PC boot up time taking 5 mins+ ????

danmanchester

T4i wrote:

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/download.php?request=HdTach-3.0

Try this to test your HDD speed. Did you notice if the HDD light goes inactive during bootup?

---

As a comparison.....

HD Tach reports;
Random Access : 15ms
CPU % : 0%
Avg Read : 49.5mb/s
Burst Speed : 79.7mb/s

Just ran a HD tach scan:

random access = 19.1 ms
average read = 24.4 MB/s
burst speed = 44.5 MB/s

T4i

Looks like your ATA is UDMA2/3 then. Still shouldnt take 5-6mins to boot....

Have you ever scanned your registry? Something is messed up..

Joe_Bloggs

The HD is no slouch . Try booting with disabled network support just to prove it the network connections or programs trying to use them are a problem. My machine at work tries to contact Grisoft, of AVG fame, to update its data base on bootup. This is before the Zone Alarm firewall software has a chance to even run. Fortunately it gets through and has not caused problems.
J_B.

Stabilo

It is quite rare (in my experience) that hardware components suddenly slow down a PC. Generally the components (HDD, VDU etc) either work or they don't. I understand HDD's can be set to run faster but these settings (bios etc) are not encountered by the average user.
Software problems are the main cause of slow running PC's especially if you include software cluttering up HDD requiring a defrag. Antivirus software is the main culprit. We realise our PC's are vulnerable without it but they can run painfully slow with it.

I recently installed AVG on the 'in-laws' PC and boot time went from about 60 seconds to 3 minutes. Try disabling all antivirus software (whilst offline) and if it speeds up try adding back one product at a time until you identify which is the main offender. You could also try a different (free) product.

Stabilo

Toxteth_OGrady

Dan

Open Bootvis, go into Options -> Advanced and set "Delay time before dumping Boot Trace" to 400 seconds and Save.

Then go to Trace and select "Next Boot + Driver Delays" and reboot.

Once the trace has been dumped go into C:/Program Files/Microsoft Bootvis and open the file "TRACE BOOT+DRIVERS.bin"

You will see something like

You can also select CPU usage, Disk i/o, disk utilization and boot activity. Scan along the time axis for all these to see what's causing the delay.

How long does it take if you boot to Safe Mode?

Other things to try - Run msconfig, select the Boot.ini tab and click on "Check all boot paths"

If that's ok, click on the General tab and select Diagnostic Start-up. Run Bootvis for a trace on next boot and reboot. If it's still a problem it would point to hardware. If ok go to msconfig General tab again choose Selective start up. Do four reboots with just one of the items selected in turn. See how that goes.

:cool:

TOG

danmanchester

Ran the trace boot&drivers and to be honest couldn't make any sense of the results.
Screenshots below.

Booted into safe mode in about 90 seconds..so that was a lot faster.
Checked boot.ini in msconfig, "all bootlines are ok"
Though on the general tab my start up is set/ticked to selective start up - with the "use modified boot.ini" ticked rather than "use original boot.ini" could that be the problem?

Haven't done the diagnostic start up yet as wanted to check if the screenshots seemed ok?

Thanks for all your advice and time guys, it's much appreciated!

T4i

Looks like the logon/services part of boot is taking all the time....

Have you disabled any services? I wonder if you have had some nasty p.c bug in the past and your AV has got rid of it but its left a service enabled in services thats causing the big hold up.

Your comp is ok, its software.

Stabilo

T4i wrote:

Looks like the logon/services part of boot is taking all the time....

Have you disabled any services? I wonder if you have had some nasty p.c bug in the past and your AV has got rid of it but its left a service enabled in services thats causing the big hold up.

Your comp is ok, its software.

95 times out of 100 it will be software.

Stabilo

T4i

Stabilo wrote:

95 times out of 100 it will be software.

Stabilo

LOL, thx for that valuble bit of info. I think we have already sussed it was software related. :beer:

Stabilo

T4i I was just pointing out to the earlier posters that checking HDD setings in the bios etc is the last place to look for PC's suddenly running slowly.

Stabilo