SSD - slow booting windows 7

[Philthepower]

Now I was under the impression that using an SSD would speed up my boot, but it's SLOW. 37s from the splash screen to the desktop, not including BIOS.

Trim is enabled.

AHCI is enabled in Bios and was on installation.

All kit is new and this is a new install - and so far i've installed very little else (just AVG and some drivers).

Relevant spec:
i7-3770k at stock
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
16gb kingston blue memory at 1866 (4x4)
256gb corsair performance pro (system) - intel 6gb sata 3 slot
2tb seagate barracuda - intel 6gb sata 3 slot

Now, I am getting a warning that my Marvell driver is not compatible with windows 7 but I can't seem to get around this.

I also can't get intel rapid start to engage (my hardware is not sufficiently powerful, which I doubt).

Any ideas on either problem, where to start etc?

 

[daship]

Install motherboard drivers and update them. the startup is slow cause at boot it tries to load all services, and it is obviously having issues loading a couple hence the extra time and warnings caused by it.

 

[Philthepower]

I've already done that for all the drivers on the asus website.

 

[The Greater Good]

Is this a fresh install of Windows 7, or was it an image?

 

[Philthepower]

Fresh.

 

[pdxalex]

Your board has two sets of SATA 6gb/s controllers - two Marvells and two Intels. Where do you have your SSD hooked up and have you tried swapping it?

 

[Philthepower]

Yep, tried them in both. One thing I will try is splitting the hdd and ssd onto different controllers, just to be sure

 

[Philthepower]

ok, I did a format and full reinstall of win 7.

initially reasonably swift - 7 seconds from splash to desktop.

as I started to add drivers it slowed down. I'm now at 17s but it's an improvement.

 

[pdxalex]

My specs are quite similar to your's...

i7 3770 (non-k)
Asus P8Z77-V
Samsung 830 64GB (running off an intel / MSAHCI controller)
16 GB Gskill
3x HDD

With MS Office, Photoshop, Vegas, anti-virus etc installed I'm still getting a boot from Windows splash to desktop in under 11s.

I'm by no means an expert, but I don't see how updating drivers should be adding 10s on your boot. Can you pinpoint which driver slowed it down?

Have you benchmarked your SSD? I'm curious how your SSD speeds are looking in general, using something like the AS SSD bench tool, to give a performance overview other than boot times.

Sorry, not much help!

 

[Philthepower]

Ok, struggling to post a screenshot (asks for a URL) but i'll type it!
read write
Seq 482.42mb/s 417.19
4K 21.79 46.92
4K-64 thrd 279.42 241.04
Acc time -.---ms 0.075ms
Score 349 330
total 861

 

[pdxalex]

Crikey, that's pretty darn good, save for the read access time which is an unknown as it's oddly unreported. Given the overall performance though, I'm baffled as to how that translates into such a long boot.

Here's mine:

 

[Philthepower]

Right, sounds like another format/reinstall then, and then a slower install of drivers to find the culprit...

Windows updates - any way to save them to the hdd so I don't need to download again?

 

[pdxalex]

Windows updates - any way to save them to the hdd so I don't need to download again?

I wish.

With regards to the drivers, maybe set restore points along the way to ensure you don't end up back at square one? Best of luck

 

[quesionboy]

Now I was under the impression that using an SSD would speed up my boot, but it's SLOW. 37s from the splash screen to the desktop, not including BIOS.

Trim is enabled.

AHCI is enabled in Bios and was on installation.

All kit is new and this is a new install - and so far i've installed very little else (just AVG and some drivers).

Relevant spec:
i7-3770k at stock
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
16gb kingston blue memory at 1866 (4x4)
256gb corsair performance pro (system) - intel 6gb sata 3 slot
2tb seagate barracuda - intel 6gb sata 3 slot

Now, I am getting a warning that my Marvell driver is not compatible with windows 7 but I can't seem to get around this.

I also can't get intel rapid start to engage (my hardware is not sufficiently powerful, which I doubt).

Any ideas on either problem, where to start etc?

Have you ever do complete partition alignment before installing Windows 7 on SSD, if the partition is not alignment it will decrease the performance of the SSD, you could refer to this article "why partition alignment is important to SSD"

 

[Philthepower]

I had read the alignment thing elsewhere but it's still not clear how to check this easily or change it - without downloading software that may or may not work.

Anyone know if there is a free way to check if this is the issue?

And surely I'd never have gotten 8s boot times if it was an issue?

 

[Philthepower]

Ok, so did it. Got 7s initially. Then added the video card, sound card drivers and it went to 12s. Then the chipset drivers and the sata drivers and it went to 15s.

So my guess is I'm stuck with this. Will get it all set up and try the partition alignment thang.

Open to other ideas... Do sacrifices work? ;-)

 

[zyzz]

that doesn't seem very fast to me. I knew a SSD wasn't worth it. not going to buy one now what a waste.

 

[Philthepower]

Not exactly helpful. What you need to look at is how it compares to a HDD on my system...

But then others have faster boot times (see above).

Guess it depends whether you can afford it more than anything in these tough financial conditions. How long is your HDD boot?

 

[pdxalex]

I knew a SSD wasn't worth it. not going to buy one now what a waste.

Yeah, they're just a fad. Me, I just have far too much cash stashed in the freezer so I've bought three of them over the past year

 

[zyzz]

yep they do seem like a fad to me. I mean if you have money and want the ultimate system, get it. I don't have money for that.

I don't care if the boot time is 5 seconds more that's nothing.

 

[pdxalex]

yep they do seem like a fad to me. I mean if you have money and want the ultimate system, get it. I don't have money for that.

I don't care if the boot time is 5 seconds more that's nothing.

If you don't need or value the performance benefits of a SSD (which go far beyond mere boot-times) or if you can't justify the higher price-point for your personal use, they're obviously not for you. As with all hardware, higher performance carries a premium. SSDs are no different.

That certainly doesn't make it a fad. SSDs are the future.

 

[Guest]

i know this is an old dead post, but have you tried single drive raid? i had slow boot times with ahci then i switched to raid and there was a huge difference