Constipated Startup

TORB · 05 Mar 2011

Hoping someone can help me please.

My PC used to do a reboot in about 60-80 seconds. Now its anything up to 170 seconds.

It is a quad processor with 6GB of memory. (2x2 and 2x1) running 64 bit. It goes through the boot screen process OK but when it get to the next stage, it starts to go slow.

Once it has booted, it seems to run normally.

When I set it up I did all the usual recommended tweaks to speed up the boot process. I checked most of the changes and they still look OK.

Here is what I have done to try and fix the problem.

1. Ran a disk throughput test. Looks OK - writes at 38.6 MS/s and reads at 89.0 MB/s.

2. Ran a Windoze Memory function test. All OK.

3. Did a fair bit of reading here.

4. Turned off some of the startup services. Reduced the time a little but not much. Then turned them all off and still made very little difference.

5. Turned off all peripherals except screen, keyboard and mouse. No real difference to boot time.

6. Downloaded and ran the Performance Diagnostic Program.

Unfortunately when I look at the result, http://www.torbwine.com/Stuff/boot.xml I can't work out what is causing the problem. I would appreciate it if someone could have a look at the result and point me in the right direction.

Edit
Since posting the original post, I turned off all Startup Items and all Services except for Microslough, and it still took 84 seconds.

Cheers
Ric

Ztruker · 05 Mar 2011

Ric, give Soluto a try. See if it gives you any insight into what is causing the slowness. You don't have to leave it installed once you're done, I didn't.

TORB · 05 Mar 2011

Thanks. I have installed it and there are a couple of problem areas.

Boot takes 1:48 minutes with 50 Apps running.

First off, in the Orange section Comodo (Firewall) is taking 9 seconds to boot, and HD Activity Led which is a tiny application is taking 2 seconds.

in the Grey (cannot be removed section) Avivra AntiVirus took 30 seconds, Windoze Explorer 13 seconds, System 12 seconds, SNMP Services 9 seconds etc.

Those numbers look way slow to me. And I have no idea why!

gregrocker · 06 Mar 2011

Comodo causes a lot of problems with Win7 which Soluto won't begin to detect. Ditto Avira. Best performance is had with MSE or Avast5 with Win7 Firewall, unless we are all mistaken here.

Next use the tool which the pro's use to trace boot slowness and hangs: Trace Windows 7 boot/shutdown/hibernate/standby/resume issues - MSFN Forum

TORB · 06 Mar 2011

gregrocker said:

Next use the tool which the pro's use to trace boot slowness and hangs: Trace Windows 7 boot/shutdown/hibernate/standby/resume issues - MSFN Forum

The results are already in my original post (above), however I have repeated the link here. http://www.torbwine.com/Stuff/boot.xml

Sik00 · 06 Mar 2011

gregrocker said:

Best performance is had with MSE or Avast5 with Win7 Firewall, unless we are all mistaken here.

Whether I'm mistaken or not, +1. I've always had the best performance with Avast/MSE.

gregrocker · 06 Mar 2011

If you ran the Boot Trace according to the steps given in it's tutorial, then I would ask Cluberti to help you interpret them as he is the expert on that tool.

Coke Robot · 06 Mar 2011

Launching a separate firewall and antivirus program can cause issues. Consider getting a security suite. And, running two firewalls like Windows and Comodo could be making some problems for you.

Quick question, have you done a disk defragging? That may help. :)

Also, while I'm on the defrag tangent here, try using Ultimate Defrag 3, IT IS BOMB! I've used it on laptops and had them start cold from BIOS all the way through Windows 7 and launched Haspersky Internet Security 2011 in under 35 seconds. WOW!

TORB · 06 Mar 2011

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The problem is now solved..... and it had nothing to do with firewalls, anti virus, defrag or many other likely suspects.

What made me think it was not likely to be one of these was that my (other computer) Laptop which has less memory and a slower processor was booting in half the time of the desktop, despite the fact they have virtually identical operating systems, software and programs. (Only real differences are the additional stuff required by the laptop, so in theory it should have been slower.)

Anyway, more by accident than anything else, I managed to work out that when I booted the PC with the external eSATA drive on, it booted in 62 seconds; back to normal. So all I had to do was to go into the Device Mangler, disable the drive, then uninstall it, and the problem was solved permanently.

Constipated Startup

Constipated Startup (Solved)