The Boot Race

[SubKamran]

I haven't seen one of these threads anywhere, it's pretty fun. Now I can see how fast my comp boots up compared to others.

Rules:
You must measure the time between pressing the Power On button to the full load of the Login/Welcome screen. (Full load, i.e. When you can click your username).

System
------------
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
512MB PC133 SDRAM
Intel Pentium 3 700Mhz (100FSB)

Boot Time
------------
1:11

Factors
------------
Subtract 3 seconds since the mobo shows my CPU temp for 3 seconds before proceeding.

Now, let's see how I compare. To me, that's very fast for such a slow computer.

 

[Nodsu]

Just wait until MYOB or Mic post their 15 second BeOS loading times..

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Hehe, not quite.. It takes 42 seconds from hitting the power button, thanks to my mainboard checking that everything is in order. I could also cut a few seconds by disabling loading of 100 MB ramdisk from a file but that could be cheating as I use it all the time :giddy:

Windows loads quite a lot of things after you click login, too

 

[SubKamran]

It only takes about 30 seconds to fully load Windows after I click logon

* MS SQL Server
* Sygate Personal Firewall
* AVG Anti-Virus
* ATI Desktop

 

[MYOB]

I'll have to get an exact timing but its 25 seconds to the boot sound being played - the last event on the startup chain. I have fast boot on in the BIOS so theres no checking, and I have very liitle loading at boot, unlike Mic

 

[SubKamran]

A person on NewEgg said this:

Put 1GB of this [Mushkin DualDDR PC-3500 Level II RAM] in an ASUS P4C800-E DLX with a 2.4C (both from Newegg), set the FSB @ 260, DDR to 5/4 (DDR333) with 2-2-2-6 timings and I'm flying along at 3.12Ghz w/DDR416 @ 2-2-2-6.

How fast is it? Well with a new WD 74GB SATA Raptor (also from Newegg) it is very fast. Cold boots to my Windows XP desktop in under 6 seconds.

Under 6 seconds? Is that even possible? ...

If so I'm in for a treat since that's basically my [new] system

 

[XtR-X]

I think "Cold boot" is actually not checking or posting, or doing diagnostics, checking the drives, etc.

You'd have the fastest boot time right after installing Windows on a fresh or reformatted hard drive after setting some of the msconfig values to save time... like nogui boot and the time to check for drives to be reduced to 3 (min.), etc.

The thread was a good thought, but there are way too many factors for this. Plus, I won't reformat to just get a fast boot time. Daily use....

 

[agissi]

Havnt timed mine yet.. maybe I'll get around to it.

SubKamran, Im not sure what their definition of "cold boot" is, but only they are coming back from Hibernation, I dont believe it

 

[StormBringer]

If I remove some of my RAM, I might be able to POST in under 6 seconds...

 

[LNCPapa]

LOL - I have a problem believing 6 seconds - sorry. I'd have to see the machine boot up for myself - and they'd have to let me play around on the machine also. I can't see any consumer OS on consumer hardware booting that quickly

 

[young&wild]

It takes around 30 to 35 second for my two PCs to boot to Windows Logon Screen,

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by LNCPapa
LOL - I have a problem believing 6 seconds - sorry.

He did say post no boot... Guess he means that he has so much ram that the BIOS spends ages checking it's actually there...

Had it been booting, then I'd agree with you papa...

 

[LNCPapa]

LOL - I believe Storm - and I understand about the long mem check taking sooooo long I meant I don't believe what the guy from newegg said.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Ah, then I see..

About the newegg guy, yeah, I'm having trouble believing him too... Had it been another OS, but XP...

 

[SubKamran]

Maybe using the idea Xtr-X said it could possibly be 6 seconds. The Windows XP boot screen takes a little while though.

 

[StormBringer]

Originally posted by SubKamran
Maybe using the idea Xtr-X said it could possibly be 6 seconds. The Windows XP boot screen takes a little while though.

umm, no that wouldn't work since what XTR-X said makes no sense. I'm not following what he means by it doesn't do all the checks because my systems take pretty much the same time to boot, whether cold or warm.

BTW, yea Papa, I was refering to the RAM checking earlier when I was talking about POST time.

As far as I am aware, No OS with a GUI can fully boot to the desktop in 6 seconds(unless it is returning from something like hibernation)

 

[Rick]

There are some very quick BIOSes out there that practically start booting Windows in a second or two. I've seen some P4 boards that would boot so fast, they would not even show the POST or BIOS splash screen.

But booting Windows XP... That's a different story.

6 seconds is close to, if not impossible. This is mostly because of the hard disk. Now, if you have 10,000 or 15,000 RPM high capacity drives in RAID, it might be possible.. But then you run into the problem of loading the SCSI or SATA BIOS. That alone is 6 seconds.

That post on Newegg was probably made by someone who was excited abou their new setup and embelished a little bit.

 

[LNCPapa]

I have a pair of U320 SCSI drives setup on a dual 2.8 GHz Xeon machine. Boot time AFTER SCSI scan is a good 15 seconds. I'll time it to make sure.

 

[LNCPapa]

Just timed it - 19 seconds after the SCSI checks... Might be faster if I took out some RAM, but I doubt it would be noticably faster during the boot process.

 

[SNGX1275]

Mac System 6.0.4 will boot to desktop on an SE/30 (16Mhz with 5Megs of RAM - it comes with 1meg) just after the screen warms up enough for you to see - about 3 seconds. But nobody uses a system that old so guess that doesn't count - but hey system 6 was about like windows95 anyway and some people still use that I think.

 

[Per Hansson]

Win95 boots on my comp in under 6 seconds (not counting POST)

Windows 2000 takes a while, around 2 minutes I'd say, but why care? I restart my computer maybe once per week ;-)

Note: I ran Win95 just for the fun of it... I use win 2000 as my main OS...

 

[MYOB]

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?

 

[SubKamran]

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

 

[Rick]

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.

 

[lowman]

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...