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October 11th, 2011 02:00
Windows 7 Ultimate Slow Boot time - Alienware M17xR3
Hi all,
I find my boot into Windows 7 Ultimate (SP1) Alienware laptop is quite slow. Granted I don't have an SSD, my hard drive is a single 750 gig 7,200 drive but it still alarms me. From cold boot to login screen is quite quick (25 secs) but when I login the 'welcome' screen lingers from between 20 and 35 secs. Once the desktop finally shows everything then proceeds to load pretty quick and become usable & the laptop is blazing quick. It's not as if it's hanging at the welcome screen due to no activity or timing out because I can see that there is hard disk activity.
If I wait a while before logging in (say about 25 secs) then the welcome screen passes much quicker. Checking the event log tends to give an overall boot time average of 120 seconds. I know all about the various quirks, such as the solid colour background bug (which doesn't apply as I use my own jpeg) & have downloaded a couple of hotfixes associated with boot time improvement. However nothing makes a difference. I tried a cold boot disabling all start up programs and all non microsoft services and it was no different. However, Safe mode does boot in much quicker.
I have even tried Soluto (which is a good way of trimming start up programs). What is clear to me from this is 3rd party programs are not the problem. I think it's the Microsoft services slowing things down. There are about 50-60 of them running at start up & they take up probably 90% of the boot time. Now I know it's fine to try and disable 3rd party stuff but disabling MS services seems like a bad idea especially as I use a home network (I have no domains) set up. It's unclear what services are critical or not. Is it the nature of Windows 7 Ultimate to be a bit of a slow booter? As far as I know my laptop has always been this way from the minute I received it from Alienware. I'm sure people with netbooks have a faster boot than me! Although they do prob run 7 home rather than 7 ultimate. My wife's laptop running 7 home is similar slow & this is a dell laptop. Seeing as Dell & Alienware are one and the same maybe it is down to their design and the included stock HDD is a bit sub par.
I thought Windows 7 should be a bit faster at boot. My Vista Home Premium laptop doesn't have the Welcome screen delay. Although looking at the event log it clocks a similar overall boot time of about 120 secs. Do I have an issue with my machine?
Many thanks,
Wayne
(Alienware M17xR3, 2820 QM, 8GB RAM, 6970m GPU (cat 11.8), 750GB 7,200 HDD)
7Leagueboot
2 Intern
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501 Posts
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October 11th, 2011 02:00
I wish I had a 120 sec start up!
Mine's an M17x R2 with Win 7 Ultimate x64. I fear having to deal with Dell support techs over the phone because my start up time is about 25 mins. I have the same problem with my Inspiron 1720 running Vista Utimate.
The M17x has 5 games installed, Office 2007 Pro, Comodo Internet Security, Rollback RX, Cyberlink Power DVD, and various graphics programs (but not Photoshop). When I first got the machine, I had only the security suite and Office 2007 installed and boot time was around 55 secs but those days are long and gone. :(
Starmage
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129 Posts
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October 11th, 2011 02:00
Don't know.
I had similar issues with an Area 51 ALX and now a Precision Workstation (Similarly specc'ed).
For me I know some of it is 3rd party but it's always been kinda slow after the login screen and i have a Primary SSD.
Scottyboy99
13 Posts
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October 11th, 2011 03:00
25 minutes! Bloody eck' I should stop complaining about mine. It sounds like the Alienwares are pretty bad on boot up time. I wish I'd gone SSD but even they aren't immune it seems. Do you still get the same slow start up even if you do a clean boot. I recommend downloading Soluto. Okay, my start up hasn't improved much but what it does is break down each start up item you have so you can see what ones are slowing you down. Unfortunately some of the microsoft ones are cryptic so don't give much away but maybe something obvious will crop up for you.
Cheers,
Wayne
AAA737flyer
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757 Posts
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October 11th, 2011 07:00
From the Web site "Security Garden".
Sunday, October 09, 2011
How Windows PCs Get Infected with Malware
CSIS Security Group in Denmark conducted a study of almost three months where they collected real-time data from various so-called exploit kits that Danish users were exposed to. As described by Peter Kruse, Partner and Security Specialist at CSIS:
How PCs Get Infected
The CSIS study revealed that as much as 99.8 % of all virus/malware infections were a direct result of not updating five specific software packages. Aside from missing Microsoft security updates, the study revealed the following out of date programs as being the most used by malware: Java JRE (37%), Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat (32%), Adobe Flash (16%) and Microsoft Internet Explorer (10%).Third-Party Software
Setting aside browser and operating system for the moment, what is notable from the CSIS study is the impact of third-party software, notably Java JRE, Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Flash.Oracle Java JRE
When it comes to Oracle Java JRE, you may have it installed on your computer but might not even need it. Following are reasons why someone may need Oracle Sun Java installed on their computer:
- Playing on-line games generally requires Java.
- With OpenOffice, Java is needed for the items listed here .
- It used to be that Java was needed for websites to be properly displayed. However, that is generally not the case now with Flash having taken over.
- There may be commercial programs that depend on Java. If Java is needed for a software installed on your computer, there should be a prompt for it.
If the above does not apply to you, consider uninstalling Java. In the event you discover that it is needed, you can always download the most recent version.Adobe Products
Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my postings of critical updates for Adobe products. You may not realize, however, that there have been over a dozen critical updates of Adobe products just this year between February and September. Combined, out-dated Adobe products were the direct result of 48% of the infections in the analysis.
Although I will continue providing updates for these products, it is advisable that you check that you have the most recent versions of Adobe products. Personally, I switched to an alternate PDF reader some time ago. There are a number of open source readers available from http://pdfreaders.org/. Others include Nitro Reader and Sumatra PDF.
Internet Explorer
Although Internet Explorer is listed as shown in the CSIS analysis as the most affected browser, the report falls short in not breaking down the statistics by browser version. According to the IE6 Countdown, at the end of September, 2011, 9% of the world is still using IE6.It is not very likely that 66% of reported thousands of users in the analysis who had been exposed to drive-by attacks were using IE9. Nonetheless, Denmark should be commended with only 0.7% of the users still on IE6. The percentage still using IE7 is unknown. Considering the high percentage of affected Windows XP computers, it would not be surprising to learn that the majority have not updated to IE8.
References
CSIS: This is how Windows get infected with malwareIE6 Countdown
Microsoft Download Center - Windows Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP
Read more: http://securitygarden.blogspot.com/#ixzz1aTktYXIq
7Leagueboot
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501 Posts
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October 12th, 2011 03:00
Wayne, thanks for the heads-up on Soluto. Using that my boot time has been reduced to 3 min 15 sec which is amazing! Of course most of the apps have been delayed but at least it did identify a few that could be paused.
I use to have a program like this called The Ultimate Troubleshooter. It was excellent but I didn't think it was worth the annual fee of $29.95 so I stopped paying the license.
Scottyboy99
13 Posts
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October 12th, 2011 09:00
No problem. Glad it's improved things for you. I'm still looking into the slow boot but I think the stock HDD's in the Alienware aren't too hot (at least when it comes to start up). Am liaising on another forum with a guy who has provided a tutorial on how to make a full boot trace. Hopefully they can analyse mine to tell me where the big problem lies as I'd imagine the output will be tough to decipher. If I get any success I'll let you know. Forum link for your reference is:
www.sevenforums.com/.../191123-windows-7-ultimate-boot-2.html
Cheers,
Wayne
Starmage
2 Intern
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129 Posts
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October 12th, 2011 22:00
Reread my last reply severaltimes...
Still can't find out why it contains offensive language?????!!!!!
Can someone explain please?
Scottyboy99
13 Posts
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October 13th, 2011 01:00
"Don't know.
I had similar issues with an Area 51 ALX and now a Precision Workstation (Similarly specc'ed).
For me I know some of it is 3rd party but it's always been kinda slow after the login screen and i have a Primary SSD."
Well I found that extremely offensive! Lol!
Seriously I don't know what the problem is with the reply. Sounded fine to me!
Starmage
2 Intern
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129 Posts
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October 13th, 2011 03:00
There's another one that's been deleted already. It's not the first one....
Scottyboy99
13 Posts
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October 13th, 2011 06:00
Ah ok. I'm sure it had nothing in it but unfortunately we all live in a nanny state these days!
21b
21 Posts
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October 20th, 2013 09:00
On an Alienware m17xr3 with 32 gigs of ram and a SSD HDD combo ssd being my primary but installed in the secondary bay I just changed the boot order my start up time is 45 to 53 seconds tops system bios is set to ahci rather than raid.
Furthermore I know this is off topic B-) I got the aliensense facial recognition software to work and its flawless it just increased my start up time but I'm in now way complaining about that. While I can't configure my zones I really could care less they're lit up blue and that's fine I normally go dark anyways.