Slow Start-up

[Guest]

I posted a question a few weeks ago about my laptop taking 6 minutes to start
up.
A few people told me that it should be 1 minute instead.
When I time the start-up, I don't stop the time when I see the desktop
(which is pretty quick) but when the hard drive light stop to be always on
(meaning that startup programs have finished to load). So for people who have
a start-up time of 1 minute, did you time it like I did?

Then I followed the advices given on my post, I removed the maximum of
startup items (items that I don't use every day) in msconfig and the start-up
time became 5 minutes. It was not good enough so I decided to uninstall
ZoneAlarm (Firewall Protection) and use Windows Firewall instead. The
start-up time is now 3 minutes 45 seconds (measured with the hard drive light
turned off like described above). Is it good enough now?

 

[DatabaseBen]

there are a number of issues for slow startups.
but first lets begin to compare the 2 modes of
operations that you have by seeing
how fast is your startup to safemode?

remember to press f8 to get the boot menu option
for safe mode.....

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I posted a question a few weeks ago about my laptop taking 6 minutes
to start up.
A few people told me that it should be 1 minute instead.
When I time the start-up, I don't stop the time when I see the desktop
(which is pretty quick) but when the hard drive light stop to be
always on (meaning that startup programs have finished to load). So
for people who have a start-up time of 1 minute, did you time it like
I did?

Then I followed the advices given on my post, I removed the maximum of
startup items (items that I don't use every day) in msconfig and the
start-up time became 5 minutes. It was not good enough so I decided
to uninstall ZoneAlarm (Firewall Protection) and use Windows Firewall
instead. The start-up time is now 3 minutes 45 seconds (measured with
the hard drive light turned off like described above). Is it good
enough now?

Nobody else can tell you what's good enough for you. You have to decide what
you consider good enough.

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how long it takes
to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the computer's speed is otherwise
satisfactory, it may not be worth worrying about. Most people start their
computers once a day or even less frequently. In the overall scheme of
things, even a few minutes to start up isn't very important. Personally I
power on my computer when I get up in the morning, then go get my coffee.
When I come back, it's done booting. I don't know how long it took to boot
and I don't care.

 

[Guest]

In Safe Mode, it took 2 minutes and 40 seconds

there are a number of issues for slow startups.
but first lets begin to compare the 2 modes of
operations that you have by seeing
how fast is your startup to safemode?

remember to press f8 to get the boot menu option
for safe mode.....

 

[Guest]

In Safe Mode, it took 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

there are a number of issues for slow startups.
but first lets begin to compare the 2 modes of
operations that you have by seeing
how fast is your startup to safemode?

remember to press f8 to get the boot menu option
for safe mode.....

 

[Leftred]

I posted a question a few weeks ago about my laptop taking 6 minutes to
start
up.
A few people told me that it should be 1 minute instead.
When I time the start-up, I don't stop the time when I see the desktop
(which is pretty quick) but when the hard drive light stop to be always on
(meaning that startup programs have finished to load). So for people who
have
a start-up time of 1 minute, did you time it like I did?

Then I followed the advices given on my post, I removed the maximum of
startup items (items that I don't use every day) in msconfig and the
start-up
time became 5 minutes. It was not good enough so I decided to uninstall
ZoneAlarm (Firewall Protection) and use Windows Firewall instead. The
start-up time is now 3 minutes 45 seconds (measured with the hard drive
light
turned off like described above). Is it good enough now?

You don't mention the specs of your laptop. If you have a slow CPU and not
much RAM you should expect a slow boot time. What have you got?

 

[DatabaseBen]

http://downloads.techrepublic.com.com/abstract.aspx?docid=172694&tag=nl.e138

 

[Guest]

Very good question.
I have a Compaq Presario laptop 2.4 GHz and 512 MB RAM.

 

[Bob I]

Is that speed with the AC plugged in or is it running on battery? How
much "HP" utilities are being loaded? Is it a 5400 rpm drive or 7200
rpm. Oh so many possibilities!

 

[HeyBub]

I posted a question a few weeks ago about my laptop taking 6 minutes to
start
up.
A few people told me that it should be 1 minute instead.
When I time the start-up, I don't stop the time when I see the desktop
(which is pretty quick) but when the hard drive light stop to be always on
(meaning that startup programs have finished to load).

I don't think so, or at least not exactly. The hard drive light stops when
there are no requests for disk access. But who's asking for disk access?
Certainly the startup kernel, but once the kernel loads a program, that
APPLICATION PROGRAM may then start its own disk activity.

For example, indexing services or a synchronizing initialization (MS Word
does several hundred accesses when it starts). Outlook may be downloading
bags and bags of newsgroup messages. Your virus checker may be downloading
today's definitions. In other words, you may have an application starting
that does a huge amount of housekeeping.

 

[Guest]

AC plugged in.
No HP utility is running.
It's a 4200 RPM.

 

[Guest]

That's right but I don't time it when etrust pest control is updating its
definition.
Also when I timed it, Outlook and Word were closed.

 

[Bob I]

4200 rpm is excruciatingly slow. I would venture that that is a big part
of the "slow". While it would help with battery life, you will pay the
price in time whenever you need to wait while something has to be
retrieved from disc, like bootup for instance.

 

[Guest]

I found a possibility to upgrade my hard drive at
http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi-b...tems&kind=cpl&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=cpl844
It would cost me $130, it's cheaper than buying a new laptop.
But I would loose much time in reinstalling all the programs.
So you advise me to replace the hard drive? it would solve my problem of
slow startup?
The other problems I had were: Outlook takes much time to start up, when I
click on Internet explorer program, it takes 3 seconds to open.

Jacques

 

[Bob I]

Think I would save my money up and buy a better laptop, and not get too
worried about the current one. You may want to consider using the
hibernate feature.

 

[DatabaseBen]

does it boot in safemode quicker?

 

[Guest]

Yes, 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

does it boot in safemode quicker?

 

[Guest]

I have 2 choices: either I spend $187 on a new hard drive (with 80GB instead
of 60GB) and a Hard Drive Upgrade Kit USB 2.0. It clones the old hard drive
into the new one so I don't loose time resintalling all OS and softwares.

Either I resell my laptop for $400 on ebay and buy a new one. I bought it
$1800 2 and half years ago. But I don't understand, I went to bestbuy.com and
I couldn't find one with the same processor speed as mine: 2.4 GHz (Pentium
4). The maximum speed was 2 GHz. So because of that, I'm not interested in
buying a new laptop (even if I will have free upgrade to Windows Vista). Do
you know why, 2 years and half later, processor speeds have not increased in
store?
Also, if I buy a new laptop, I would have to loose time resintalling many
old programs.

 

[Bob I]

You may do as you wish, but I believe you are placing WAY TOO MUCH
emphasis on the "speed" of the laptop. As to 2 Ghz well CPU's have 2
cores or processors instead of one now. You may wish to review those
laptops with that in mind.

 

[Guest]

Mistake: I bought my laptop $1800 3 years and half, not 2 years and half.
So let say, a 1.6GHz Intel® Centrino® Duo processor is faster than a 2.4 GHz
Pentium 4?
Is a 1.6 Ghz Centrino Duo roughly equivalent to a 3.2 GHz (1.6 times 2)
pentium 4?
Thanks for all your good advices.