115 seconds to desktop... normal??

[OldCorpse]

Hi, I just received my iBook, and as a total mac noob, I have questions... and questions and questions. Ahem. Well, let's just start with the first one:

How long is it normal for the iBook to start up? This is with the AC, not battery. When I pressed the keyboard power button for the first time, it seemed to take forever to reach desktop - first the grey apple with the little circle under it going round and round for about 3 minutes, then a blue screen and a multicolored ball turning round and round for another 3 minutes, and then X started loading up and that was pretty fast. OK, I figured it's the first time, maybe spotlight is indexing(??) whatever. So, after I complete the setup, the updater pulls down a whole bunch of updates (including 10.4.3), and I have to restart. I restart - and the startup time is equally long as the first time... OK, I figure it's installing stuff, no sweat.

Then I surf for a couple of hours, to give it time in case spotlight needs to do the first indexing of my HDD. Then I shut down. And power up again, and: it takes 1 minute 15 seconds of grey apple before the blue screen appears, then another 40 seconds or so from the blue screen to reach the stage of loading X until the desktop is done (including the menulets displayed), for a total time of almost 2 minutes. But this time, there was no spinning multicolored ball. Is this normal? My crappy XP is much faster to startup...

Oh, and I did not install anything, nor did I fiddle with any settings... this is a stock machine 1.33Ghz with 512MB RAM installed. Yes, I know, I've already ordered a 1GB stick of RAM, it'll be here dec. 27, but meanwhile, is this normal for a new iBook to take almost 2 minutes to reach desktop from a cold start?

Thanks in advance!

OldCorpse
quietly rotting

 

[FadeToBlack]

It definitely doesn't sound normal to me. My eMac only takes approximately 20 seconds to start up. (to get to the desktop) I had an old PowerBook G3 (333MHz) that didn't take very long at all to start up, either.

My friend just got an iBook like yours and I don't think his startup time is nearly that long, either. It took a while the first time he started it up, but I'm pretty sure it's quick to start up now.

 

[gekko513]

My PowerBook takes 1 min 15 secs to start up, so yeah, OS X doesn't (always) boot as fast as Windows XP.

On the other hand, the only times that you need to do a restart is when a new OS update is released. Just close the lid and let it sleep when you don't use it.

Edit: 1 min 55 is a bit much. If you haven't repaired permissions after the update, try that. It has fixed similar problems for me before.

 

[Chundles]

Yeah, that's a bit long but then, why are you shutting it down? I cart mine everywhere asleep and it's never missed a beat. Get a decent backpack and the only time you should ever restart is when updates are released or some obscure software requires you to do so. Or it freezes but that hardly happens.

 

[FadeToBlack]

Yeah, that's a bit long but then, why are you shutting it down? I cart mine everywhere asleep and it's never missed a beat. Get a decent backpack and the only time you should ever restart is when updates are released or some obscure software requires you to do so. Or it freezes but that hardly happens.

Yep, I agree. When I'm asleep, my Mac is usually asleep. Usually, the only time I turn it off is if I'm gonna be gone a while or for updates.

 

[ITASOR]

The first time you start up, it always taked longer. Does it keep taking 1min 55sec to start up everytime or only the first time? Mine took long the first time to start up and after each big OS update. Now, it takes like 15-20 seconds everytime. That's the reason I don't ever sleep it, it starts up so darn fast.

 

[OldCorpse]

The first time you start up, it always taked longer. Does it keep taking 1min 55sec to start up everytime or only the first time? Mine took long the first time to start up and after each big OS update. Now, it takes like 15-20 seconds everytime. That's the reason I don't ever sleep it, it starts up so darn fast.

Well, actually, now it only takes 50 seconds from a cold start, every time. So, I don't think it'll get faster (maybe when I add that 1GB of RAM??), but that's tolerable. And eventually, I'll prolly also mostly let it sleep... right now I'm doing all kinds of things like calibrating battery and downloading applications, so I need to restart often, but eventually that'll come to an end. I can live with 50 seconds.

OldCorpse
quietly rotting

 

[EricNau]

Well, actually, now it only takes 50 seconds from a cold start, every time. So, I don't think it'll get faster (maybe when I add that 1GB of RAM??), but that's tolerable. And eventually, I'll prolly also mostly let it sleep... right now I'm doing all kinds of things like calibrating battery and downloading applications, so I need to restart often, but eventually that'll come to an end. I can live with 50 seconds.

OldCorpse
quietly rotting

I'd say that is perfectly normal.
I haven't timed my iMac G5 (in sig), but I'd suspect it takes about 35 seconds start to finish.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Well, actually, now it only takes 50 seconds from a cold start, every time. So, I don't think it'll get faster (maybe when I add that 1GB of RAM??), but that's tolerable. And eventually, I'll prolly also mostly let it sleep... right now I'm doing all kinds of things like calibrating battery and downloading applications, so I need to restart often, but eventually that'll come to an end. I can live with 50 seconds.

OldCorpse
quietly rotting

More RAM will actually slow it down, at startup, because the system has to check the RAM out. RAM doesn't speed your machine up until you start opening applications and using them..

My XP machine gets the desktop painted with about 40 seconds. BUT that's completely bogus because it takes another 5 minutes of heavy duty disk access before all the firewall and antivirus and antispyware and cache cleaning is finished. Another 2 - 5 minutes for Outlook to open the mail, before it can be used (although it "appears" in about 10 seconds).

 

[EricNau]

...
My XP machine gets the desktop painted with about 40 seconds. BUT that's completely bogus because it takes another 5 minutes of heavy duty disk access before all the firewall and antivirus and antispyware and cache cleaning is finished. Another 2 - 5 minutes for Outlook to open the mail, before it can be used (although it "appears" in about 10 seconds).

Windows is very good at deceiving. That's why their market share is still at 95%.

If only people knew... *sigh*

 

[G5Unit]

My PM G5 single 1.8 take at least 2 mins or so to boot up, I think somethings wrong.

 

[mduser63]

1 or 2 minutes doesn't sound inordinately long to me. I've never timed it, but that seems about right for my PowerBook. However, I agree with others that say you should just let it sleep. I'd say my PowerBook gets shut down and restarted on average about once every 3 weeks. I always just sleep it when I'm done using it. I honestly wouldn't care if it took 10 minutes to boot up, because I boot it up so infrequently. Same goes for my Power Mac, although it definitely starts up faster than my PowerBook because of its faster processors and hard drive.

 

[zami]

58 seconds for my old 733 G4 Quicksilver to fully load. And I was worried it was getting slow

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

I'm sitting here waiting for my old PC desktop to boot up. Been a few minutes, so I might go check on it in a couple more once I know it'll be able to start Word.

I accidentally bought a printer that only supported Windows. I'd take it back, but it was cheap and is basically for one project, sooo... just working in OSX then sending the files there to print.

And yeah, I think it took my Powerbook about a minute or so to be on the desktop and opening files. I restarted it after a month of just putting it to sleep (caved in on the security updates).

 

[SmurfBoxMasta]

Not normal.......

even my 6yo smurfbox G4/650/1gb boots in << 20 seconds to the desktop, with all kinds of start-up items/apps too

 

[OutThere]

My PB 12"/1.5ghz is at the desktop in 33.31 seconds.

 

[iJon]

You can also attempt the new Hibernation mode that Apple quietly put on the new PowerBooks. It's takes a hack but I've grown to love the new feature.

jon

 

[Ultimate-Omen]

More RAM will actually slow it down, at startup, because the system has to check the RAM out. RAM doesn't speed your machine up until you start opening applications and using them..

My XP machine gets the desktop painted with about 40 seconds. BUT that's completely bogus because it takes another 5 minutes of heavy duty disk access before all the firewall and antivirus and antispyware and cache cleaning is finished. Another 2 - 5 minutes for Outlook to open the mail, before it can be used (although it "appears" in about 10 seconds).

that explains why startup seems slower after my ram upgrade!...what are the odds?!

 

[OldCorpse]

You can also attempt the new Hibernation mode that Apple quietly put on the new PowerBooks. It's takes a hack but I've grown to love the new feature.

jon

Yes, to be honest, I do miss the hibernate function from my PC. Here's what I found wrt. a hack for the ibook G4:

http://www.andrewescobar.com/archive/2005/11/11/how-to-safe-sleep-your-mac/

I have not tried this myself, as I'm a little afraid to mess up smth., but I'm tempted...

 

[iMatt mini]

I only start mine up every month or two, but it only takes about 60 seconds from power off to a ready-to-use desktop.

 

[7254278]

Sorry to hijack this thread but how is hibernation mode different from sleep mode?

 

[d_and_n5000]

Hmmm....doesn't sound too out of place to me. A little long, but then again, all the iBooks I've ever turned on(a lot, my school likes to shut stuff down when done) have taken at least a minute on 700 mhz G3's on 10.2.8 with 256 mb RAM. But hey, sleeping is nice. Would you like to be shut off when done for the day, or would you prefer to sleep? I thought so.


Edit: Patmian, I'm pretty sure Hibernation takes a disk image of your desktop, saves it, and shuts off the computer. Then, when you turn it back on, it boots off that image, or close to that. Sleep keeps the computer on, but stops the hard drive from spinning. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[mduser63]

Edit: Patmian, I'm pretty sure Hibernation takes a disk image of your desktop, saves it, and shuts off the computer. Then, when you turn it back on, it boots off that image, or close to that. Sleep keeps the computer on, but stops the hard drive from spinning. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Close, but not quite. In sleep mode, the RAM remains powered so that its contents aren't lost. In hibernation mode, the contents of RAM are written to the hard drive so no power at all is required to maintain the computers state. When you turn it back on, the contents of RAM are copied back from the hard drive into RAM and you are back where you were right when the computer entered hibernation.

 

[lifeisgood360]

um goin back to what old c asked,

my ibook (i recently upgraded to 768 RAM)
takes 25 seconds to boot up (i just measured it)--maybe because i almost have no programs on it.. yet =P

 

[ryannel2003]

My eMac normally takes around 40-45 seconds to boot up from the time I push the power button (I'm on Panther). Sounds like there is something wrong with your iBook. I would run Disk Utility from the Applications folder, and I would run it from the OS X DVD. This might help speed things up. If not, I recommend downloading OnyX from this website: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582