Very slow booting time on ssd 840 pro.

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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Despite being connected to ahci mode and with Samsung magician's test being very positive, my almost-empty samsung 840 pro ssd seems to take about 38 seconds to boot up (bootracer).
Now, I've seen several videos of people with lower-end config but same ssd to take about 13-14 seconds to do the whole process, without even letting the Windows logo appear at start. How can I manage to gain such speed?
I did standard TRIM thing and basic optimization stuff.
 

RealBeast

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Do you have any unused controllers (like Marvell or ASMedia) turned off in your bios? Extra controllers take time to detect devices even if none are connected.

Also some boards (like the new Z87) support a fast boot mode where only the USB ports for KB and mouse are initially started to boot Windows faster.
 

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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I have the default ASROCK Asmedia drivers installed from the site specific for the keyboard. Shall I disable them in the BIOS or uninstall them via windows?

EDIT: I disabled ASrock Asmedia drivers from BIOS but nothing seems to change.

However I guess I missed out a (probably important? I don't know) point.
When I Installed windows the SSD was set in IDE mode, that's probably because I plugged the SSD in a port that somehow made the ssd not work at his full speed (despite being labelled still as sata 3 port). I eventually got into the bios and changed to AHCI mode but nothing changed since, according to Magician, SSD was not plugged in the right sata for operating at full speed.
After that some days after I opened my case and switched plugs for both my SSD and HDD and put them in the SATA 3 ports and put the Blu-ray writer in the old port since it would have not needed that speed.
After this process I encountered no errors, but magician told me ssd was correctly plugged and after a test I found out that the read/write speed matched the ones claimed by manufacturer.

Boot time, however, is still about 40 seconds, despite videos on youtube showing 15-second-system-bootups.

Should I do something on physical level and plug/unplug something else? Or is it software related?

(I also have to point out that I checked that LOCAL/KEY/MACHINE thing and it was set to 0, also disabled hybernation but I still have this issue).
 

jbseven

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Dec 2, 2011
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What motherboard are you using? How many SATA Devices are you using and what are they?

External USB Devices like hard drives can significantly reduce the boot time. Try unplugging these before testing. Also try unplugging your sata hard drive and removing any cds/dvds in the optical drive to see if this affects boot time.
 

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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I am using a Z77 Fatal1ty Pro motherboard.
SSD 840 Pro 256 Gb samsung
Seagate 2tb
Bluray of some kind, don't remember name right now.
 

jbseven

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If its anything like my z68 fatality, it takes a lot of time to get past the post and raid screens. When it gets to the windows logo though, things go pretty fast. Do you notice this on your z77 as well. Also did you disable usb devices and notice any difference?
 

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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I can confirm that USB devices did not cause this problem, and for some reason the time taken to boot is not spent on the Fatal1ty screen but in the windows logo, which is rather weird since theoretically it should not even finish displaying the flag properly, according to speed.
 
I had an 830 in here and it will POST then boot and display the Flag Properly. Getting there from POST is fast. I am ready to go 15 sec after I push the button. I think the one I posted on YouTube was 31 sec, but have playing around in MSCONFIG and doing some tweaking.
 

jbseven

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Any CDs in the drive? This can slow things down about 5sec.

TBH it sounds like its your windows install. This can happen if you install an extraordinary number of programs in windows but more likely its because you didnt install windows in AHCI mode.
 

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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Probably that. But I do know that if you enter the LOCALMACHINE files, I don't remember which one exactly and type a value called 0 (which I did some time ago) it would theoretically fix the thing.

If there is no solution I'll eventually try to install it again to see.
I just hope to avoid doing it.

EDIT: Yes Magician still recognizes AHCI mode to be enabled. So is the setting in the bios. Probably the thing does not act as it should be, maybe. I don't really know.

 

Fulgenzio

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Oct 18, 2013
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I guess I installed the RST drivers after installing windows. Should I have done that before?
Is there a way to fix that without reinstalling the OS?
(Assuming it's not a port-plug problem as you said).