My windows vista seems to pause for ages on a black screen during boot up ?

I have a sony vaio laptop that runs windows vista ultimate 32 bit, when i start my laptop all is quick at the beginning as i get the black screen with the Vaio symbol but then it goes to a solid black screen and flashes and then stays there for a good minute without doing anything, even the hard drive indicator doesn`t do anything during that minute. After that the hard drive indicator starts again and Vista carries on loading.

Any ideas why the boot up pauses at that point for a whole minute without doing anything ?

 

This is a Vista issue. And I think it's normal. Vista hogs a lot of resources. Win7 fixes these issues and the beta version loads 50% faster for me than Vista.

But, you can try to defrag your boot sectors and see if that helps. Info on how to do that is here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2737834&highlight=gary

 

Thanks Grasshopper, i`ll give it a go. When it says make sure nothing is running when you do that defrag does it mean turning things like anti virus and firewall off etc ?

 

no you can leave those thing running

 

Do you have any external USB devices plugged in?

Did you disable the Readyboost service?

 

I have a wireless mouse that uses a usb dongle, whats Readyboost and where do i find if its enabled or not ? Forgive me as i`m not an expert at this.

 

That method didn`t work as its still the same, ive done 3 re boots since and its still pausing for 1 minute on a solid black screen during the boot.

 

Vista should take 45 seconds flat to load to the log in screen and another 10-15sec for the desktop to load.

Try taking out the USB dongle and see if it loads any faster..

If you dont know where to toggle readyboost then you dont need to worry about it.

 

I'm not 100% certain but I think the black screen has something to do with vista looking for an external monitor, you can disable it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

1. Disable TMM (TY and Rep NinjaNoodles)

This tweak is responsible cutting system start time 3-5 seconds and eliminating that blank screen flash when you start Vista. This normally occcurs when Vista searches for external monitors on startup of Vista. If you are not using an external monitor, or dont switch back and forth always...turn TMM off.

Here's how to fix that annoying black flicker on boot:

1. Go start/control panel/administrative options/task scheduler.
2. On the left-hand side, click "Task Scheduler Local" (you should already be there, but just in case).
Expand "Task Scheduler Library," then "Microsoft," then "Windows," then click "MobilePC."
Up top, you'll see a task called "TMM." Click it, and on the right-hand side, click "Disable."

If you use an external monitor occasionally as I do, just press and hold FN and press F8 twice to switch monitors.

 

Flipfire, where did you get that value from? 45 seconds to load... my Vaio SZ takes about 2 minutes (last time I timed it)
Also: It depends a lot on the hardwre.

Anyway - I'm wondering if my mothers Medion didn't have the black screen too...

Clean up all your temporary files (maybe even restore points)
(clean up registry if you're comfortable with it - I think you better don't though!)
Defragment the OS-drive (generally C) fully
Then defragent boot files

See if that changes anything

Readyboost is useful if you have less than 3GB of RAM - it can be disabled under Services

@ Carrot Muncher - the TMM function generally loads after log in (default setting)

 

I timed it.. on a clean install it does like 30 seconds

Heres an old vid: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8DykP8DLwQ

 

Then possibly because your computer is quite powerful. (-> new expensive hardware)

I couldn't ever immagine any of our laptops booting in 30 odd seconds.

(Anyway...this is off topic)

 

my laptop boots in 40 seconds. but then again, i'm on an ssd.


but, ontopic. if it waits for long and the hd doesn't blink, it may wait for some timeout. check your event logs if something messed up while booting, some service that didn't start, driver that didn't load, or what ever. it does normally black out for some seconds max.

is the blackout+wait before or after the green loading bar? i guess before?.

another thing: if you can, disable everything from cdrom to other stuff in the bios and check, if it still takes that long. maybe some hardware initialisation lagging.

last idea: install vista again, but with a clean cd (including sp1 at best). not a repair cd from the notebook. but that'll be quite some manual work with drivers afterwards, i'd guess.

 

Run a diagnostic on your hdd to see if it's beginning to fail - if it is, bad sectors might be beginning to corrupt some of the files. Also, check in the event logs to see if any warnings or errors are being logged.

 

Sony Vaios always have crapware on it.

Should do a clean install.

 

Ähm... in response to who's post?

And by the way - clean installs don't have to be faster - they may end up slower. Some people actually say their original OS installation seemed optimised in comparison to a clean instal.

Also: You can just as well tidy up - it works for many people.
(As for XP - I never managed to get my XP professional laptop to be more efficient than my mother's Medion - now, XP clean installed x times - the Medion - same installation for over 3 years...)

 

Well I'm just saying, clean installs fix a lot of problems

And 45 second is pretty high so *Shrugs*

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2160&page=5

Ignoring the readyboost part, you can see how fast it should be!

 

I wonder what they actually did.

An how they did it.

Also: Are these laptop or Desktop values?
Then: How fastwas the HDD, how fast was the RAM?

Also: Which version of Vista did they load? Home Basic?

 

Its after, i switch on my laptop and as normal you are greeted with the Vaio logo and the intel logo on a black background, next it goes to the microsoft image with the green loading bar.

Its after that that it flickers and goes to a solid black screen, it flickers again and stays on a solid black screen for at least a minute, probably a bit longer. After that its normal where it goes to the login part with my password, its the big pause for over a minute thats a bit frustrating where it does nothing.

Here is a HD tune test on my drives, i know they are slow 4200rpm ones but that shouldn`t cause that big pause during load up where it stays on a black screen for over a minute.

Temperatures:

CPU 51 °C (124 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 45 °C (113 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 46 °C (115 °F)
GPU Diode 61 °C (142 °F)

 

The flickering suggests the possibility that there might be a conflict or error with the video drivers, which could cause the system to slow down while it tries to resolve the conflict. Have you checked your event logs to see if there's anything related to bootup being logged?

 

No it is NOT normal. My Sony FZ190 cold boots to a log in screen in 35 seconds. The issue of a black scren with no disk access is the key point here.

Gary

 

No, that is an issue AFTER starts loading. His problem is there is no hard drive activity for a minute BEFORE Vista starts to load.

Gary

P.S. I see in a subsequent message from Stig that the stop IS actually after the Vista green bars appear. But one minute seems really long for a TMM issue.

 

Sorry, I don't buy that at all. I'd like to see some facts to back that up. There is just no way a clean install would be slower.

Gary

 

Maybe you need to change the boot order in the bios to boot off the hard drive first? i doubt that's your problem, but hey, wouldn't hurt to check it.

I have an issue of a black screen after vista loads but before the welcome screen, which i have found it was because of nvidia drivers. Without the drivers, it goes straight to the welcome screen, but after installing the nvidia drivers, there's an ungodly long black screen before it goes to the welcome screen.

 

Ah, now that is VERY different from what you first said. So, Vista is starting to load and you get the green bars and THEN you get the one minute black screen. Much different kettle of fish.

It does sound reminiscent of the TMM issue, but that seems like a VERY long time for that. There are some boot log files that Vista creates and some diagnostics for reviewing them. Try this link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=246

Be prepared to dig through a LOT of details when looking at your logs but I think you will be able to pinpoint what is transpiring during that minute using the Event Viewer as outlined in the article.

Gary

 

My black screen i think is happening at the same point as yours, mine happens just before the windows vista globe appears of which it goes straight to the log in screen with your password details..

1. Start my laptop and i get the normal greeting of my Vaio and Intel logos on a black background.

2. It then switches screen within seconds to the microsoft bar indicater screen where the green bar moves back and too across the screen.

3. After about 15-20 seconds of the microsoft green bar indicator screen it then flashes to a solid black screen with nothing on it, i then get another quick blink of the screen and it stays on a solid black screen them for just over a minute roughly. The drive indicator then stops working solid, ive seen a very faint flash from the hard drive indicator during this time but its virtually not showing any activity.

4. After the pause of just over a minute the drive indicator comes back to life and starts to work solid again and then my screen changes to the Windows Vista globe then quickly onto the screen for my password details, after putting in my password it takes about 15 seconds to the desktop and then i get a very quick blink/flash and then the desktop comes back.

The hard drive seems to carry on working for quite a long time after the desktop has loaded, sometimes around 4/5 mins after.

 

Well, my clean XP installation (however professional against Home) was alwys running about 15 processes more than the factory default.
And that was an old laptop where every process less meant more speed.