Gaming Rig: Boot Time?

M

M33X7

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 20, 2012
Messages
258
Since gamers are usually running the "best of the best" above the average user, and my rig is my gaming rig but also my all-around system, I wanted to ask the question here.

What is the average boot time of your rig?

Boot time can depend on what you have launching upon start up as well, such as Steam, Origin, other progs etc. so I also ask:

What/how many progs/processes do you having running (roughly) upon boot before opening anything else?

I haven't turned off my system in quite a while, so I decided to test it now.

My rig is in my sig, and I only have 16 or so process running upon booting, and it's taking around one minute from the time I nail the power button on my system until I hit my desktop. Seems a little long to me these days.

I don't have Steam, Origin or any other extraneous programs launching in the background. Just iTunesHelper and Adobe Reader, but they're both small progs.
 
17 Seconds.

Haven't formatting since last year. Have Steam running with 57 processes.
 
From a cold power on, (button push), using a stop watch (so +/-1s), I get to a useable desktop in 23 seconds. I start up Steam. I have my bios setup so no extra raid controllers or disk controllers are starting, so the bios loading part is about 8 seconds.
 
Never timed it as it takes like 2 minutes I'd say. The bulk of that is because of the motherboard though as it does a few different checks on components before and a complete memory check before starting up (running a server board with 2x Xeon's (8 cores total @ 2.66 and 16GB ram).

I wish it was faster but nothing I can do about though it really isn't a problem since after I wake up I go and hit the power switch to turn it on then go take my piss and get a glass of juice, by the time I get back it is ready to go.
 
How are you managing such fast times from cold boot to desktop?

My wife is running the exact same system as me, with far, far less on her drive than I have (she only uses if for gaming) and it still takes 57 seconds.

I formatted both systems only about five or six months ago, and hers is only used for gaming, nothing else. So I'm on par with her system, but it's still about one minute, so I'd say I need to reformat, but I'm comparable with her system which is all the same hardware and set-up in general.

So, if I'm on-par with her system, there cant be anything "wrong" with my system, so I guess it's just what the hardware is doing, like KaOTiK said regarding his mobo checks, though I'm not running a server board. I don't know.
 
Yeah, using an SSD for your root/OS drive will make a huge difference for boot times. I haven't timed mine, but it's under 30 seconds.
 
madFive said:
Yeah, using an SSD for your root/OS drive will make a huge difference for boot times. I haven't timed mine, but it's under 30 seconds.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been contemplating switching finally to an SSD, just haven't made the move yet.

LeninGHOLA said:
34 seconds with a mechanical HDD.
Click to expand...

With mechanical? I'm running a Velociraptor, only 1/3 of my drive is full, and the rest of my system is no slouch.

Again, I'm not understanding why my boot time seems so long (not that one minute is necessarily excessive), and my wife's is exactly the same. It must be something I don't know about, perhaps regarding the mobo I'm using in both systems etc.

Otherwise, I/we run great, no problems with anything and runs all games maxed-out no problems. Just noticed that boot times seem a bit on the slow side and not sure why.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Ask the motherboard guys which boards boot fastest.
Click to expand...

Sure, I can do that, but I'm asking you what you meant, since you mentioned it... are you talking about POST regarding my particular mobo, just being the way it is with this particular mobo? Or something that I might be able to change that could be slowing it down?
 
Some motherboards can get through their POST faster than others. As far as tweaking goes, that will also be specific to your mobo.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Some motherboards can get through their POST faster than others. As far as tweaking goes, that will also be specific to your mobo.
Click to expand...

So since it's the same on both mine and my wife's systems, it's probably just the speed of the mobo then; seems to be what you're getting at, I'm assuming.
 
The speed it takes to boot, yes. Unrelated to performance. Self tests vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
 
With Windows 7 mine is around 12-15 seconds (SSD) as I keep my start-up processes to a minimum.
When I tried the Windows 8 beta a few months ago it was even quicker. Once my Motherboard's boot beep chimed I was at the login screen in less than 10 seconds.
 
M33X7 said:
So since it's the same on both mine and my wife's systems, it's probably just the speed of the mobo then; seems to be what you're getting at, I'm assuming.
Click to expand...

For instance, when i got my SSD and started working on boot time... i found a couple settings in the bios to speed things up... There was a "Quick Boot" option i turned on, as well as i lowered the time that the mobo screen would sit there waiting for me to press an option to get into the bios. I also found a tweak where i removed the windows loading screen, which apparently takes a little time off as well.

I've never timed it, but i'm guessing it's under 30 seconds.
 
chockomonkey said:
For instance, when i got my SSD and started working on boot time... i found a couple settings in the bios to speed things up... There was a "Quick Boot" option i turned on, as well as i lowered the time that the mobo screen would sit there waiting for me to press an option to get into the bios. I also found a tweak where i removed the windows loading screen, which apparently takes a little time off as well.

I've never timed it, but i'm guessing it's under 30 seconds.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

I used to have that on a previous mobo, having to wait to press an option to enter the BIOS, but not on this board. Not sure if I have a Quick Boot option. I haven't been in my BIOS in a long time, since I last formatted.

I could try removing the Windows loading screen, but I think it's just the speed of the boot time with my mobo, since I don't have really anything loading on boot, like gaming apps etc.

I never really gave it thought until recently, and since my wife's system is the same as mine I decided to test it, and we're relatively the same. She also has no gaming or other apps loading and is using the same mobo, so I'm now assuming it just is the way it is with this particular board, which is a solid board, just a little slower on booting I guess.
 
never timed it but my boot is pretty slow having to deal with the raid controller at startup.

4x 640GB drives in raid 0 and 2x 120gb ssd's raid 0
 
Yeah, mine takes longer than it should due to motherboard POST-ing BS. Haven't really seen a way to decrease that...but from the Windows logo to a useable desktop it probably only takes like 15 seconds at the most.
 
1 1/2 minutes. I run nothing at start up aside from Windows Live Messenger and MSE. Win 7 64bit, old WD FALS Black HDD.

It has been taking a bit longer I think, probably because the OS is getting more bloated and or the HDD is getting older. I plan on getting a new HDD though. No plans for an SSD as they are too expensive.

Quick load times would be nice, though the price per GB is still too much for me. I'll probably get one when 512GB SSDs drop to $120 or so. Hopefully, that is not too far off because files and programs are not getting any smaller.
 
Beyond the normal "quick boot" option, the newer MSI BIOS's have some Windows 8 boot speed enhancements as well. No clue if they do anything in Win 7 (I have no reason to mess with them) but that could potentially make things even faster.
I read something a few months ago about MS actually having to slow the Windows 8 boot process a little bit just so people with a SSD would have enough time to activate things like safe mode.
 
The longest part of my boot time is during POST when it scans all my hdd's and shows my raid array etc It's so annoying. Any way to skip this?
 
18 seconds from off to desktop on my latest Super Midget build. Intel 520 240gb ssd as boot drive.
 
guitarguy6 said:
The longest part of my boot time is during POST when it scans all my hdd's and shows my raid array etc It's so annoying. Any way to skip this?
Click to expand...

Sure. Move all your data to an external NAS/USB/ESATA solution that supports raid function (there are tons but expensive) and or copy the raid data to a single drive (if you don't have over 3.5TB) otherwise you don't have a choice.
 
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