Windows 7 20 Minute boot time on fresh Win7 x64 install

[Gareth Foster]

Hello,

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 on my brother's PC. He had been using Vista previously. Upon booting to the installer, the "Starting Windows" screen would appear with the animated windows logo. This screen took 20 minutes of waiting to get past, so for ages I thought it wasn't going to work at all. Eventually I left it on long enough to get through to the first stage of installation.
Everything went ok during install, I formatted the single partition on the HDD and told Win7 to install there. The next two times the install had to restart the computer, the huge delay on getting past the "Starting Windows" screen remained (keep in mind this is before/during the install). Vista had no such issues with boot times. And now that Windows 7 is installed, the boot issues remain, even after installing all available windows updates, updating graphics/mobo/sound/mouse/keyboard drivers, etc. I have checked the Event Log as I have read that you can diagnose possible boot problems in there, but there doesn't appear to be any Boot Events logged, all I see in the Diagnostics-Performance log are Shutdown events.

Specs are as follows:

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 RTM
Core 2 Quad 2.8Ghz
3GB DDR2 RAM
500GB Samsung SATA 7200rpm HDD
Nvidia 9800GTX
XFX nForce 780i SLI Motherboard (BIOS ver. P09)

I have tried many things to fix it, such as removing various RAM modules, enabling/disabling various BIOS settings relating to USB/IDE (I don't use any IDE devices but thought I'd try)/RAID etc (also don't have my single HDD in RAID). If there is any other information I can give, please let me know. These boot times are crazy and I would very much like them to go away

Thanks,

Gareth.

 

[zvit]

Some solutions:

For many, it was the PCU (Power Unit Supply)
1.Windows 7 Install Hangs at "Starting Windows" Screen (For some it was the PCU)

2. Link Removed - Invalid URL

 

[Gareth Foster]

Unfortunately the problems in those threads aren't the same as my problem. Though quite similar, those people are having problems with the PC freezing/hanging/locking up at the starting windows screen just as the windows logo animation starts up. My PC doesn't freeze, the animation continues to play smoothly, it just takes forever to get past that screen. Thanks for looking for me though.

 

[zvit]

Actually, you mentioned that you waited 20 minutes for the screen to get past... Those other guys most probably gave up (like most people would) after 5 minutes and wrote in their post "Start up STUCK"... if they had just waited like you.... So I suggest you go through some of the solutions there - it might just help.

 

[TorrentG]

Install the latest video driver, in safe mode + networking if need be:

Link Removed - Invalid URL

If that doesn't help, give us the following report. Type msinfo32 in the start menu. Hit enter. File | save on the screen that opens. Zip the saved file and attach to a post using the paperclip above where you type, in advanced mode reply. You can use safe mode + networking for this too, if needed.

If there is any overclocking in the video, cpu, ram - then set to default values.

 

[CommonTater]

Do you by any chance have anything connected to USB?
In particular USB hard disks are a real problem.

I use a WD 500g in an external NexStar housing for backups of work in progress. If I forget to turn it off and do a reboot it can take half an hour or more for my system to reboot. Turn off the external drive, it will boot in about 20 seconds flat.

It's a Win7 bug... it's slower than molasses re-initializing active USB devices.

 

[Gareth Foster]

@zvit: No luck with any of those suggestions

@TorrentG: Latest video driver is installed, and there are no overclocked components. Report is here: View attachment msinfo.zip

@CommonTater: I have no external hard disk attached, USB or otherwise. As well as this, I have tried booting with no USB devices at all attached, but alas it didn't make any difference.

 

[TorrentG]

I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with the SQL Server services.
Type msconfig in the start menu. Then hit enter. Go to services tab. Check the box to Hide all Microsoft services. Then click the box to disable all and hit ok. Reboot and see if the issue persists.

If not, you can revisit that page and enable the 3rd party services one by one while rebooting to see which is causing the problem. Like I said though, it might be the SQL ones.

You could also type services.msc in the start menu and hit enter. You can use this page to permanently disable services.

 

[Gareth Foster]

I'll certainly give it a try, but I doubt it is the SQL services as this issue has happened since the OS was installed, and even during the setup process. Will report back soon.

 

[Gareth Foster]

Sorry for the delay, had a bit of a distraction at home. No luck, disabling all the services didn't change anything

 

[Captain Jack]

Hello and Welcome !

Follow this article and reboot the System in Selective Startup Run Selective Startup using System Configuration.

Then check this article The Welcome screen may be displayed for 30 seconds during the logon process after you set a solid color as the desktop background in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 what Internet security software are you using.

Run a System Health Report - START | type perfmon /report - a viewer will appear | Save as an HTML file

- Captain

 

[Gareth Foster]

Hello again,

I have narrowed down the culprit of the huge boot delay. It is the ACPI driver (acpi.sys) which takes over 1000 seconds (~17 mins) to load on boot. Link Removed which contains a RAR'd boot trace file (the unRAR'd file was 330Mb) which shows the boot process, and the length of time it takes for acpi.sys to load. Unfortunately I do not know how to fix this problem, or why it is taking so long for the driver to load. I can't disable ACPI either, as there isn't any way to do that from what I've read (at least in the x64 version of Win 7). This is quite annoying :/

 

[TorrentG]

Hi.

I'd update the bios to the latest along with motherboard drivers. See how that goes for ya.

 

[zvit]

1. Check BIOS to see if ACPI is enabled.

2. That .sys file is for the hard drives. You could have harddrive failure. Check your HDD. (Links to some utilities)
Hard Drive Testing Tools - Top 7 Free Hard Drive Testing Tools - Hard Drive Diagnostics

3. Try running chkdsk /f or /p at the run command.

4. Could be motherboard controllers failing.

5. It might be something as easy as a loose module. Open the computer and make sure RAM is fully seated. Also, check the memory:
Link Removed - Invalid URL

 

[Sailio]

I am getting that exact same thing as well... hes using a dg43gt mobo from newegg

 

[Sailio]

if anyone knows what i can do i've got all the drivers installed i just havent updated the bios yet. after the windows loading screen, just sits there black screen for 17 minutes... also i couldnt install windows 7 from discdrive, errored out everytime at applying updates. had to make my flashdrive into a bootable windows installation for it to work.

 

[a2bjumper]

I have the exact same problem.

I've already did the following tests:

- Disconnected every USB connectors at the motherboard
- Disconnected the CD/DVD drive
- Replaced the power supply
- Replaced the SATA HD (Works with ACPI)
- Changed SATA To RAID in bios
- Disabled every special feature in the bios
- Replaced video-card
- Booted up without RAM to clear curtain things
- I've did an upgrade to the latest bios software
- Tested RAM with memtest86+
- Tested HD with chkdsk
- Tested CPU with HOT CPU Tester

None of the above worked

There are no broken things on the motherboard, all drivers are up to date & did a clean install of Windows 7.

Please tell me there is someone who has a solution, causse i'm really out of inspiration..

Thanks in advance

 

[Saltgrass]

Are you seeing any messages?

Can you get us a picture of your disk management window using the snipping tool and attaching using the paperclip?

Since you have run all the fixes suggested, it does the same thing in Safe Mode?

Since it very well could be an errant driver, you might try creating a Boot Log using Msconfig.exe on the Boot tab.

It may also be a delay caused by something being scanned, or opened. If you have a printer with a memory card slot, that could be involved. Network locations might be involved.

If all else fails, I would recommend using Process Monitor from SysInternals to watch the boot sequence. It can be set that way and will show what is happening. Looking for a long time period of inactivity, or recurring activity might help pin down the problem.