Solved SSD adds 45 seconds to boot time

[arcman]

About a year ago I added a SSD to my 64 bit Home Premium desktop machine. Boot times dropped from nearly a minute to 17-18 seconds for a working desktop. (happy, happy)

It didn't take long before I started getting a random 45 second delay between the four colored windows at startup and a running desktop. Sometimes it would boot fine for three or four sessions in a row and then the 45 sec delay. Slowly this has morphed into the having the delay about 80% of the time it cold boots. Most often a reboot is back to normal, 18 seconds.

I've tried removing all start up items in MSconfig but it still happens. I also have run Process Monitor but there is no delay of any kind I can see there. Actually, the Bootlog feature in PM makes no sense because it seems to log way more time than the actual boot sequence. A couple minutes worth.

This has been quite frustrating 'cause sitting here waiting with a black screen delay kinda defeats having a SSD. There is a second HD used as storage.

Any ideas or tool recommendations?

Thanks.

 

[arcman]

Event viewer shows it's SMSSinit. Now, to find out how to fix that.

 

[Ranger4]

How close to full capacity is the SSD. A full or nearly full HDD will really slow down the computer. Ideally there should be at least 10% spare capacity & 20% is even better.

 

[arcman]

Half full.

 

[Ranger4]

Have a look in Device Manager & see if you have any yellow flashes next to any device. Hardware loading problems can cause delays in Start Up.

You could also try disconnecting the storage drive to see if there is a conflict. Is the storage drive purely for storage or has it got an old copy of Windows on it as well.

Have a look at the boot order in the BIOS to see what drive is the first & set the SSD to be the first.

 

[arcman]

No conflicts in Device manager. Makes no difference if the storage drive is connected or not. I've tried every which way in the bios and no luck.

The really odd thing is it's random. At first it was about 25% of the time. Now, nearly every initial boot. Rarely on restarts.

 

[Ranger4]

Perhaps Norton Internet Security 2011 is causing the problem. AV programs start early in the boot process, so try disabling Norton & see if that stop the delay.

If Norton is the cause & you wish to uninstall it, go to the Norton website & download their uninstall utility, rather that using the usual uninstall in Programs & Features. AV programs are notorious for leaving garbage behind when being uninstalled, so using their utility is recommended.

 

[arcman]

No Norton.

 

[Ranger4]

Your System Specs show Norton AV, that's why I suggested it. Might be an idea to update them as people on the Forum read System Specs to see what sort of computer they are assisting with.

 

[arcman]

I upgraded NIS in 2017 but gave up on it after it missed a major infection that MS SE found. It was so bad I had to reinstall Windows. I've tried a few different AV's and NIS is useless in my opinion.

 

[Ranger4]

I agree with you on NIS. Thanks for updating specs.

The cause of your slow boot has to be associated with something that gets loaded on start up. Have you tried booting in Safe Mode, to see if that fixes the delay. The following will show how to start in Safe Mode.

Safe Mode - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[arcman]

I did try safe mode. Same thing.

I read something about Superfetch, which was turned off. I turned it on (auto) last nite and it booted properly this morning. We'll see if it makes any difference tomorrow.

 

[arcman]

For now, it looks like enabling Superfetch fixed it. I've had 8-10 boots and all were without the delay. Keeping fingers crossed...

 

[Ranger4]

That's interesting. I use a Samsung 840 Pro SSD which has been in use for nearly 5 years & in the Samsung SSD set up Magician software they recommend disabling Superfetch as it causes a lot of unnecessary reads & writes, because of the very fast access times SSD have it is not necessary.

However they do recommend that the Write Cache Buffer is enabled, to speed up operations.

 

[arcman]

Mine's a 850 Pro. No doubt I'd turned it off as per their recommendations.

Since turning 'Superfetch' back on, my boot time has been back to normal. Not once has it had the long delay.

Glad I found that. Makes having the SSD worthwhile.

 

[Ranger4]

Thanks for the update. I actually spent sometime today reading up on the Prefetch/Superfetch & basically with a SSD it is very unlikely to make any difference to the access speed. Apparently RAM & the SSD very fast access time will beat Superfetch.

In your case it might be worth checking out your RAM modules to see if they seated properly & working as they should. Poor RAM performance can cause slow start ups.