM HDD 6 GB RAM.

I am getting some quick boot times but only when I am not connected to the network. If I have wifi off and no ethernet plugged in, Boot time ~ 30s... SWEET! That is after POST no GUI, type in pass and to desktop. Plug in ethernet and boot time takes a dive to anywhere between 50s - 1min +.. !? Stranger still, what happens is after password it takes forever with the welcome circle and then boots to a gray screen. I see my cursor but nothing else. After some time, desktop! I have run all kinds of checks, event logs and what not, can't seem to find anything. No baddies seem to be residing on here or anything so... ??? Looking at the event log, I can see that plugged vs. unplugged is pretty even up until winlogon. It takes plugged the additional time there. Don't really know what's going on. Boot logs show all the same drivers either loading or not. I can't seem to find any relevant errors that show on one that don't on the other.. ARG!

 

huh...

maybe there's some check in the bios for internet stuff.

 

I didn't find anything in the bios that looked like it would affect anything. I looked in the advanced BIOS (f10 + a) and I don't have the hp quickboot entry. Nothing else looks like it would help. Either way, it's after POST not during. It definitely feels like something going on with the OS. Can some of you guys maybe do some timed tests with nets and without to see if it changes anything.... Or if anyone has any idea of what might be causing this, maybe even some specific tips on the BIOS settings that I should be looking at.

 

Do you have network boot set as first in your boot list?

Maybe the Envy doesn't even have that option

 

Just double checked and Boot on Lan is in fact Disabled.

 

I have the same exact thing happening. Longer boot times and get screen before desktop loss. It happened right around the time I updated to sp1 and some other driver update. Check your update log and see when you updated to sp1 and if that is around the time it stated happening for you. Could be total coincidence on the sp1 but it never used to do this regardless of whether or not I had any wireless on.

 

I got about 34 sec from the HP logo to windows login screen.

Specs :

i520m
8GB
160 GB SSD
Clean Install

 

I can't really remember when it started happening. I have been crazy busy so when this quirk popped up, I just ignored it and kept moving on. Then I got tired of really long boot times. My dell 1420 never took this long to boot, so finally I started poking around. Still haven't figured it out. I was trying to figure out how to go about maybe disabling my net card and then having a script run at the end of boot to enable it once the desktop has been reached. Work has come flooding back in so, I will have to make do with just remembering to unplug the net cable and have wifi off until all booted. sigh...