not so fast boot up

[MidNiteMysT]

when i first built this computer i thought ide have a much faster boot time then my old comp, but its not that quick. i read a lot about some people having a pretty quick boot time. i think my computer is pretty quick relative to other computers out.

3.2 640 pentium 4
1 gig ram 4300
raptor hard drive
bios in "fast boot mode" which cuts out the test of the ram
i dont have a floppy so i disabled that in bios
intel motherboard that can support pentium EE processors, 800fsb and 1066 for EE processors

what can i do to speed it up? it take about a minute to boot up. it should be at least half that. i already took a few services out of msconfig and have practically nothing in the start up tab.

what do you guys suggest?

 

[mgob]

is the lag part after windows starts to load up or before?

 

[Nothinman]

Why not hibernate and skip most of the bootup process altogether?

 

[MidNiteMysT]

Originally posted by: mgob
is the lag part after windows starts to load up or before?

before, its when it says windows xp and has the loading bars under it. im actually gonna use a stop watch and see how long it takes exactly for bios, and then windows and all the stages.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

ok, heres the run down

from the instant i press the button till bios finishes loading, it takes 14 seconds, the graphics card load up thing takes about 10 of those seconds

then from 14 to 42, its the windows logo with the loading bars under it

then from 42 to 1:02 minutes, its the blue screen with "welcome"

then another 5 more seconds for the desktop to fully load

so thats a total of about 1:07 minutes to boot up fully from a full power down.

and my boot partition is defragged

 

[firewall]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Why not hibernate and skip most of the bootup process altogether?

 

[MidNiteMysT]

Originally posted by: asadasif

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Why not hibernate and skip most of the bootup process altogether?

i dont like to keep it in hibernate. takes up hard drive space and i do need to boot up the computer fresh sometimes. i like to shut it down when i go to sleep.

 

[firewall]

Then turn on the PC a minute or two before you actually sit down to use it......

 

[SleepWalkerX]

What transfer mode does your hard drive run as?

 

[bigpow]

- disable all unused IDE/SATA channels, serial ports, etc.
- assign static IP to network interface, disable the others
- disable unused services
- use bootvis to see which process is causing the long boot up

was it a clean install or an upgrade?

 

[Nothinman]

i dont like to keep it in hibernate. takes up hard drive space and i do need to boot up the computer fresh sometimes. i like to shut it down when i go to sleep.

Hibernation shuts the machine completely off and saves your state, so it'll save you more time because when you boot it up it'll restore from the hibernation file and all of your apps will be right where you left them.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
What transfer mode does your hard drive run as?

how can i find that out?

- disable all unused IDE/SATA channels, serial ports, etc.
- assign static IP to network interface, disable the others
- disable unused services
- use bootvis to see which process is causing the long boot up

was it a clean install or an upgrade?

yea, im gonna go into bios again and look it over once more to make sure i dont have bios looking for stuff that i dont have. and it was a clean install.

Hibernation shuts the machine completely off and saves your state, so it'll save you more time because when you boot it up it'll restore from the hibernation file and all of your apps will be right where you left them.

i know what hibernation does.

 

[Nothinman]

i know what hibernation does.

then you're an idiot for complaining about startup times even though you won't use the one thing that will actually save you time.

 

[tyanni]

I agree with Nothingman - whats a little hard drive space these days? You're actually complaining about the space hibernation takes?

 

[MidNiteMysT]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

i know what hibernation does.

then you're an idiot for complaining about startup times even though you won't use the one thing that will actually save you time.

well, people do need to start up their computers from a complete shut down stupid ass. theres no need for name calling. it calls for un needed arguements. i asked how to improve start up times, not alternatives to getting to the desktop. in that case, i would just leave the computer running 24/7 and have instant access. i dont really care for the gigabyte of hard drive space it takes up, i just simply dont want to use it as an alternative to starting up my computer.

simply put, answer my question about boot time performance, or dont reply at all. im well aware of the alternatives.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: MidNiteMysT
ok, heres the run down

then from 14 to 42, its the windows logo with the loading bars under it

Delete the contents of your windows\prefetch folder.

 

[Nothinman]

well, people do need to start up their computers from a complete shut down stupid ass

And for those rare instances you can deal with waitin a minute for it to boot, the rest of the time you can restore from hibernation and save yourself tons of time.

I would be curious to hear why you think you need to do full reboots for anything other than hardware changes or some software installs.

i asked how to improve start up times, not alternatives to getting to the desktop.

I consider turning on the power and resuming from hibernation starting up, the same result is accomplished only in a better way.

in that case, i would just leave the computer running 24/7 and have instant access.

If you want to turn it off at night that's probably to save power or cut down on noise. If you don't care about leaving it on 24x7 why are you worried about boot times?

i dont really care for the gigabyte of hard drive space it takes up, i just simply dont want to use it as an alternative to starting up my computer.

Then I stand by my original comment.

 

[crispy2010]

I have used tunexp in the past, it seems to speed up boot time quite a bit!

 

[MidNiteMysT]

nothinman, just shut up and stop replying to my thread. im not looking to get into an arguement, i just want an answer to my question and not alternatives. thanx.

its not like i stare at my computer screen while its booting up, i usually turn it on, do something, then come back. im just curious as to how these people boot up their systems so quickly when i think i have a pretty current system. i will consider using hibernate for the instances where i leave my computer for about an hour or more. but ide still like an answer to my question which other people are helping me with. maybe the answer to this question could help me improve system performance because of a setting i overlooked. thats also why i would like to know.

Delete the contents of your windows\prefetch folder.

ill try that and see what happens

 

[MidNiteMysT]

just looked at bios.

what is "sata ahci mode" and should i be using it?

and also, whats:
legacy audio
pciex16link retrain
pxe boot to lan e

?

 

[MidNiteMysT]

cleared the prefetch and tried it out. as well as edit an option or two in bios. took about 15 seconds off my boot time. yay!

 

[mehmetmunur]

Msconfig is your best friend. There are a lot of services that you do not need that waste a lot of your resouces and your time. if you are not doing a lot of searches on your harddrive, disable indexing, which I read to be a resource hog, you can also disable services such as wireless zero configuration if you are just using your ethernet instead of 802.11a/b/g. Some other stuff that I find useless (though most of this is very subkective), error reporting service, fast user switching, IMAPI cd burning bs, TCP/IP netbios helper, netmeeting remote desktop, most of the remote desktop stuff, windows firewall/ICS, telephony, windows media connect, security center etc. I was able to decrease the memory footprint of XP to about 72MB so that it would work fine on an AMD K6-366 on 198MBs of ram. You should be able to go through all those services and find out what they really do and see if you need them. Less you have to transfer from your hd to your ram, the short it takes to start up.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

i already have a few services taken out, but i took out the additional stuff you recommended. i think my boot time is good now. i dont need any faster then that.

ide just like to know what those bios settings are for, especially the one about the sata mode.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: MidNiteMysT
cleared the prefetch and tried it out. as well as edit an option or two in bios. took about 15 seconds off my boot time. yay!

Actually, no it didn't. I'm wrong and clearing the prefetch folder did not help your boot time. I thought I was correct and when you timed it you even had me convinced.

However, according to this guy we are both wrong:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=34&threadid=1709252&enterthread=y

:roll:

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: MidNiteMysT

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
What transfer mode does your hard drive run as?

how can i find that out?

Sorry for taking so long to respond. At the run prompt type "devmgmt.msc" to go to device manager. Then look under IDE controllers (assuming you're running an ide hard drive) and look under either the primary or secondary controller (whichever you're hard drive is on), double-click on one, and go to advanced settings. The transfer mode should be listed. If its set as PIO then try to set it to DMA if available.