Tips/Tricks/Reccommendations to Decrease Start-up Time?

cpu1111

Baseband Member
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Hi everyone. I'm looking to learn all the things I can do to decrease the time from when I push the power button to when I can actually use my computer.

How I measure this is the time from when I push the power button to when the desktop shows up and when FireFox opens (I have to click the icon.) Right now, I'm at avg. 55 sec. for desktop to show-up and another 35 sec. after that for FF to launch. This is a total of avg 90 sec. from power button push to internet connectivity.

I've read where folks can get launches in half this time. I'd love to be able to do this, but any significant improvement is welcome. I know my time is not THAT BAD, but it's kind of become a challenge to see how fast I can get it.

So far, I've downloaded and ran CCleaner several times and Defragmentation with the Windows utility and then 2 more times with Defraggler (I heard it works better than the stock program in Windows). The results have made the overall window-opening, etc, faster, but not the start-up.

What else do you recommend? Feel free to post your own speed, preferably measured the same way I measure mine (to keep things in the same perspective).

I'm running Windows Vista, 32-bit, 360GB harddrive, 3GB ram, 2Ghz processor.

I also have a BootSkin, which is a picture that displays in place of the windows loading bar, and an animated 3D desktop background.

Sorry for the long-winded post and thanks for your help with my goal.
 
Get rid of background and any custom theme, takes time to load up which increases time for firefox to respond. Also make sure your PC is using all cores on inital start up, just Google how to do this, it's easy.
 
Stop any programs that are set to start when windows starts, any unnecessary programs. Usually you go to the programs options and uncheck where it says "start this program when windows starts".
 
OK, when I get rid of the bootskin and the walpaper, the desktop loads up about 7 sec. faster. However, FireFox still takes a while to load, so my overall time doesn't decrease that much.

Tommy, how would I go about finding the "program options"? When I look under programs, I don't get the "start when windows starts option".
 
Tommy, how would I go about finding the "program options"? When I look under programs, I don't get the "start when windows starts option".
Whatever programs you have set to start when windows starts will usually have an icon in the system tray. Usually you can right click the icon and get to the program options. Just look in the system tray down by the clock and see what you have running when windows starts. All I have is my antivirus program and the options for my touchpad, and windows sidebar that starts when windows starts. What version of windows are you running? I'm running windows 7 64 bit and it doesn't take long at all to start up.

Also, I had the same issue with FF taking a long time to start and it annoyed me for a while. I switched to chrome and it starts up immediately.
 
Start -> Run -> 'MSCONFIG' i nthe box -> Startup tab -> untick all the stuff that doesn't need to start up on start-up. e.g. Acrobat reader (alot of people have this but barely any use it), Catacyst/NVIDIA control center (this isn't the drivers, this is the settings for the cards, you only need this when you're adjusting them, so they don't need to run at startup)

and so on.
 
In my system tray, the only things there are the anitvirus and the touchpad options. Oh, there are the battery and volume indicators as well.

Interestingly enough, when I run Soluto, it shows this: ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

It looks like most of the time is taken up by Windows and the antivirus. Do you think disabling some start-up items still holds merit for me?
 
I don't have any suggestions for you, but rather a comment. I don't know how most people do it these days, but I hardly ever really shut down or boot my computer. Most of the time, I close the lid of my laptop which puts my computer in standby. I'm curious about what others do.
 
JCB, I'm running a 5400 RPM harddrive, not SSD.

So far I've set it to load the harddrive first on start-up, boot with 2 cores (my max), defragged my boot files, and removed all of the start-up items shown by soluto to be unnecessary (wall, almost all of them).

My time from when I push the power button to when my desktop APPEARS is avg 53 sec.

What do you think? Any other suggestions? Is this time good given my equipment?

Thanks.
 
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