Becoming disappointed in less than a week

[spasell]

I received my x61 and was excited to get it in less than 10 days from ordering it directly from Lenevo's website.

I'm trying to understand why my computer takes FOREVER to boot up. When I 1st got it, it took about a total of 1 minute between swiping my fingerprint to being able to get onto the internet.

Now, it takes me OVER 3 minutes to do the same thing.

Naturally, this would mean that if I added programs to my laptop it would cause this, but all I have added in these few days are:

1. Blackberry Software
2. Nero: Portable DVD-Rom drive software
3. Mozilla Browser
4. Transfer of My Documents folder that hold my work files

My machine was preloaded with Office 2007 Standard.

Does anyone know why this would cause my machine to take a while to boot up or is this just a normal time frame? I used to have an old R series (that I named "the tank) that was NOT a Duo Processor that is supposed to be faster and better.

My machine now is tagged with Intel Centrino Pro sticker (thought was strange since I thought it should say Duo processor).

ONE OTHER IMPORTANT THING

I have this thing that was loaded onto my laptop without my permission called Windows Desktop Search and does indexing. I snoozed the indexing but wonder if this software might be slowing my machine down considerably.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.

[andrewb]

I have this thing that was loaded onto my laptop without my permission called Windows Desktop Search and does indexing. I snoozed the indexing but wonder if this software might be slowing my machine down considerably.

My boot up time improved considerably when I disabled Desktop Search in the start up programs as well as other items such as OneNote, Visio. There is a useful facility in CCleaner for doing this.

[spasell]

CCleaner? Can you point me in the right direction so that I can take care of that? Thanks for the help!!

[erik]

www.ccleaner.com -- been using it for years myself.

if you can't find something, try google.

[spasell]

Thanks but I was under the impression that you could disable those programs without having to download another software package. I have used the search for my laptop but unable to find.

[jdhurst]

Anything up to 4 minutes is normal. Too many people in here are anal about bootup. I start my machine once a day normally, and 4 minutes out of 8 hours is pretty miniscule. I get my coffee while it is booting.

The important thing is that I understand everything that loads, why it loads, and I want it to load. Later in the day, everything is running when I need it.

... JDH

[jamess]

I have X61T and the boot up is considerable. Although I've disabled many startup programs in WinXP I haven't done so in Vista on this computer.

It's a tablet but do I need Tablet shortcut menu and TSMREsident programs to boot? What do they do? For the rest, I know what they're for.

Thanks

[spasell]

Ok, so I went to Ccleaner.com and downloaded the software. Actually, I have to say, it worked well. It seriously cut my boot up time in half by allowing me to remove One Note and Windows Desktop Search from the desktop tool bar on start up. HUGE difference. Thanks for the help on that.

[proaudioguy]

Ok, so I went to Ccleaner.com and downloaded the software. Actually, I have to say, it worked well. It seriously cut my boot up time in half by allowing me to remove One Note and Windows Desktop Search from the desktop tool bar on start up. HUGE difference. Thanks for the help on that.

I see no way to disable one note in CCleaner accept to remove it. I could remove it or simply not install it in the first place. I use One Note, I just want to get rid of the start up, not the whole program.

[andrewb]

I see no way to disable one note in CCleaner accept to remove it. I could remove it or simply not install it in the first place. I use One Note, I just want to get rid of the start up, not the whole program.

Have you tried - tools - start up in CCleaner (rather than tools-uninstall) ?

[jamess]

I suppose the CCleaner does the same as

START - RUN - msconfig - startup options and remove all unneccessary programs you don't wish to run?

[proaudioguy]

I see no way to disable one note in CCleaner accept to remove it. I could remove it or simply not install it in the first place. I use One Note, I just want to get rid of the start up, not the whole program.

Have you tried - tools - start up in CCleaner (rather than tools-uninstall) ?

That's it.

[spasell]

You don't have to remove the program...just the desktop icon from the toolbar.

[zaimek]

Thanks but I was under the impression that you could disable those programs without having to download another software package. I have used the search for my laptop but unable to find.

It is called msconfig.exe and is present in windows since at least win98.

[MayaTlab]

Here is what I did to improve dramatically the reactivity of my x61s. I was able to do anything after 3 minutes, but the hard drive was running without stopping at least during 8 minutes.

Now I boot in 45 secondes (usable desktop) and the hard drive stops run afer 2.5 minutes.

I will try to explain the steps I followed in my rather poor English ( forgive me for this weakness). Of course your performances may be slower than mine depending on the amount of space you are using on your hard drive, and on the quantity of programs installed. I personnally use all the softwares preinstalled except Norton.

First I customized the settings of Vista :

1 - I disabled the system rescovery points. Sorry, I don't know the translation in English, it's when windows save a part of your memory and settings in case of a blue screen, freeze or bug. You have to go to Settings / search for rescovery points or restauration points (one more time excuse me, my Vista is French and there in no possibility to use it in English, on the contrary to Mac Os X) / activate or desactivate rescovery points / uncheck all the boxes you can uncheck.

2 - I disabled the file indexing system in the service control pannel. If someone can explain it in a better English than mine it would be great, but I can try : you just have to go to settings / system and maintainance / administration tools / services / And disable "Windows Search". It could be called also "Windows indexing", or anything like that.

3 - Stay in the service pannel and disable "Superfetch" (it is the same in English and in French). Superfetch is a service that save every activity on the computer to know what is your behavior on the computer (like, "oh, everytime he closes this apllication, he opens this other one, I should be prepared"), to anticipate your actions and speed up your whole experience. The drawback is that it uses a lot of hard drive ressources, is not very performant, and takes a very long time before doing anything worth the constant hard drive access. On a desktop, it is a good thing though.

4 - I also disabled the automatic defragmentation in the settings / system

5 - I disable the paging exective file in the data base (msconfig). You NEED at least 2 Gb of ram to do this since windows will use 1 gb after this changement rather than 700 Mb. Windows won't use anymore the hard drive for swap.

6 - I installed NOD 32, a very very very light (almost imperceptible) antivirus. It is not the best concerning security, but nowadays it seems to be in the top rungs of the ladder, after Kaspersky and Gdata antiviruskit for example, but before Norton, McAfee, etc.

7 - I disabled the planning concerning the automatic search of undesirable programs in windows defender.

8 - Then I installed Diskeeper 2007 PROFESSIONNAL (not the home edition, not the 9.0 version sold with the x61s), and I did a "defragmentation before reboot" to defrag all the windows files (which are blocked in regular use). Moreover I let it on automatic defrag, to keep a very clean hard drive. This automatic defrag is quite well done, it uses your ressources only when the computer is idling, something like 10% of your processor and an intermittent, bur very rare hard drive activity. I experienced a little drop in battery life since I can't idle anymore, something like 15 - 30 minutes, but it is for my use a good choice in comparison with the incredible boost I got on the boot time and the reactivity of the OS.

I hope someone will be able to understand what I tried to exlain . I must remind you, however, that these settings were made for a specific machine, and that computer science is less objective than what we are believing. Maybe they will cause you more difficulties than before !

[jamess]

How/where do you perform step 5 - how to disable?

[MayaTlab]

Oh I'm sorry it isn't in msconfig but in the data base.

Type "regedit" in the search bar of the launch menu and type "enter". Then follow the folders : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlSet / Control / SessionManager / Memory Management. Click on Memory Management and search DisablePagingExecutive. Double-click and chage the "0" with a "1". Then reboot (to avoid any bug) and You will see a slightly drop in the hard drive access.

Otherwise, I finally decided not to keep Diskeeper on "active". Although hard drive acces were low in comparison with the performances I got, the hard drive was becoming quite hot (and so the fan was going on a lot). Now I'm trying to defrag automatically at every reboot (since I boot my notebook only on the morning before leaving home) but Diskeeper (and I think none of its concurrents) doesn't include this option. So for the moment I do a defrag every two days, which takes something like 3 minutes (Diskeeper is faster than the microsoft tool and I have very few components installed on my machine). But I strongly recommend a defrag, even for Vista (before I thought it was unnecessary, like Mac Os X).

[jamess]

I did not get a substantial effect by performing this step, so I just rolled it back to what it was.

I am still waiting for the 7K200 HDD b y Hitachi, I guess that will speed things up a bit. At least on boot up, which is now about 3 min (and about 2 more before it settles)