How Long Does It Take for Your System to Boot?

[BobH]

The progressive slowdown in boot speed continues to annoy me with computers. We have 5 here that are used for different purposes. Four of them are Windows XP Pro SP3 running on Dells and HPs; the other is a netbook running Linux. Guess which boots fastest!

I use an HP Core Duo laptop with 2GB RAM and 1.8 MHz processor. When I boot it, it consistently takes over 3 minutes to become inter-active - sometimes longer. I have AV, WinPatrol and several other apps in the start up but removing them seems to make no difference to the start up time. I run CCleaner for file and registry cleanup at least weekly and AntiMalwareBytes about as often.

What is your experience with boot speed? Does anyone have a magic bullet that will make watching the paint dry less painful while still retaining effective pollution controls?

[Jezza]

Have you got any of them networked and have you "redundant" drives that can be removed?

[BobH]

Networked? Not really. Only one connects by cable to the router; the others are wifi.

As to redundant drives, the largest desktop has several internals and 2 externals, but it seems to boot the fastest of all. It is also the one cable connected tot eh router.

This laptop is the most used. And seems to be slowest but has only the one internal HDD and one DVD/CD drive.

[Argus]

What is your experience with boot speed?

My XP box's startup time has been more or less the same since 2002; though it has been rebuilt completely during that time (CPU, motherboard & memory); that is, it takes around 30-40 seconds to arrive at the Welcome screen.

If I leave it for some, say, 20-30 seconds at the Welcome screen, the system feels more responsive the first seconds after I have logged on, since some processes go on in the background. But if I don't, it usually takes another, say 20-30 seconds. I just did a simple test; it takes around 55-60 seconds to arrive at the Desktop (startup + log on time), and some additional 25-30 seconds to be completely ready (2.2 GHz single core, 2 GB RAM; I assume yours is running at 1.8 GHz, not MHz, otherwise that would explain it. ).

So, about 90 seconds, 1.5 minute. I do notice, but it can of course be related to other changes, that with SP3, XP is in fact a bit quicker after startup; i.e. some of the processes end much earlier after the startup, such as Windows Update etc.

Does anyone have a magic bullet that will make watching the paint dry less painful while still retaining effective pollution controls?

The only "magic bullet" here, ceteris paribus, i.e. the same hardware and the same OS, would be to take a look at the software running at startup/log on time, and in the background. But if it connects to other PCs it would also be worth looking at, as mentioned by Jezza.

[StuartR]

My newest PC runs Windows 7 and uses a solid state boot disk. It takes less than 2 minutes to do a complete shutdown-startup-login cycle.

[Doc Watson]

Mine has been taking so long to boot fully for so many years that I really don't know or care. Doesn't seem to matter what I do with the startup items either. I get to the welcome screen, but if I click on my profile and then don't wait 5-10 minutes the items in the System Tray don't load fully or correctly. The most often noted issue is the inability to view hidden icons or hide icons as the chevron on the Systray is missing. Since I rarely shut down my system, I consider this a non-critical issue and ignore it.

[viking33]

My newest PC runs Windows 7 and uses a solid state boot disk. It takes less than 2 minutes to do a complete shutdown-startup-login cycle.

Just a rough time, using the second hand on the wall clock.
From cold boot start up to Welcome screen...50 seconds.
Welcome screen goes off...10 seconds.
Booted up and ready to go...15 seconds.
So about a minute and 15 seconds total.
Win 7 with 4 gigs RAM. I'm assuming that's about average time.

[tomyrush]

Link to a PCPitstop free utility to test boot speed

http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=190162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tom

[viking33]

Link to a PCPitstop free utility to test boot speed

http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=190162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tom

Boot racer claimed 28 seconds for me. Must be using a different clock speed than my wall clock?

[jonwallace]

Boot racer claimed 28 seconds for me. Must be using a different clock speed than my wall clock?

I think they ALL lie, worse than that pesky windows sound that makes you think it's finished when it's really got an eternity (it seems) to go. The only answer is to switch on then go take care of some basic needs (ingest or divest)

[ChrisGreaves]

The progressive slowdown in boot speed continues to annoy me

Have you tried Soluto?

Steve Bass's Weekly Newsletter:
Soluto's Available for Download
In August I wrote about Soluto, a program that speeds up your system's booting time. The day I mailed the newsletter was when Soluto decided to remove the download link from its site. Their latest version is better then the one I looked at: It's much faster and gives you more ways to get your system up and running.

soluto.JPG