Windows 7 boots really slowly

[djbenny1]

I just finished building my computer a few days ago and its now got a great overclock that I'm happy with.

But now that I have got everything how I want it, the boot is incredibly slow - the screen that says "Starting Windows" appears with just the text for 30 seconds or more then the animated logo comes up and does its thing, then it stays for probably another 30 seconds, to give a total of around 60 seconds on that one screen.

After this everything is fine.

I have ran pc optimizers and removed every program that I can from startup but makes no difference, it must have been something I adjusted in BIOS.

Any ideas??

I don't want to restore because I don't want to lose my overlocked settings, will that happen?

Thanks

Intel i5 750, MSI P55 GD65, XFX 5870 FYI.

Some people may say that it's because of startup programs or something but its definitely not, because it only started doing it at a certain point, but I can't specify when - and when my Core2 duo laptop boots faster, something is definitely wrong (it's rammed with software).

 

[sminlal]

I've seen Windows pause for 30 to 60 seconds during startup due to USB issues. Try disconnecting all your USB devices except for the keyboard and mouse (and don't connect them through a hub) to see if that makes a difference.

 

[djbenny1]

hi

just tried that, no difference

I just timed it there

from turning the power on, to being able to type in my user password takes exactly 1min 30secs

1 minute of that is the "Starting Windows" screen.

I've tried it in safe mode too, it's the same.

 

[sminlal]

Try looking in the system event log to see if there's a "gap" in the events. If there is, there may be a message in there that gives you a clue as to what the problem is.

 

[djbenny1]

can you advise on how to do that please?

 

[sminlal]

You can view the event log as follows:

Start -> Right-click "Computer" -> Manage

Expand the "Event Viewer" item in the left pane, then expand the "Windows Logs" item.

Click on "System" to view the messages in the System Event Log.

 

[djbenny1]

thanks for your help sminlal

ive found that but what am i looking for??

thanks

 

[sminlal]

Well, what I'd look for is a gap in the timestamps during the startup. For example, if your "Starting Windows" screen sits there for 60 seconds, I'd look for a gap in the messages at the time of startup that was almost 60 seconds long. The messages right after that gap might have something to do with the component that was waiting.

The theory is that some component (such as a USB driver) was trying to initialize itself but wasn't able to, and after some period of time it gave up and continued.

 

[daship]

What hard drive are you using? You can turn off IDE, and other ports your not going to use, to speed up the boot.

I suspect the hard drive is the issue.

 

[djbenny1]

im using samsung spinpoint f3 1TB

i looked at the logs there.

"The Plug and Play service entered the running state." - this appears to take 15 secs

"The UMDF reflector was unable to complete startup because the WUDFPf service was not found. This service may be started later during boot, at which point Windows will attempt to start the device again." - this appears to take 7 secs

"The AVG9IDSAgent service entered the running state." - this badboy takes 29 secs




Other than that everything is only a sec or 2.

 

[djbenny1]

ok so i just went through services and disabled as many of the ones that seemed to be taking a while as i could.

it may have made a slight difference, but its still sitting at 70-75 seconds from power to password entry.

there seems to be a HELL of a lot of listings in the log though, they dont take long to boot, but when theres so many of them they sure add up - is it normal to have a LOT? bear in mind this computer is 3 days old...

thanks

 

[djbenny1]

sorry to keep adding replies but i really need an answer to this...

I just noticed that my main hard drive (samsung spinpoint f3 1tb) is appearing in the "safely eject hardware" tab in the taskbar - surely that isnt normal???

is the comp thinking my hard drive is an external or something?

 

[sminlal]

Yes, it's normal to have something on the order of a hundred or more messages in the event log at startup time.

SATA drives are hot-swappable, that's why they appear in the "safely eject hardware" icon. You can change this by editing the Registry - this Microsoft paper contains a section that describes how to do it.

 

[djbenny1]

still doesnt answer the question about why it hangs so long in the starting windows screen 🙁

 

[sminlal]

Does the disk activity light show that there's a lot of disk access going on during the pause time? If it is then it may just be normal. But if the light is off then there's probably something fishy going on.

 

[djbenny1]

just checked that - there is about 25 seconds during the "starting windows" where the light is out - not all together though

probably something like 7-7-6-5 second time periods