Slow SSD Boot with long OtherKernelInitDuration delay

I built my first SSD based PC last week and was blown away by how fast it booted into Windows. After a few days, however, my boot times became noticeably slower, rising from around 18 seconds to 42 seconds according to Windows Diagnostics-Performance logs. On further inspection, I discovered that most of the extra delay is associated with an event called "OtherKernelInitDuration," which rose from under a second to around 23 seconds.

Any suggestions as to what may be causing this? I've tried just about every solution I could find on the net for fixing slow SSD boots (making sure the desktop has wallpaper, enabling EHCI handoff in bios, unplugging my DVD burner, running a Windows repair, turning off unused peripherals in bios, etc.) and am getting frustrated.

BTW, my Crucial SSD has the latest firmware and scored a 7.9 on the Windows experience index.

Have you followed the guide on this website regarding disabling page file, super fetch, prefetch and so forth.

I've ran three different types of SSDs...from Intel to OCZ SATA 2 to my more recent OCZ SATA3. I haven't once experienced any delayed boot times spanning multiple Win7 installs.

It's possible the issue could be related to mobo / controller issues. I would highly recommend contact the HDD manufacturer to ensure there isn't a hardware issue that might require patching in a future firmware update

If you added a TV card, that will do it. Mine went from about 18 seconds to about 42 seconds after adding a Hauppage card.

carwiz said:

If you added a TV card, that will do it. Mine went from about 18 seconds to about 42 seconds after adding a Hauppage card.

Mine also. I have two HVR 2250's.
Any mapped drives will also increase the boot time.

carwiz said:

If you added a TV card, that will do it. Mine went from about 18 seconds to about 42 seconds after adding a Hauppage card.

No TV card here. I do have a D-Link Wifi card in the first PCIE slot, a Radeon 6870 in the PCIEX16 slot right below it, and a Microsoft USB mouse/keyboard transmitter in one of the USB ports. My Windows experience score is still 7.9, and my DiskMark64 scores are like 520MB/s sequential read, 200MB/s sequential write, so it seems the SSD is working just fine once I boot into Windows. It's the boot lag that's not right.

Anyone know what OtherKernelInitDuratiion is supposed to signify, anyway?

essenbe said:

I have 2 Crucial M4's and have experienced no problems with them. Is your sata controller in ahci mode? Firmware 0009 is out now, maybe that would help. Check your alignment and make sure trim is enabled. If you need help in doing that, let us know.

For trim in an elevated command prompt, type/copy-paste fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify if it returns fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify=0 then trim is enabled.
To check alignment in an elevated command prompt type diskpart (press enter) type list disk (press enter) type select disk # (where # is the number of your SSD) then type list partition. you will get a screen that lists the partition size and the offset. The offset is alignment. Mine is 1024 it looks like this.


You may also want to run sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt to check system files. The scan now tutorial.

The firmware is 0009, trim is enabled, alignment is 1024, and I'm in AHCI mode. I did a repair install and an error check through Windows, and couldn't find anything wrong.

About all I can say is post a list of your processes and services and we'll have a look. Do you use any special Group Policies? How many users do you have defined?