Thinkpads Forum

Recently I have noticed that it now takes my system approximately 4-5 minutes from the time I swipe my fingerprint reader to the time I can actually use my computer to boot up. Sometimes it is even longer. I have 85% space available and my programs are very basic. I am running Windows XP and use Office 07 with no strange or unusual sized programs that need to load. This is so [censored] frustrating to me as it used to be about 2 minutes or less to get up and running. I have used CCleaner and other ultilities, run defrags almost every day, but it still gets worse and worse. Anyone else run into this and found a way to fix it? Thanks.

spasell wrote:found a way to fix it? Thanks.

The big wins will be.....

• Remove the CSS completely (unless you really have a real need for that level of security... in which case learn to live with lengthy boot times)
  
  Disable indexing in Vista (which doesn't really work properly anyway)

... after that its basically tweaking what else you load at start up with the aim of eliminating anything you don't really need to load then (but can be started later when actually used).

Cheers,

bill B.

You should look into what bill B. said above. Here are some more.

If Windows cannot connect to a network on bootup, this will cause a lengthy delay. If you do not have a wireless connection at your location, try turning off the WiFi adapter with Fn + F5.

Another thing that can slow down bootups and operation in general is if your hard drive has fallen back to PIO mode. See following for more info on this.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/i ... /udma_fix/

Def uninstall MOST of Lenovo's crapware.

iamdmc wrote:Def uninstall MOST of Lenovo's crapware.

'
Bad advice. On the whole the ThinkVantage utilities, apart from CSS, do not make much significant difference to start up time

Cheers,

Bill B.

spasell wrote:Recently I have noticed that it now takes my system approximately 4-5 minutes from the time I swipe my fingerprint reader to the time I can actually use my computer to boot up. Sometimes it is even longer. I have 85% space available and my programs are very basic. I am running Windows XP and use Office 07 with no strange or unusual sized programs that need to load. This is so [censored] frustrating to me as it used to be about 2 minutes or less to get up and running. I have used CCleaner and other ultilities, run defrags almost every day, but it still gets worse and worse. Anyone else run into this and found a way to fix it? Thanks.

Recently I got a colleague that faced this problem. Unlike your case, her harddisk is almost full as she do RnR onto the same harddisk leaving only 10% free space. Worst, she has only 1GB Ram and has ALL the thinkware stuff running.

The slow bootup could be due to your bootup files are ALL over the place, defragmenting helps, but I found my solution using Disktrix Ultimatedefrag which allows me to put the winodw bootup files on the outermost track of the harddisk.

Second issue to increase Ram, removed RnR backups to another harddisk so that there is enough harddisk space. If you only have 1GB ram, then window XP also uses some of the harddisk space as virtual memory (ie swap in and out during bootup), so it further slow down the bootup.

So the client security solution is the thing that will make a big difference here? I already use PC Cillin and all of it's features, so if you think it's not that big of a deal, than I would probably remove it. I just want to make sure that there is a concensus that it would in fact help to expedite the boot up times.

I do have a high speed wireless router that I am always connected to, and I'm willing to accept that the time it takes to connect to this is fine. Apart from that, the fact it takes so [censored] long to start up is bogus.

If I do remove the CSS, will this also remove the fingerprint reader capabilities?

spasell wrote:If I do remove the CSS, will this also remove the fingerprint reader capabilities?

See here..... http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 896#352896

Cheers,

Bill B.

So, I removed the CSS and to be honest, the time from swiping my finger to being able to use my laptop did not really change at all, so that tells me it's something else. I'm not willing to start removing programs using msconfig because there seem to be some on there that I need and do not know what they do. I did remove the Yahoo Messenger start up but again, very little difference in boot up time. I also did the standard defrag and that also did not change the times.

spasell wrote:I am running Windows XP and use Office 07 with no strange or unusual sized programs that need to load. This is so [censored] frustrating to me as it used to be about 2 minutes or less to get up and running.

when was the last time you did a virus or spyware/malware scan?

You didn't mention the capacity of your memory modules, it's insignificant question and I hope you've adequate enough to fulfill your machine's need. Also what's the spindle speed of your HDD?

I have this problem too and I'm not really sure what to do about it. The hard drive spins incessantly upon bootup so that the system isn't really responsive for 4 or 5 minutes. After that, it's as fast as you'd expect a C2Duo 2GHz w/ 2GB to be - but before that....

I have a Creative PCMCIA sound card, but I'm not sure if that's the culprit. I've uninstalled CSS and Access Connections and disabled the graphics apps, all to no avail. Don't suppose there are any more suggestions kicking around? I keep Aero enabled (it's purdy) but I thought w/ 2GB, I should be able to keep that feature around.

There are some Vista and ThinkVatage services that might slow bootup down minimally, but never ever in this range. So there must be some major problem on your machines.

I would say: your paging table is damaged. I.e., Vista cannot use the cache.

It must be something in this severity level.

Hello guys! First post here, signed up for the same problem.

I have been struggling with this boot problem for a couple of days now. I thought it was the Thinkvantage stuff, which i really find useful and didn't want to lose. After much experimenting, even with msconfig/basic services only mode, nothing has changed. I've uninstalled Access Connections and RnR, as well as the usual disabling of unnessecary MS Services, nothing helps!

The boot sequence goes like this

BIOS Splash - Normal
XP fastdetect - Normal
XP Splash screen - normal, sub-10 sec
*its right here than things get shady*
The screen will go black, in between XP splash and desktop background... HD act. is non-stop for 46sec, then HD act. stops, and machine just SITS there until 1:12sec since the XP splash screen went off! Then the welcome screen pops up and sits there until 2:19sec after XP splash disappears until I can now finally see the Taskbar loading up.

I have a T60 1951W1M, it came with a T2400 Core Duo, but I've upgraded it to a T7400 Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, Samsung SpinPoint M5S 250GB drive (HD Tach'ed @ max read 65MB/sec, min read 35MB/sec). Initially I had Vista installed and thought that it was too slow/bulky. Went back to XP Pro SP2, my familiar territory, tweaked it up to find the boot problem even worse than Vista! Initial Page File size =256MB changed from 2048MB) I'm so baffled and disappointed in this machine now!

another observation, during the Hard Drive thrashing, between XP spash and Welcome screen, it appears that something is scanning all the drives, including (empty) external USB storage if connected. Indexing Service is disabled, boot defragmentation disabled. What I'd like to know is what is scanning these drives and why?

Previous to downgrading to XP Pro, I was running Vista on my X61 and while it boot up to the account page just fine, putting in my password and logging in was where it would take minutes untill the desktop was fully useable.

Killing explorer, then restarting it actually helped it "move along" and load the desktop fully in order for me to use it properly.

This was with a 2.2Ghz, 2GB of memory, and over 50GB free space.

I believe Vista still has its issues, so since then, for the time being, I have downgraded to XP.

The problem here is Windows Vista itself I believe, I will try to post a video showing how fast an X-series can boot and become stable (no HDD activity) on lenovo's factory preloaded Windows XP. Although one should note this is not a way to measure how good a machine is in terms of performance.

Re: Vista being the issue - would that be specific to laptops or thinkpads? I have a Dell desktop that boots up in about a minute, so in some instances, Vista works okay. The desktop is similarly spec'd to my Thinkpad...