T420+mSATA 40GB (Intel 310), boot time 35s, normal?

Hi,

I used the Recovery Discs to install Windows 7 to a 40GB mSATA. So, I didn't use UEFI for BIOS. The boot time of my computer is now 35s. I definite boot time as from the moment I swipe my finger to the FPR to the moment the computer stop working in Windows 7. Do you think it is normal? I read some have <20s boot time with UEFI+clean install. Do you think the extra 15s I have is due to UEFI, or because of the FPR that I used?

Thanks!!

Yee Kan

 

The process of swiping your finger to the system will definitely add time to your startup regardless whether its UEFI or not, not to mention loading all the required components to initiate the fingerprint login service. I wouldn't really worry about it to be honest.

 

The FP reader slows things down a bit. Any ThinkVantage software you don't use that may be loading at startup is probably prolonging the process as well, and since you went from the recovery discs, there should be quite a bit installed unless you've removed it.

 

I tried to remove the requirements to input password (and hence FPR) during start up. It reduces the boot time to ~30s. So, UEFI and clean installation reduces the boot time for another 10s... Oh, need to find a Window 7 Discs!!

 

so lenovo now uses UEFI instead of BIOS? is that for all the thinkpads or just certain models?

 

The latest gen ThinkPads has an option between UEFI/BIOS startup. I think by default the Lenovo images uses the BIOS setup, but the option is there should someone want to do an UEFI setup (mainly for the enthusiasts really).

 

I exchanged my intel 320 for a 510 and did a clean install using the UEFI only option. In my opinion, if you are just looking for system that works without troubleshooting, skip the UEFI only option. There are incompatibility issues, especially with some of Lenovo specific drivers and software. Here are some of the issues that I encountered:

- FPR works with just the driver but not with Lenovo's version of the driver so if you want the cold boot fp scan to bypass password, it won't let you boot up your system

- thinkvantage update is not compatible and won't install any updates. It will go as far as finding them and downloading them but it will come back as unable to update and require manually updating them one by one.

- As I implemented updates in a batch and restarted the system, I would get the blue screen and give me bootloops. I don't know and didn't care to find out what exactly was causing the incompatibility issues as I was clear that Lenovo specific drivers weren't playing nice with this setup.

- Once I got the system all updated with the drivers, I ran a benchmark on the ssd just to make sure its working properly and the reads were as expected but there was a significant drop in writes. At this point I just decided that I didn't want to spend any more time dealing with a fix for this and reinstalled the OS using the default setting with legacy.

Each time that I got bsod, what worked in getting the system to boot again was going back into Bios and changing UEFI only to Legacy and going back to a previous restore point.

All this trouble to shave a few seconds on my ssd's performance is not worth it at this time. Legacy works just fine and ssd is just as fast.

I apologize if I don't have any more detailed explanations of the issues and troubleshooting but it was just late and wanted to get this done with.

 

Yep, you have the option to use exclusively UEFI on the latest Thinkpads. I don't really notice BIOS being all that much slower, though--my X120e clears BIOS in like less than two seconds so I don't really see much room for it to be even faster.

In my experience, any password/fingerprint login system slows down Windows boot by quite a bit. My Thinkpads boot noticeably faster without password protection, even discounting the time it takes me to type it in.

 

Re: "- As I implemented updates in a batch and restarted the system, I would get the blue screen and give me bootloops. I don't know and didn't care to find out what exactly was causing the incompatibility issues as I was clear that Lenovo specific drivers weren't playing nice with this setup."

The BSOD happened probably because you had installed the HD driver before SP1.

One more thing to add to your list is that after some device drivers are installed (e.g. USB thumb drive), Windows will ask whether you want to reboot. However, I am not 100% positive it's because of the UEFY Only.

Other than that, I haven't had problems with UEFI Only and I used the latop in UEFI Only mode for a few weeks. Also I have to admit that I don't have the FPR.

 

Ya, Lenovo uses the legacy BIOS mode by default because there are problems with their UEFI implementation. A Lenovo employee mentions this here. He says:

So if you require a reliable system, you should stay away from UEFI on Lenovo's notebooks until they sort out their bugs.

 

I am running in UEFI-only mode and have not had this problem. I did a clean install of Windows 7 Enterprise x64 (SP1 integrated by Microsoft), and while I did install a number of drivers manually, I have installed a few components via TVSU with no issues so far.

Note: I do not have the fingerprint reader. I know of the bug though, and do agree that anyone with the reader either needs to stick with Legacy BIOS mode, or needs to turn off the FP reader until further notice.

 

Ferganer, I read your other thread and made sure to follow your instructions on clean install with UEFI only and didn't intall Intel HD drivers until SP1 was installed.