slow boot up time

[NWmac]

I used to be able to boot up in no time. The microsoft vista "lightbar" used to scroll left to right about 5 times. Now, it scrolls 43 times.

I did the Visual basic test that I found here and my boot up time is 155 seconds. I do know part of my problem is my antivirus but looking around I found more problems. Can anyone help me with this? I have major bootup errors in the event log.

 

[rive0108]

try this:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/165576-how-make-vista-more-responsive-faster.html?filter

Ps- If you are using reg cleaners in that Pc Tools you should know that they inevitably cause Windows/Program corruption- and require re-install to fix.
I also suggest you run a better antivirus/antimalware than PC Tools. You may have malware/viruses. Scan here:http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

and read these:
http://www.vistax64.com/system-security/172321-vista-sp1-antivirus-performance.html
http://www.vistax64.com/system-security/162362-antivirus-scanners-internet-security-tools.html

Read this:
http://www.vistax64.com/software/212354-do-not-use-registry-cleaners.html

 

[NWmac]

HMMM,

Ran the sfc with no errors reported. I tried to run the online check using the link you gave but got this error code: (see jpg)

Well, I uninstalled Registry Mechanic after I restored the changes that it had made. It didn't make any difference and after looking at my event history, I have been getting tons of boot up errors since January. I just installed the PC Tools stuff last week.

PC Tools was an excellent AV software for XP x32. Is there something better for Vista x64? I do have another thread here where I found PC tools Spyware Doctor is causing my Media Center connection errors. http://www.vistax64.com/media-center/218109-connection-terminated-mce-extender-setup.html#post999955

 

[stew2]

Your specs are similar to mine and heres my reboot time:

View attachment 11408

I applied various tweaks to get this but the easiest to do will be by downloading these programmes:

IE privacy Keeper - Download IE Privacy Keeper, Flash Saving Plugin, etc.
Tune Up Utilities - TuneUp America - TuneUp Utilities 2009
PerfectDisk 10 - PerfectDisk 10 Professional | Disk Defrag | PerfectDisk.com

Once you install them delete the installers then go to the vista start orb and type "prefetch" into the search bar and hit enter. Delete every file in there and close the folder. Next run IE Privacy Keeper and tick all the boxes you want then click "Clean UP Now". You can then close it and open Tune Up Utilities.

The most important things here are the startup manager under the "Increase Performance" tab and "1 Click Maintenance" under the "Clean UP Windows" tab. In the startup manager try to limit the amount of programmes starting to under 5. Anything else you do in tune up utilities is up to you. Once 1 Click Maintenance has finished open Perfectdisk 10.

Once PerfectDisk is open you'll see a heading of "Boot Time" with an empty box underneath it . Click on all the empty boxes so they have a tick in them and close PerfectDisk and restart the pc.

Once thats finished and your back at your desktop open PerfectDisk again and click on the analyse icon for the hard drive you want and then click on the start icon. Do this for every hard drive you have and be patient as this may take several hours to complete.

Once completed restart your pc and thats it.

 

[archie123]

i see no "boot time" option in perfect disc 10?

 

[stew2]

Sorry im rubbish at explaining things. Hope this shows you better.

 

[archie123]

ha ha perfect mate thanks , cant beleive i never saw that!! had perfect disc for months :P

 

[stew2]

No problem. Oh and if you run any of these programmes go to the settings of each one or Windows Task Schedular and set them to run once a week one after the other. Make sure in perfectdisk you enable these so it defrags all files:

View attachment 11415

For instance i have mine set to run automatically every Sunday at 12:00 like this:

1- Lock the computer
2- System Restore point created
3- IE privacy keeper cleanup
4- 1 Click Maintenance cleanup without defrag
5-PerfectDisk 10 defrag

And thats it iv set system restore to only create a restore point at that time and limited its size and set 1 click maintenance to only scan on that date as well. Other tweaks are things like setting the page file initial size and max size to the same value and disable memory dumps, error reporting etc as this gives you more hard drive space and reduces fragmentation.

 

[archie123]

oh i turned the task sheduler off , ive even disable the pd agent services , i turn em on when i need to defrag , i cant have anything interfering with my rigs performance im one of those "anal" gamers thanks for the heads up on the boot time defrag though the last PD would recommend one after a drive analize , this version doesnt seem to.

reboot time gone from 69 seconds to 64 , not much i know but at least its an improvement...i just love those little improvements

 

[NWmac]

Thanks for all your help. Here is what I have done..

Uninstalled Registery Mechanic (after restoring changes it made). My boot time was 16 seconds slower. Uninstalled Spyware Doctor w/ AV and my boot time sped up by almost 30 seconds.

Then I installed Spyware Doctor (without AV) and checked. Same time as with AV AND my Media center does not communicate with my x-box, which is where this whole story started.

I deleted all prefetch items, after reading about prefetch of course. There was a 48mb folder called "readyboot" and a bunck of pf files that totalled about 28mb. I don't know if that is a lot or not but deleting everything did make somewhat of a difference but not huge.

Well, I think what I will do is just reset Vista from scratch. This is a major pain in the butt BUT I am installing a dual TV tuner and I want to make sure my system is in top shape. For most of my Vista's life I had a Comcast free edition of McAfee running as my spyware tools so who knows what kind of bugs this pc has.

SO, now that I spent $60 on software I will not use anymore, can someone give me a great AV program with Spyware recommdation and I will use Defender for the rest?

 

[stew2]

Glad to help Archie123 but really your reboot time should be faster than that. Look at your specs compared to mine, your pc should be well faster. I know that when i disabled readyboost my scrollbar on the boot screen went from 2.5 times round to 13 times round. So it may be an idea to check and maybe create yourself a .bat file for playing games.

 

[stew2]

NWmac i cant recommend a virus cleaner but if you do decide to do a full reinstall then i recommend you do this.

1- format and install vista
2- disable UAC, vista sidebar and welcome center
3- set your virtual memory min and max size to 4096mb
4- Disable the error reporting, memory dumps and disable remote assistance.
5- install all your files and programmes then delete the installers
6- run windows update and install what you want
7-Turn off uneeded services by using Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Service Configurations by Black Viper as a guide
8- Adjust power settings to max performance
9- enable advanced performance of the hard drives
10- Do as i suggested in my first post
11- Open Task Schedular and delete what you dont need to reduce hard drive activity
12- Then enter the bios and disable anything you dont use, put your hard drive as first boot device and set cpu to ram ratio of 1:1

For services i have 38 set to Automatic and 20 disabled, all the rest are set to manual. Hope this helps you.

 

[archie123]

Glad to help Archie123 but really your reboot time should be faster than that. Look at your specs compared to mine, your pc should be well faster. I know that when i disabled readyboost my scrollbar on the boot screen went from 2.5 times round to 13 times round. So it may be an idea to check and maybe create yourself a .bat file for playing games.

I disabled readyboost ages ago mate , it took me about two days to realise it also incorporated readyboot and disabling it was a very bad idea :P

I maybe could improve a little more on reboot times but i have Eset Smart security running at startup and also RivaTuner which i use for a custom fan profile i have for my GPU (NVidia's fan default fan profile doesnt raise the fan speed ubove 40% till the GPU reaches 80 degrees c!!) I dont want to disable those startup items as ill forget to enable them when i boot up!! I also created a bat file with some help a while ago to disable certain services for gaming but the services would never startup properly again afterwoods without a reboot so i sacked the idea off , it made no noticeable differance ingame anyway

Thanks for yuor help :D

 

[stew2]

Thanks for yuor help :D

No problem. If you want to get more time of you should try this Windows Performance Analysis Developer Center If you havent used it, its like bootvis on xp except with the usual Microsoft improvement of making it harder to use lol.

it made no noticeable differance ingame anyway

Yeah disabling a service is just saving ram. If youv got plenty of ram its pointless unless its one thats a security threat or adds a cpu hungery process.

 

[archie123]

got the analyser tools , used the commands , saved the trace file , viewed via the performance tookit................non the wiser ha ha Nice one i like this , never seen it before , apparently it can be used to analise bootup processes etc , as soon as i find out how ill be on to a winner

Cheers stew :D

 

[stew2]

lol it can be confusing to begin with. Heres a little guide to help Alin Constantin 's blog: Speeding up Windows Vista boot and shutdown times

Basically you run cmd.exe and type "xbootmgr.exe -trace boot" then after the reboot you run "Performance Analyzer" from the icon installed in StartMenu and use the Trace/Open menu item to open the *.etl file then you run "xbootmgr.exe -trace boot -prepSystem" from cmd.exe

This will optimize the boot time and then you can run "xbootmgr.exe -trace boot" again if you wish and open the *.etl file to see if theres anything you can do to reduce boot time like remove drivers taking to long to load, startup programmes etc.

 

[archie123]

thank you , run boot analyser cant find the .etl file?? :P im a noob i know

edit......found it :D

 

[archie123]

ok it seems riva tuner is eating my cpu during bootup and eset is eating my hard drive ill disable and see what happens , i love wasting my time like this :D

 

[archie123]

disabling them made no differance really but this command xbootmgr.exe -trace boot -prepSystem to optimise the boot performance really helped , it seems over time my boot times have degraded due to the system just needing updating as to my current boot items etc , i now have only 3 passes of the green bar as opposed to 7 before and ive knocked my boot time down to 54 seconds , i think im gonna have to be happy with that , not bad considering what i have starting up :D

Thank you very much for your help and links Stew MUCH appreciated :D

 

[stew2]

i love wasting my time like this :D

Ha ha yeah it takes a bit of effort to get vista going fast. I dont see why Microsoft couldnt have included an easy system optimizer that would defrag everything like perfectdisk and optimize boot files like the performance toolkit. But hey i suppose we got vista sidebar instead, yeah