Is 5 minutes bootup fast enough?

[joseps75]

I have 3 quad boxes on Vista os. It boot to ready to use in 5 minutes. It has Norton Security Suites, Microsoft Security essentials and Boinc auto run on Distributed Computing. Is the 5 minutes bootup reasonable? I wish to make it faster.

 

[ahenkel]

5 minutes really seems excessive to full productivity. Hold on a sec I'll check my boot time

 

[ahenkel]

Well I was back online by 8:22, and that's including time to shut down. I would honestly drop Norton. MSSE should be fine for security. I bet dollars to donuts thats whats slowing your boot time down.

 

[StrangerGuy]

WARNING:

Insufficient RAM alert!

 

[Gunbuster]

I have laptops running a fresh image of XP, fully patched with Symantec Endpoint that boot in 40 Seconds. 5 minutes is hella bad.

 

[corkyg]

5 minutes is bad. Having Norton and MSSE is also bad. Pick one or the other - preferably MSSE. Two security programs spend more time fighting each other than doing their job. That could be a big part of your 5 minutes.

 

[Chapbass]

Whats the rest of the system look like?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds ok for Vista. The actual OS boot should be less then a minute, but by the time the drive is done chugging and where you can actually open something and start using it, then yeah. Even my XP machine takes a good 2-3 minutes before I can start doing anything. My work machine is like 10 minutes because of all the crap in startup.

 

[Lemon law]

I agree with corkyG, you can have one and only one active AV program running on any given computer and you have two.

Nor do I know about your version of Norton, but years ago when I chucked Norton in favor of a freeware AV, I experienced dramatic reductions in ready to use boot times.
Vista can always benefit with the addition of extra Ram, figure 2gb memory at least, and you can further help that by taking many not frequently used programs off the start up list. The programs will still be there and start by clicking their icons on the desktop, but it takes extra bootup time to start every program every time. So why start them all every time you boot up?

 

[acheron]

I just posted about this in the "what you DO miss about the good ol days" thread. Fast start times, not just boot but loading programs.

5 minutes is a lot, though my work computer takes longer than that because the IT department at work loads a ton of crap in there that I can't get rid of.

I would get rid of Norton and see where you're at.

 

[mmntech]

Five minutes is a lot. Definitely get rid of Norton when you can, and other resource hog products. Most of it is bloatware. The fewer apps the system has to load on boot, the better.

 

[bruceb]

My old Dell 8200 takes about 4-5 mins to boot up. But it only has 512MB RAM and
also a slow 5400RPM Hard Drive. My Toshiba laptop with the same amount of RAM
and 7200RPM Hard Drive boots up to the XP Login in about 1 min & ready to use in about 3 minutes

 

[glugglug]

4 things to change to fix this, in order of priority based on cost vs. effectiveness:
1. Get rid of Norton
2. Get more RAM (make this #3 if you already have at least 2GB, #4 if you already have at least 4GB). If you have exactly 2GB, I would say upgrade RAM first. The SSD will make a bigger difference on boot times, but the RAM will matter more at other times, and is a lot cheaper.
3. Upgrade to SSD
4. Replace Vista with Windows 7

My Win7 x64 system with 6GB and Intel X25-M boots and has auto-login to a completely usable desktop, including Google toolbar startup, APC UPS monitoring software startup, ASUS speed adjustment utility startup, uTorrent startup, etc. in about 15-20 seconds. And half of that is BIOS POST with several USB hubs connected and there usually being a SD card or 2 mounted.

 

[Swivelguy2]

Why would anyone be using Vista in 2010?

 

[Paperlantern]

Yeah 5 mins is horrifying. My Inspiron 9100 laptop from circa 2006 boots in 46 seconds to full productivity, that includes me having to click my name and input a password. Course, it runs Ubuntu 9.10... kinda apples n oranges here. Linux doesn't need antivirus either...

I had Win7 on it before Ubuntu and it was still full prod in just over a minute i think. That was with AVG free as well.

 

[Blazer]

1 minute, 50 seconds, fully loaded Vista Ultimate desktop, according to Crap Cleaned and MSconfig only 'Mse, ehtray.exe, CCC' are loaded with 47 processes @ 44% memory used. thats with 2 gb ram, 5 hd's and 2 Cd/Dvd's, i am not bitchin.

 

[Blazer]

Why would anyone be using Vista in 2010?

this is why, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Windows+...&skuId=9539378, i am happy to keep $300.00 in my pocket, and win 7 doesnt bring anything i would need to justify the cost.

 

[Paperlantern]

this is why, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Windows+...&skuId=9539378, i am happy to keep $300.00 in my pocket, and win 7 doesnt bring anything i would need to justify the cost.

Heh, Linux doesnt cost anything and would probably boot in 30 seconds on your rig, and use half the RAM... just sayin...

 

[DominionSeraph]

My Athlon x2 5200 would boot Vista in about a minute off a 150GB Raptor. 2GB RAM is fine -- if you're swapping out of 2GB on startup, it ain't the RAM that's the issue, it's the 1.5GB of crap you're loading.

Clean out your startup items in msconfig, delete unused programs, run CCleaner, disable your swapfile, run chkdsk, defrag -w, then reenable swapfile -- something like 2000MB min/ 2000MB max.

 

[joseps75]

Hi every one
After reading all your post, here is what I did first: Norton Security Suite is the latest release provided free to Comcast Bundle subscriber. It has a STARTUP manager which you can use what program to run during startup. What I did is check off all programs I do not want to run during startup. Then I clicked apply and shutoff computer. I reboot and time it. My result is boot time is 1 min 23 sec. Its a big improvement from 5 min. without removing Norton and MSE.
I can not add more RAM. I will try other ways and see if I could further speed up booting time. Thanks for all you comments/inputs
joseps75

 

[lxskllr]

It's REALLY important that you don't run 2 A/Vs active at the same time. By important, I mean that's a really stupid thing to do. You can have them both installed, but only 1 A/V should ever be active at the same time. It doesn't have any to do with "tweaking" or "performance". They won't be able to properly do their job if they're both running.

 

[DominionSeraph]

They won't be able to properly do their job if they're both running.

This.

An antivirus really needs exclusive control to be able to real-time scan and quarantine effectively.

Personally, I'd remove Norton and keep MSSE. I'm running MSSE and it seems to be low profile, effective, and I like the way it transparently updates.

 

[JackMDS]

Microsoft offers Free Security Essential which is a Good combo of AntiVirus Anti Spyware application.

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

This is a free, small foot-print, good Firewall, http://www.pctools.com/firewall/

Why so many people want to use, and pay for the Behemoth Slow Security Suits that do not provide better protection?

I guess because the Behemoths pay vendors like Dell to put a trials on their new computers, and the sheep follow the Bell of the leader.


.

 

[zerocool84]

4 things to change to fix this, in order of priority based on cost vs. effectiveness:
1. Get rid of Norton
2. Get more RAM (make this #3 if you already have at least 2GB, #4 if you already have at least 4GB). If you have exactly 2GB, I would say upgrade RAM first. The SSD will make a bigger difference on boot times, but the RAM will matter more at other times, and is a lot cheaper.
3. Upgrade to SSD
4. Replace Vista with Windows 7

My Win7 x64 system with 6GB and Intel X25-M boots and has auto-login to a completely usable desktop, including Google toolbar startup, APC UPS monitoring software startup, ASUS speed adjustment utility startup, uTorrent startup, etc. in about 15-20 seconds. And half of that is BIOS POST with several USB hubs connected and there usually being a SD card or 2 mounted.

Why would anyone be using Vista in 2010?

Umm Vista has nothing to do with his system taking a long time to boot up. W7 doesn't make your system faster at all. There's been tons of benchmarks to prove it. They both use basically the same amount of RAM.

 

[lxskllr]

Umm Vista has nothing to do with his system taking a long time to boot up. W7 doesn't make your system faster at all. There's been tons of benchmarks to prove it. They both use basically the same amount of RAM.

One small nit to pick. When I benched Win7 and Vista, Win7 was measurably faster starting up, by approx 14 seconds. Otherwise the performance between the 2 was virtually identical.

I prefer Vista btw. I like the setup better.