The Boot Race

You're "boot time" isn't the time after POST. Its the total time taken for you PC to boot from total cold boot to complete loading and usability of the OS. You will not get that in less than 20 seconds.

Could people post their *real* bootimes then?

I then get about 40 seconds for full functionality (This is with my new computer)

From the power button being pressed to my Windows desktop being in a usable state - It takes my computer 26 seconds

This is with a 2600+ (overclocked considerably), 1GB PC 2700 DDR, 160GB hard drive.

So I know the 6 seconds is a lie.

I'm right around 48 seconds...I did it 5 times and took the average...not too shabby, but not the fastest by any means I am sure...

System:

Windows XP SP1 with all my super special tweaks
Gentoo Linux 2.4.22
Athlon XP @ 2800+ (2266mhz)
512mb PC2700 CL2 Crucial
WD 80GB / 8mb / 7200RPM / ATA133
K7VTA3 Revision 8
Fujitsu 40GB MPE Elite series, performance, 7200rpm

Windows XP: 23 seconds to login screen, 32 seconds to desktop including inputting my password

Gentoo: 49 seconds to login

Commodore 64 - 1 second.



(primary system 54 seconds...)

As per the NewEgg guy, my friend I met on IRC P) has a server computer with a WD Raptor 74GB and 1512MB of RAM and his starts up in 8 seconds approximately. He uses Windows Server 2003.

I'll have to get the exact timing. Ah hah, found it, 10 seconds minus the RAM detection. (RAM detection is 11 seconds). He didn't have Quick POST enabled that time so that's why the RAM detection took so long.

10 seconds baby, that's fast. Keep in mind all his drives are SATA (including DVD-rom drive).

I doubt it, server OS take longer to boot due to the services starting & there's no such thing as SATA Cd/DVD-Roms.

Actually, SCSI is much slower than IDE at boot-up for some reason. I actually came here looking for answers why. Even my 1GHz Athlon will boot up WinXP faster than my P4 3GHz U320 15k RAID 0 system. I've also read of people complaining about SCSI's boot up time being so slow that they just decided to go IDE.

I just build a system for someone using an Athlon 64 3000 and a Seagate 7200.7 on SATA 150 and it takes "3 cycles of the bar" on the WinXP splash screen at the most to get onto the desktop. My SCSI RAID 0 takes atleast 11 or 12, not to mention the full SCSI ID scan at the start. Do SCSI drives need time to "spool up"? Someone suggested that to me, but that doesn't seem likely to me, because, how would a SCSI HDD be able to read off the disc if it weren't spinning at a constant rate? Also, regardless of whether it's a reset, where the HDD is already up and running or a complete restart from cold, it takes just as long, so I'm at a loss to explain it. I can only guess that it has to do with SCSI drivers or the SCSI BIOS talking with the CPU over Sunday brunch?

Well, I would assume someone would get SCSI for the low seek times, low CPU overhead, and the long MTBF, meaning it's for a computer that's usually on for long periods of time, so reboot times aren't a huge issue. Having said that, however, I have to be honest in that, for a plain desktop, there is something in having a 10 second boot up time, from BIOS to desktop. It feels much more user friendly.

With IDE RAID 0 I've heard that the WinXP splash screen is up for about 1 second. That's pretty cool. Every time I build a system I'm tempted to go IDE RAID 0, and with WD Raptors having a 1 million hour MTBF it seems like a good idea, but I always somehow end up getting SCSI every time. Every time I think I'm out they pull me back in

The SCSI time delay is the spin up time, enforced by the controller, to prevent disk access before the disks have got up to a safe operating speed.

Not to mention that the computer has to separately load the SCSI BIOS from the controller.

windows xp is ~30 seconds to logon on my fastest machine. it takes a good 5 minutes for my resurrected pentium MMX-233 to start redhat linux 7, xserver and all. i used to leave my P4 on 24/7 but stopped awhile back, so the boot time is nice.