New Vaio TZ Too Long to Boot

Hey Guys,

Just bought a new Sony Vaio TZ 150N. I read reviews and expected it to be a bit slower than usual. My only problem with the unit is that it takes about 13 minutes to boot up when I turn it on before i can start using any programs.

Called Sony a few times. I ran all the updates, a virus scan and turned off all programs that are not essential at boot and it still takes 13 minutes to boot.

Any ideas of what is going on? Does anyone else have a similar problem on a TZ? How long does it take you TZ to boot?

Sony now recommends I reformat it. This is a brand new computer. What should I do?

 

get rid of all the bloatware, and the norton if you dont need it. or follow the directions for a clean install, or a semi-clean install in one of the threads here. also, do you have the 4200rpm drive and 1gb of ram? (not sure the specs on that model).

 

Yes, unfortunately, the TZ150N models are unusable in their stock configuration, its unfortunately, normal. Every TZ150N has had your issue.

You have a slow 4200rpm hard drive, only 1gb of ram, a resource hungry OS, AND a TON of Sony bloatware. What else will it equal but horrendous performance?

You need to remove the bloatware/do a clean install of Vista and install 2gb of ram. Or you could install Windows XP.

The good thing is, there's a lot of room to substantially increase the performance in your TZ. Their just extremely slow and bloated down from the factory. And then many will return the machine because it is so slow and they don't know the cause when it is Sony's fault in the 1st place. The TZ150N I used at a Bestbuy was so painfully slow, I wanted to put it out of its misery. Why Sony?

 

I got rid of most of the bloatware. I read the thread on semi-clean install posted on this forum. I am not an expert with computers and do not know how difficult it will be to run a semi-clean install on my own.

 

Is 13 minutes normal? Okay, I understand it is slow, I can live with a 5 minute boot time but 13 minutes seems a bit ridiculous.

I have a feeling something else is wrong...

 

13minutes is not normal. if you follow the guide step by step you shouldnt have any problems.

its just the 4200rpm drive and 1gb of ram isnt enough for vista. well it is, but it'll be slow

 

the tz150 is like a hot blond with nothing under the hood. unless u put some investment into it, its gona look good but play dumb.
should order portable one recovery disk and upgrade to 2gb ram and downgrade to window xp. good luck man

 

Thanks Roor. Should I try to re-format first before trying the semi-clean or do you think that will not help?

 

Thirteen minutes is out of control. I would send it back and have it replaced. If you already deleted most of the bloatware, reformatting is not going to help that long a boot-up time. I think that a normal computer probably takes about three minutes to boot. The SSD TZs boot up in about a minute.

 

According to this review of an optimized (maybe it isn't optimized) TZ170 a cold boot should only take two minutes. Even with only 1GB of RAM your time shouldn't be that different. I recommend installing a 2GB stick of RAM, and doing a clean or semi-clean install. Buying a recovery disc from Portable One (less than $30) would be even easier though.

 

Hey Ken, I've read about these P1 Recovery discs before, but this is the first time that I actually went to check out the site to find them. Do I understand it correctly that with the P1 TZ100 Series Recovery Set (XPP) I can rebuild a TZ1XX completely with Windows XP Pro and drivers already installed?

Wouldn't this solve *everyone's* clean install problems? Or am I missing something here?

 

I believe you need a valid windows key, but otherwise, yes. I have not used the discs before, so you should verify this through Portable One. Let me know what you find out.

Here's the link for anyone interested: http://laptopsinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=P1TZ1XP&Category_Code=

 

TZ170 here, and after removing Norton, boot time was reduced to about 2 minutes. So you might want to try that if you don't want to do a semi clean installl.

 

I already ordered them. Report at five!

 

do clean...there's a big difference compared to semi-clean

 

Hey Guys,

Thank you for all of your input. Spoke to sony late last night. They were not willing to have me send it in until I followed all of their steps.

Our last resort was to reformat. I am going home to start it up again and see. The tech last night actually claimed that sony themselves had link on their web-site to switch over to XP.

Anyways, I will send it in if the reformatting does not help.

Thanks again!

 

I bought a TZ160C (the one w 4200rpm HDD and 1 gig ram) three weeks ago and also found it to be very slow on booting up [edit: but I don't think it was over ten minutes... more like 6-8]. I spent three days deleting the bloatware, once I did that I now find (like Svenster) that I'm down to three minutes from pushing the power button on (about a minute and a half to login and then another minute and a half until the screen does its last flicker).
Edit: I forgot to mention: the FSB is factory defaulted to 400MHz, I increased it to 533MHz.

That said, the two guides here have prompted me to buy an XP pro license and I plan to do a clean downgrade install... and eventually buy a 2 gig SODIMM... and contemplating installing a SSD... the more I read here the more I want to improve this little wonder.

Love my TZ and am glad I found these forums, the amount and depth of information here is great.

 

Welcome to the TZ club, Sam! This is definitely the best little computer on the market, bar none. Enjoy it! I would buy the RAM first (I'm assuming you meant you only had 1GB), because that's the cheapest upgrade that will boost speed the most, after the XP downgrade that is...

 

Thanks uber, I love it already... I have to do a fair bit of travelling so the choice was down to the TZ and the Toshiba R500- I went with the TZ because the screen was sharper and brighter.

I'm not ready yet to replace the HDD with an SSD yet. I'll wait until the warranty runs out before I attempt any surgery :chicken:-