xp boot time

[tony.silveira]

hi all,

i've spent the last few days trying to clean up my xp sp3 install to trim the start time.  i've gotten down from just under 2 minutes to about 1 min 42 secs. but that just seems to be painfully slow.

please keep in mind i do use the machine networked and use it as a pc, not just a mame box so i know i'll never get it down to >30 secs like some of you.

i have done massive uninstalls, killed processes seldom used, cleaned my registry with multiple registry cleaning apps, even used bootvis to try and get those boot files closer together but man, 1m42s just seems SO long still.

fyi, from a cold start, my POST alone looks like it takes about 23s and then fully into windows around 1m42.  i have tweaked my BIOS also, no floppy seak, only looks for the one boot device, etc., still not sure why the POST would take so long.

might anyone have any suggestions?

thanks, tony

lanparty jr p45 mobo
core 2 duo 8500 o/c to 4ghz
4gb ddr2 (bios settings are set to correct RAM speed)

i *think* i could shave some time off the POST by disabling IDE/SATA channels not in use (board has 6 SATA, 1 IDE ports.  i have installed 2 IDE HD's, 1 SATA DVD, 1 SATA HD) but when i tried that, it would POST, then reboot and try the POST again... just stuck in a loop

[Smeghead]

Does your BIOS have a 'quick boot' option?
Make sure its not trying a DHCP PXE boot

I trimmed mine down to about 10 services, but then I dont want networking

OR just install TINYXP and it does it all for you, boots in 8 seconds!

[gryhnd]

TuneXP 1.5 has always worked well for me...esp the boot file optimization...

[tony.silveira]

yes, my bios has 'quick boot' an it is enabled.

i just tried tunexp and i'm now down to about 1m25s, thank you!

but, i do feel like i could shave a bit more so i'm going to try tinyxp.  quick question, will running the "repair" install reformat my drive or should it just repair (smaller install) my current install and keep other files on there?

i just don't see tinyxp launching in 8 seconds from a cold start.  i mean, my bios POST seems to take 23 seconds alone before passing everything over to xp

[Smeghead]

Thats way too long, sound like its trying to do something and failing.
Disable floppy/cd drives?
Turn off any RAM checks
er...... make sure your HDD is the first boot device

[gryhnd]

Have you checked your drive integrity? I had a machine that took flippin' forever to boot. Turns out the drive was failing and it had been remapping sectors all over the place.  All that drive seek time adds up.

[BadMouth]

Lots of good info:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm

[Jack Burton]

What are the specs on this machine?

From a cold boot, including the BIOS post screens and what not that doesn't sound too bad for your average PC.

I don't know, sub-2 minutes sounds just fine to me.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I had a P4 I was toying around with... all reclaimed hardware. Got tinyxp booting in 35 seconds to desktop including POST. This was using a 5400 rpm laptop harddrive as well. It can be done.

[tony.silveira]

to answer some of the questions:

1. BIOS only looks for my one HD, it does not do a floppy/cd seek

2. i do notice my BIOS takes about 3 seconds checking RAM.  i tried turning this off in the BIOS but don't see anything listed to skip this check.

3. i am in the process of checking my drive with spinrite.  so far, all my defragging and other drive checks (with other software) have shown it to be ok

4. my specs are at the end of my first post but here they are again (an above average machine i think):

lanparty jr p45 mobo
core 2 duo 8500 o/c to 4ghz
4gb ddr2 (bios settings are set to correct RAM speed)
80gb 7200rpm UATA-100 boot drive

running bootvis, i am noticing activity on my second 500gb drive during boot and i traced that to where i have xpadder, which starts when windows loads.  i'll try moving that app to my C drive to see if that shaves some time off

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

80gb 7200rpm UATA-100 boot drive

That's probably your biggest bottleneck right there.
Why not replace it with something a little more modern?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 for example.

[gryhnd]

FWIW, I have an old Dell 8200 sitting here for certain office work, sporting a "whopping" P4@2.53, 512MB RAM, and a 7200 PATA WD drive. With only minor tweaks (mainly tunexp) from the time I press the power button to total load is 40 seconds.  If you take off the 10 seconds the dell splash screen shows before BIOS actually starts loading, that's only 30 seconds.

Edit: XP Pro

[gryhnd]

Likewise, I recently rebuilt an HP computer whose MB died.  I replaced the MB with an MSI G31TM-P21, reused the 4GB of RAM and the Dual Core 2.4 which I O/C'd to 2952. 

From pressing the power button, it takes Vista 32bit 38 seconds on a SATA 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM disk.  Likewise for Ubuntu 10.10 64bit on a 8MB cache, 5400 RPM SATA disk, it takes 40 seconds to get to the login screen (lagging b/c of the slower disk no doubt).

None of this of course helps Tony, but I just wanted to throw some benchmarks out there.

So Tony, you should be able to drop that boot time down. If you've otherwise done everything, I would def. check that disk out.

[ragnar]

Anti-virus is usually a killer for me.  Clean installs always have fast boot time till I get to the step of installing anti-virus software.

[tony.silveira]

yeah, unemployed, money is pretty tight.

i've been building pc's longer than i care to admit and i've always been partial to a small, non partitioned boot drive for windows.  it may be time to revisit that and get a speedier boot drive

[nipsmg]

It's almost definitely your drive.

That's INSANELY slow for your configuration.  there's no way a 4ghz C2D E8500 should take that long to boot.

I understand you're tight on cash, but there are ridiculous deals to be had on 1tb and 2tb sata drives.   I believe a 2GB  Sata 5400 RPM drive was just going for 54 bucks? 

Get on the e-mail list to NewEgg and check your e-mail daily, or check SLickDeals.net or DigitalDeals.net daily.

[tony.silveira]

i also have internally the following, wd10-eavs-00d7b0, 5400rpm sata with 8mb cache.  there is enough space on it to install tiny xp but a couple of questions:

1. can i install xp on available space?  i know i run the risk of losing data but i can't reformat the disk from scratch (to much on it and not enough space on other hd's)

2. i'm assuming this drive is much faster than my current boot drive

thanks all for your help

[tony.silveira]

so i went ahead and partitioned that sata dive, made a 15gb partition for a tinyxp install.

it installed just fine and booted like a dream; after POST (23 seconds), i was up on the desktop in just about 30 seconds (total of about 52 seconds)!

i then installed a few things i need on the machine; my video card and touch screen drivers, xpadder, daemon tools, etc. and boot times were still under a minute!

THEN i installed norton anti virus since my machine is on the net and bingo, boot times right back up to about 1m30s vs. about 1m40s with my normal install.  i'm sure if i got a speedier drive (maybe even a cf to ide), i'd probably get down to just over 1 minute with tinyXP and it would probably be a bit more stable even.

but man, if i could just figure out how to shave that POST time of 23 seconds; that seems extremely long to me.

thank you all for the suggestions so far, it really is appreciated!

oh, one last question.  i have my "normal" xp install on the slow drive and my tinyXP install on the other drive.  can anyone recommend an OS boot selector?  i'm thinking on tinyXP that i could delete norton if i deleted any internet capabilities and have a sub 1 minute boot time when friends are over just for games.

thanks again, tony

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I've never seen Norton do anything but make a machine unusable. Ever.

AVG is free and works well. Microsoft Security Essentials works well also, but requires a valid license (which TinyXP does not provide).
http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-free-antivirus
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

[Mikezilla]

I dont mean to thread jack this or anything, but what does Daemon tools do? I bought a PC for my mame machine and it came with it on it. 

[tony.silveira]

daemon allows me to mount cd images.  i use it to mount discs for disc based console emulators.

as for norton, i've always read exactly what you said but it's free with my internet account and other than the boot time issue i'm trying to sort out, i can honestly say i've been very happy with it.  it's not a system hog for me (my idle time process is always at 99%) and it has caught many many worms for me.

but maybe on my tinyxp install i'll give AVG a try

[Nacimroc]

Norton is a disaster! Always has been! There are much more efficient better anti-virus progs out there.....BUT ....why does everyone use an antivirus anyway ? Surely most of you are using your PC's in cabs which most of you won't have connected to the internet!  So why bother with one ? I know the original poster said he is using PC as normal, but if not, there is no need for an antivirus surely ?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

If its on a network, it needs an antivirus installed. You can be infected by another machine on the network with NO INTERACTION on your behalf.

Wanna be scared? Go look up metasploit tutorials on youtube.

[nipsmg]

Just get Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free, it works well, and it doesn't suck up resources. 

There's no need for commercial Anti-Virus really anymore, especially for home PC's. 

I agree, Norton and / or McAfee do nothing but suck up the majority of the host machine's resources and become a royal pain in the ass.  There's no benefit.

[tony.silveira]

just curious on sucking up a machines resources?

i'm the IT geek in my group of friends and i ALWAYS used to tell them to steer clear of norton.

when i installed NAV from my service provider (hey, it's free) just to give the newest version a shot, i fully expected to be uninstalling it within a day or two.  much to my surprise, it doesn't seem to be slowing or impacting my machine during use, save the extended boot times that started this thread.  checking my process monitor, i'm running a steady 99% "system idle".  on top of that, it's caught bugs for me and blocks attacks when visiting shady sites.

so i'm just curious about what norton does to machines nowadays?  i'm not baiting here, like i said, just curious

[DaveMMR]

Just get Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free, it works well, and it doesn't suck up resources. 

There's no need for commercial Anti-Virus really anymore, especially for home PC's. 

I agree, Norton and / or McAfee do nothing but suck up the majority of the host machine's resources and become a royal pain in the ass.  There's no benefit.

+1

I use Microsoft Security Essentials and it's been fairly solid.  And unlike Norton or McAfee, it does its job quietly until it needs to alert you of a danger.

[Gray_Area]

I use AVG. I used Norton some years ago, and found it hogged resources. Especially at start-up, I think it by default checks the system, which could be the result of your slow boot times.