Holy cow, Vista is slow!!!

[Just Rachel]

My Vista had been booting just a bit slow for a while.  I installed SP 1 the other night and now it's is almost unbearably slow!! The only startup items are Avast, Comodo Firewall, Threatfire, Comodo Boclean, a clock program, RocketDock, and a  USB switch.  I only allow Comodo Firewall and Threatfire to auto update.  I've whittled my services down to 50.

I've read that Superfetch has to rebuild itself after the SP 1 install.  I've rebooted probably ten times since the install, so, I don't think that's the problem.

I don't know the proper names of the startup screens, but, my progress bar thingy goes across 33 times before switching to a black screen that sits for approx. 25 seconds before the Windows logo comes up.

Have scanned for malware.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
Rachel

[IH8U]

What are your system specs?
Also check to see if your hard drive might be running under pio mode by right clicking my computer, selecting properties, the hardware tab, device manager and find IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Expand that then right click on primary IDE channel, select properties, select Advanced Settings Tab, and look at current transfer mode. If it's set to PIO Only then close that box and right click on primary IDE channel and select Uninstall. Just click OK when you get the warning then restart your computer. After it restarts, give it 5-10 minutes and restart again. The check the mode that your controller is in now, it should be Ultra DMA Mode X.

[Just Rachel]

Oops! Forgot specs!

Dell Inspiron 530
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E6550 2.33GHz
2.00 GB ram
32 bit Operating System
217 GB free on 'C' drive

Thanks IH8U.  I will go check it out now.

[Just Rachel]

Sheesh! I've got 6 listings under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.  4 IDE Channel, 1 Intel ICH9 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926, and 1 Intel ICH9 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920.

The first two show DMA checked.  The second two show nothing listed in the advanced tab.

The Intel thingys have no advanced tabs at all.

Also, the drivers on all of the above show dates in 2006.  This machine was purchased in the fall of 2007.  Is it safe to try and update these drivers?? I'm afraid by doing so I may botch something up badly!!!

Thanks again!
Rachel

[couttsj]

Sheesh! I've got 6 listings under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.  4 IDE Channel, 1 Intel ICH9 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926, and 1 Intel ICH9 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920.

The first two show DMA checked.  The second two show nothing listed in the advanced tab.

The Intel thingys have no advanced tabs at all.

Also, the drivers on all of the above show dates in 2006.  This machine was purchased in the fall of 2007.  Is it safe to try and update these drivers?? I'm afraid by doing so I may botch something up badly!!!

Thanks again!
Rachel

Those settings are typical for SATA. Slow boot up is usually indicative of unwanted programs being loaded at start up, both prior to and after login. Restart your machine, start the Task Manager and click on the Processes tab. Remove the check mark in the Show Processes for all Users box if it is checked. The only essential processes are "csrss.exe", "explorer.exe", "winlogon.exe", and of course "taskmgr.exe" will show as well. Some of the others may be necessary for your particular hardware, but if there are too many of them, it will slow down your boot up and we will have to work at trimming it down.

[Just Rachel]

Thanks for your reply. I know that too much loading will slow me down.  Other than security I've just got a couple of things loading.  I'll disable the extras and see if that helps.  Maybe change from Avast.  I've heard Avira is good.

[IH8U]

If you can afford to, I'd also recommend more ram. 2gb just barely runs Vista let alone anything else.

[Just Rachel]

If you can afford to, I'd also recommend more ram. 2gb just barely runs Vista let alone anything else.

Only the boot up is slow.  Other than that this machine is quite fast.

[Dolphin]

Rach,

Although I'm not a Vista virgin yet (still doing XP), I did find this forum on CNET that may help you.  Lots of different ideas and thoughts with suggested adjustments that may help.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=231752&messageID=2393146

Now go have a great day.

Bill   

[Just Rachel]

Rach,

Although I'm not a Vista virgin yet (still doing XP), I did find this forum on CNET that may help you.  Lots of different ideas and thoughts with suggested adjustments that may help.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=231752&messageID=2393146

Now go have a great day.

Bill  

Thanks Bill.  I'll go check it out.

Also...I've been trying to look at my Boot Log in Event Viewer and the entries stop sometime last July.  Does anyone have an idea as to what I've disabled to prevent logging?? Aargh!

[Tudor]

Vista by default only uses 1 CPU when it boots and I see from your configuration you have 2 CPUs.

Run MsConfig, goto "Boot" tab, then "Advanced Options", tick the "Number of Processors" box and set 2 from the dropdown. Will not take effect until you reboot.

This may speed your boot process!

[Just Rachel]

Vista by default only uses 1 CPU when it boots and I see from your configuration you have 2 CPUs.

Run MsConfig, goto "Boot" tab, then "Advanced Options", tick the "Number of Processors" box and set 2 from the dropdown. Will not take effect until you reboot.

This may speed your boot process!

Thanks for the suggestion.  I've had that checked for quite some time, however.

[couttsj]

My own system specs are similar to yours, with a slightly slower CPU and a little more RAM.

Dell Vostro 200
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz
3.00 GB RAM
32 bit Vista Business
275 GB free on 'C' drive

For comparison, here are the boot up times for my machine:
-A cold boot takes 50 seconds to the login.
-A warm boot takes 45 seconds to the login.
-A resume takes 12 seconds to the login.
-A login takes 8 seconds until the hourglass is gone.

Although CPU speeds and RAM will have a slight impact on modern computer boot times, the hard disk is usually the bottleneck. Disk speeds can deteriorate (read errors), but it is not common. Most of the time, slower speeds are the result of more information being transferred off the disk and into memory. The difference between a cold and warm boot is because a warm boot does not require a POST (power-on self test) sequence. A resume takes far less time because the configuration is stored directly to disk when the machine is put to sleep. After the disk is brought up to speed, the configuration is loaded back into memory without having to make any hardware related decisions. Make any hardware changes after a machine is put to sleep, and the resume will fail. This actually happened to me recently when setting up a new machine. The computer went to sleep on its own after I retired for the night. In the morning, I could not get it to power back up (and no beeps to give me a hint of the problem). After a lot of testing, I noticed that the fan on the graphics card did not start on its own. Upon the advice of Dell Support, I removed the graphics card and plugged the monitor directly into the integrated analog port. The machine powered back up with an error message that it could not resume, but when I continued on it discovered the new hardware and reconfigured itself. There really are some good things in this new operating system, even though it has been somewhat of a pain in the buttocks.

J.A. Coutts
Addendum
Checked my wife's new computer which has a Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz and 2.00 GB RAM:
-A cold boot takes 53 seconds to the login.
-A warm boot takes 35 seconds to the login.
-A resume takes 13 seconds to the login.
-A login takes 5 seconds until the hourglass is gone.

[Just Rachel]

Thanks couttsj! I'll time mine and see how it compares to your two machines.  Not sure when login occurs since I'm automatically logged in, however.  Guess that would be about the time I hit the desktop, eh?

[couttsj]

Thanks couttsj! I'll time mine and see how it compares to your two machines.  Not sure when login occurs since I'm automatically logged in, however.  Guess that would be about the time I hit the desktop, eh?

One would assume that you simply add the login time to each of the other times to get a comparison. I used the moment that the hourglass (or rotating symbol) disappears as the moment when the desktop was completely loaded. Some anti-virus systems can take a substantial amount of time to release the hourglass after the desktop first appears (auto scan), as well as some auto-update functions. I don't use either.

J.A. Coutts