Slow Vista Install

[dalto]

OK, I setup my new machine and installed XP and linux and tested everything out overnight.

All has been great, not performance problems at all. Burn-in tests all good.

Today I decided I was going to do a clean install of Vista

I booted off the Vista CD and it is amazingly slow. It took 30-45 minutes just to get to the part where you can enter your cd key.

Is this normal?

My machine is mid-range machine but I didn't expect a vista install to be this slow.

MSI P6N Platinum
e6420 CPU
4GB DDR2 800
eVGA Superclocked 8800 GTS 320MB
Corsair HX620 CPU

Has anyone seen this before? I have seen several references to slow installation in a google search but no fixes.

 

[dalto]

The install took about 7 hours. It did finish and I am not having any kind of performance problems in Vista but I still do not know why it took so long to install.

I am dreading my next installation of Vista now.

I hope I don't have to reinstall for any reason.

 

[Bozo]

The slow install was caused by having 4GB of RAM.
You need the 64bit versionfor 4GB or more.
If you noticed, your XP install (if it was 32bit) only reported 3.2GB or something like that.

Bozo

 

[dalto]

Hmm....that is strange.

I knew that 32-bit Vista would not be able to see all the memory but I did not expect it to cause such performance challenges during install.

Why does extra unusable RAM cause the install program to struggle?

 

[Tarrant64]

From what I've read I thought the deal with the slow transfer rates is that there weren't any drivers for your hard drive during the install, as that can cause major performance problems. However, after the install it is likely that the proper drivers were installed, causing things to run much faster.

 

[uallas5]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
From what I've read I thought the deal with the slow transfer rates is that there weren't any drivers for your hard drive during the install, as that can cause major performance problems. However, after the install it is likely that the proper drivers were installed, causing things to run much faster.

This happened with me as well on my Asrock Dual SATA board when running the drive on the SATA2 connector and the drivers Vista had. When I switched to the reg sata it flew.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Bozo
The slow install was caused by having 4GB of RAM.
You need the 64bit versionfor 4GB or more.
If you noticed, your XP install (if it was 32bit) only reported 3.2GB or something like that.

Bozo

While the address range will be an issue there will not be a performance penalty for this.

It also sounds like a driver and DMA issue. If you want you can give Vista the drivers during setup using floppy or USB or something and see if that solves the problem.

 

[Bad Dude]

It does not seem like you have a mid range system. More like higher range I would say with all the hardware.

 

[Bozo]

Originally posted by: dalto
Hmm....that is strange.

I knew that 32-bit Vista would not be able to see all the memory but I did not expect it to cause such performance challenges during install.

Why does extra unusable RAM cause the install program to struggle?

Don't know for sure. I had the same problem with an Intel DG965WH motherboard. Remove 2Gb of RAM and the total install took ~30 minutes.

Bozo