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Windows 7 boot time

K

komoornik

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 29, 2011
135
0
I'm a bit dissaponted about the win 7 boot time.

On 99% computers with SSD's I've used in the past, the glowing windows logo was just appearing for a second or two. On MBA it stays for 10 to 15 seconds.

Full boot to Win 7 takes about 45 seconds - terribly slow for a SSD drive :mad:

Am I the only one?

P.S. I'm using i5 4/128 11.6" Air.


edit: OK, I was pissed so i reinstalled Windows - and BOOM ! Without the drivers it takes straight 30 seconds from pushing the power button. I need to investigate this.


edit 2: after manual install of drivers - it's the ****ing graphics driver from intel. seems like that windows logo freezes with them. I got to do smth with it coz it's 10-15 seconds longer boot time :(
 
Last edited:
i have a mba 13" 2010 max out. the boot time for my windows 7 is roughly the same as yours, 30-40 sec. it is ridiculously slow for an ssd but i couldnt figure out why and i rarely boot to windows so it didnt really bothered me.
 
For what it's worth, Windows 7 boot time for my Windows laptop (a lenovo) with OCZ Vertex2 SSD is just around 60 seconds.
 
I've never understood all of the angst about boot times on the Air. I boot MAYBE once every 2 months - are you shutting down every day?
 
I would understand it, if the logo would be glowing all the time.

But I can clearly see it's freezing, so it's not looking normal.
 
It's about 25 seconds for me (compared to about 15 seconds for OS X). I have the 2011 11" i7/256GB model.

Note that one reason that Windows boots up a little more slowly is that the Boot Camp drivers don't support the fastest AHCI interface. That's why the drive scores a 6.9 instead of 7.9 on the Windows Experience Index, and why disk writes are actually faster in Parallels or VMWare Fusion than in Boot Camp. It also means TRIM doesn't work right in Windows 7.

60 seconds seems long, though.

----------
komoornik said:
edit 2: after manual install of drivers - it's the ****ing graphics driver from intel. seems like that windows logo freezes with them. I got to do smth with it coz it's 10-15 seconds longer boot time :(
Click to expand...

If you have a 2011, then you can download the updated Sandy Bridge graphics drivers from Intel's web site. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are available.
 
I've tried updated drivers.

So logo doesn't freeze on your Air? I can't understand it.

I got a 7.1 WEI score for drive - Samsung SSD.

You're using 32 or 64 bit version of Windows?
 
komoornik said:
I've tried updated drivers.

So logo doesn't freeze on your Air? I can't understand it.

I got a 7.1 WEI score for drive - Samsung SSD.

You're using 32 or 64 bit version of Windows?
Click to expand...

64-bit. Have you tried reverting to the Boot Camp drivers?
 
Yupp.

I've tried bootcamp drivers, one from windows update and from intel site.

IDK - you got a Toshiba or Samsung drive?
 
From the time I see the bars scrolling across the screen to my login screen takes about 18 seconds on my 2010 C2D 1.86GHz Toshiba equipped SSD MBA.
 
komoornik said:
I'm a bit dissaponted about the win 7 boot time.

On 99% computers with SSD's I've used in the past, the glowing windows logo was just appearing for a second or two. On MBA it stays for 10 to 15 seconds.

Full boot to Win 7 takes about 45 seconds - terribly slow for a SSD drive :mad:

Am I the only one?

P.S. I'm using i5 " Air.


edit: OK, I was pissed so i reinstalled Windows - and BOOM ! Without the drivers it takes straight 30 seconds from pushing the power button. I need to investigate this.


edit 2: after manual install of drivers - it's the ****ing graphics driver from intel. seems like that windows logo freezes with them. I got to do smth with it coz it's 10-15 seconds longer boot time :(
Click to expand...


You are not the only one. My MBA i7 11" takes about 45 secs to boot up Win 7 in bootcamp. It boots up much faster using Parallels however.

On my Windows 7 desktop with SSD, it boots up in about 25-30 secs and on my Windows 7 laptop with SSD, it takes about 30 secs.

Must be the bootcamp drivers slowing the MBA down

Interested to see if you manage to fix this
 
liudekhua said:
i have a mba 13" 2010 max out. the boot time for my windows 7 is roughly the same as yours, 30-40 sec. it is ridiculously slow for an ssd but i couldnt figure out why and i rarely boot to windows so it didnt really bothered me.
Click to expand...

My Dell boots up in about 40 seconds, and it's a 4500RPM HDD. If you have an SSD, there's definitely something wrong (but I'd blame Apple's crappy bootcamp drivers, not your machine specifically).
 
Have you selected Windows as the Startup Disk in BootCamp - If you don't do that the Apple firmware spends 5-10 seconds searching for bootable partitions every boot. Hopefully that's it and not some other weird disk/driver issue.
 
I'm a Mac OS X newbie - where do I select it?

I think Win 7 is set as default, coz I don't choose anything on startup.

KPOM said:
It's about 25 seconds for me (compared to about 15 seconds for OS X). I have the 2011 11" i7/256GB model.

Note that one reason that Windows boots up a little more slowly is that the Boot Camp drivers don't support the fastest AHCI interface. That's why the drive scores a 6.9 instead of 7.9 on the Windows Experience Index, and why disk writes are actually faster in Parallels or VMWare Fusion than in Boot Camp. It also means TRIM doesn't work right in Windows 7.

60 seconds seems long, though.

----------



If you have a 2011, then you can download the updated Sandy Bridge graphics drivers from Intel's web site. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are available.
Click to expand...

Hmmm - that 25 seconds is from hitting the power button?

Please tell me, you've just installed Windows via bootcamp and the used those drivers?

BTW - I didn't install any Mac OS X updates, coz I read they're ******. Do you got them ( EFI update for instance ) ?



Riker88 said:
You are not the only one. My MBA i7 11" takes about 45 secs to boot up Win 7 in bootcamp. It boots up much faster using Parallels however.

On my Windows 7 desktop with SSD, it boots up in about 25-30 secs and on my Windows 7 laptop with SSD, it takes about 30 secs.

Must be the bootcamp drivers slowing the MBA down

Interested to see if you manage to fix this
Click to expand...

Please tell me, did you install Mac OS X Updates?
 
KPOM said:
It's about 25 seconds for me (compared to about 15 seconds for OS X). I have the 2011 11" i7/256GB model.

Note that one reason that Windows boots up a little more slowly is that the Boot Camp drivers don't support the fastest AHCI interface. That's why the drive scores a 6.9 instead of 7.9 on the Windows Experience Index, and why disk writes are actually faster in Parallels or VMWare Fusion than in Boot Camp. It also means TRIM doesn't work right in Windows 7.

60 seconds seems long, though.

----------



If you have a 2011, then you can download the updated Sandy Bridge graphics drivers from Intel's web site. 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are available.
Click to expand...

Same computer here and same time
 
Please tell me, have you installed updates @ Mac OS X ? Especially EFI update?
 
On the Lenovo Crap-pads at school it takes well over a minute for Windows 7 to boot... And those netbooks have SSDs! Meanwhile, my MacBook Pro takes about 30 secs to boot off a regular 7200RPM HDD.

Weird, huh?
 
komoornik said:
I'm a Mac OS X newbie - where do I select it?

I think Win 7 is set as default, coz I don't choose anything on startup.
Click to expand...

When you power up, does it go automatically into Windows or OS X? If it's OS X, then you select the startup disk from System Preferences. There's an icon for "Startup Disk" in the 4th line of icons titled "System."

If it goes into Windows automatically (i.e. you need to hold down the option key to get into OS X), then it's already set up.

komoornik said:
Hmmm - that 25 seconds is from hitting the power button?
Click to expand...

It's about 30 seconds from when I select "Windows" from the Boot Camp menu. I have a login screen for Windows so that adds a few seconds, which is how I arrived at 25 seconds.

komoornik said:
Please tell me, you've just installed Windows via bootcamp and the used those drivers?

BTW - I didn't install any Mac OS X updates, coz I read they're ******. Do you got them ( EFI update for instance ) ?
Click to expand...

I installed the updated drivers from Intel's website. I also installed the EFI update and haven't had issues, though some people claim they have. I also install all the OS X updates and recommend you do the same. They include security updates, plus bug fixes for OS X. 10.7.2 should be coming next week and will fix some more bugs and add iCloud support.
 
TheRealDamager said:
I use a bootcamp partiton in Parallels. Why in the world would you reboot multiple times per day?
Click to expand...

Parallels can't do everything boot camp does ;).
You would reboot multiple times per day if you want to play a game that only exists for windows. YAYAYA MBA isn't for gaming, but still... You get my point.

A question about Lion: If swiping 2 fingers horizontally in safari does back/forward, how do you scroll a page horizontally?
 
KPOM said:
When you power up, does it go automatically into Windows or OS X? If it's OS X, then you select the startup disk from System Preferences. There's an icon for "Startup Disk" in the 4th line of icons titled "System."

If it goes into Windows automatically (i.e. you need to hold down the option key to get into OS X), then it's already set up.



It's about 30 seconds from when I select "Windows" from the Boot Camp menu. I have a login screen for Windows so that adds a few seconds, which is how I arrived at 25 seconds.



I installed the updated drivers from Intel's website. I also installed the EFI update and haven't had issues, though some people claim they have. I also install all the OS X updates and recommend you do the same. They include security updates, plus bug fixes for OS X. 10.7.2 should be coming next week and will fix some more bugs and add iCloud support.
Click to expand...

And how much does it take from hitting the power button to the moment login screen appears ? If you could set Windows for default for test.

Does the windows glowing logo freeze for you? For how much time it appears ?

Here's the video of my MBA starting up - it actually takes ~50 seconds from hitting the power button to the moment of showing desktop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnWkhFs3jXs
 
You can use BootRacer to test your Windows boot speed. It's free and will help you know what time it takes to windows logon and to windows desktop.

http://www.greatis.com/bootracer/

I don't have my 2011 MBA (i5 1.7 GHz / 4GB / 256 Samsung SSD) right now with me, but I'll run the test after and I'll share the results.

:) :) :)
 
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