Windows 7 x64 taking 2:30 mins to boot (Soluto)

Hi Jacee

Thank you for the link. I followed the instructions and rebooted, and the booting time now stands at 1:10 mins

Is there a way I could pull up the log for the Boot Performance Diagnostics?

Thanks

Ya that's what I am thinking as well. With a standard HDD, I think that's the min boot time I can achieve...but my main concern are those intermittent black screens that stay for 10-12 secs before I get to the desktop.

Would you say that's normal with a HDD?

Do yourself a favor and don't fool around with Windows 7 Services.

I haven't messed with any of the windows services, I have kept them as is in the services menu


Many thanks!

cluberti said:

I'm downloading the file now.

Great! Please let me know what you find :)

Many thanks!

cluberti said:

Some issues I see right off the bat:

• MBAM Services (both) take cumulatively about 14 seconds to start, which (as autostart services) contribute to the delay of the start of the desktop (explorer) until they're done.
• Avast takes about 2 seconds to start, and seems somewhat heavy on the disk I/O compared to some others - antivirus for some is a necessary evil, although there are lighter A/V solutions out there. What you use is up to you, but as I tell people and they don't heed until they have perf issues, choosing the "lighter" option sometimes is better.
• The Program Compatibility Assistant service takes a long time to start (a LONG time), also delaying your visibility into the desktop - it's also causing the SysMain (SuperFetch) service to wait on it until it's done. Almost all of this delay is attributed to "unknown" file accesses via the System process, which is very likely antivirus. Change the start type of the Program Compatibility Assistant service to Automatic (delayed) start to try and resolve this if you're going to continue using Avast.
• Soluto is running on the system, and is doing an inordinate amount of writes to the disks (and registry queries as well - the largest consumer during this time, BY FAR) during the shell delay here - most programs designed to speed up (or even monitor) your boot process end up slowing it down. Get rid of it unless you absolutely need it (...I hate programs like this that "improve boot times" - they very rarely do anything but the opposite).
• MBAM and Avast do an inordinate amount of Reads during this time (by design, but....). I'd still recommend a lighter A/V, but that one I leave to you. However, remove MBAM if you want to improve performance and only install/use it for spot checks. Most of the things MBAM does your A/V also does (not all, but most).
• The SSDP Discovery service is the other "offender" service-wise with regards to startup time. Unless you're using the Media Center Extender service (to do DLNA-play of your WMP library over your network or the internet) or the UPnP Service (for discovering UPnP devices on your local network automatically), disable this service. I'd recommend disabling the other two I mention here as well if they're not in use, as they're not needed in that case and will only add boot delays in that case.
• On a minor note, your Realtek audio driver takes a bit longer to start than I'd like to see, so updating all of your drivers (not just this one) will help. The ATI driver takes a few seconds to initialize and start during boot as well, although finding a good and stable ATI driver can be a bit of a challenge, and isn't always the latest and greatest.

Those are my suggestions, along with a full defrag using the inbox defrag.exe (defrag C: /H /U /V) as it will help the SuperFetch service immensely understand where things are on the volume, and then a boot-time defrag after as well to improve boot-file locations once SuperFetch has an updated view of the volume (defrag C: /b).

Right now there is a problem with MBAM PRO (real-time) on startup.
If you want to use MBAM real-time, try disabling Website Blocking on startup and see if that helps.

You can read more about this here
Hi CPU usage - Malwarebytes Forum - Page 4

MBAM posted their issue is fixed with the latest definitions.

I wanted to inform you all that as of database version v2013.04.15.09 this issue should be resolved. Please let us know if it is not.

Source: Hi CPU usage - Malwarebytes Forum - Page 4 (post #77)

have you installed any other anti-virus program other then avast....like AVG?

Thank you so much for your detailed analysis and suggestions. Please find the actions taken against each

MBAM Services (both) take cumulatively about 14 seconds to start, which (as autostart services) contribute to the delay of the start of the desktop (explorer) until they're done.

Set MBAM service to Automatic Delayed Start. Do you think it would help or would it further aggravate the situation?

Avast takes about 2 seconds to start, and seems somewhat heavy on the disk I/O compared to some others - antivirus for some is a necessary evil, although there are lighter A/V solutions out there. What you use is up to you, but as I tell people and they don't heed until they have perf issues, choosing the "lighter" option sometimes is better.

Could you please suggest some lighter yet effective anti-virus solutions that I could use to replace Avast.

The Program Compatibility Assistant service takes a long time to start (a LONG time), also delaying your visibility into the desktop - it's also causing the SysMain (SuperFetch) service to wait on it until it's done. Almost all of this delay is attributed to "unknown" file accesses via the System process, which is very likely antivirus. Change the start type of the Program Compatibility Assistant service to Automatic (delayed) start to try and resolve this if you're going to continue using Avast.

Set the Program Compatibility Assistant service to Automatic - Delayed Start

Soluto is running on the system, and is doing an inordinate amount of writes to the disks (and registry queries as well - the largest consumer during this time, BY FAR) during the shell delay here - most programs designed to speed up (or even monitor) your boot process end up slowing it down. Get rid of it unless you absolutely need it (...I hate programs like this that "improve boot times" - they very rarely do anything but the opposite).

Removed Soluto entirely from the system

MBAM and Avast do an inordinate amount of Reads during this time (by design, but....). I'd still recommend a lighter A/V, but that one I leave to you. However, remove MBAM if you want to improve performance and only install/use it for spot checks. Most of the things MBAM does your A/V also does (not all, but most).

As mentioned, have already delayed the start of MBAM services

The SSDP Discovery service is the other "offender" service-wise with regards to startup time. Unless you're using the Media Center Extender service (to do DLNA-play of your WMP library over your network or the internet) or the UPnP Service (for discovering UPnP devices on your local network automatically), disable this service. I'd recommend disabling the other two I mention here as well if they're not in use, as they're not needed in that case and will only add boot delays in that case.

Disabled SSDP Discovery, Media Center Extender and the UPnP services.

On a minor note, your Realtek audio driver takes a bit longer to start than I'd like to see, so updating all of your drivers (not just this one) will help. The ATI driver takes a few seconds to initialize and start during boot as well, although finding a good and stable ATI driver can be a bit of a challenge, and isn't always the latest and greatest.

I tried upgrading the drivers, but it says that the current drivers are already the updated ones.

Those are my suggestions, along with a full defrag using the inbox defrag.exe (defrag C: /H /U /V) as it will help the SuperFetch service immensely understand where things are on the volume, and then a boot-time defrag after as well to improve boot-file locations once SuperFetch has an updated view of the volume (defrag C: /b).

Running the full defrag now and later will do the boot defrag as suggested and report back on the results.

Many thanks once again for your help with this