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Boot Camp - Slow Startup

A

aaphid

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 3, 2009
35
0
I've just loaded Snow Leopard onto a newly formatted drive and then installed Boot Camp.

Whenever I hold Alt at startup and then select Windows the computer seems to freeze for about a minute and then starts loading windows. While it is frozen I can't move the mouse cursor and nothing seems to be happening.

Is it normal for it to take so long?

Here's what it looks like...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2WuSJIrKmU
 
I've only used Bootcamp on my Mac Pro but that does seem abnormal. Mine will stay on that screen for a few seconds after selecting Windows, nowhere near that.

What's that weird white bar below? I've never seen that.
 
I have two Macs running Windows 7 in Boot Camp and that happens on both of them. I've never considered that to be a problem, since sometimes it can take some time to log into OS X. Though like the other user, I don't have that white bar below the icons.
 
I get a minute delay when I double click on my windows partition.
It goes straight to a black screen then I get a flashing cursing on the top left.

If I do it your way I get the same boot selection window that stays for a minute, then I get my flashing cursor.

I'm on Win 7, so I assumed it was just a driver issue within boot camp. But I guess it's something else.
 
MadGoat said:
I get a minute delay when I double click on my windows partition.
It goes straight to a black screen then I get a flashing cursing on the top left.

If I do it your way I get the same boot selection window that stays for a minute, then I get my flashing cursor.

I'm on Win 7, so I assumed it was just a driver issue within boot camp. But I guess it's something else.
Click to expand...


My buddy got a copy of Windows 7 off of various torrents sites, meaning of course he used a crack to validate it. He had this same blinking cursor issue though.
 
Stridder44 said:
My buddy got a copy of Windows 7 off of various torrents sites, meaning of course he used a crack to validate it. He had this same blinking cursor issue though.
Click to expand...

Everything from the RC through to Ultimate (legit) is giving me a blinking cursor.

Not in Vista or XP though
 
MadGoat said:
Everything from the RC through to Ultimate (legit) is giving me a blinking cursor.

Not in Vista or XP though
Click to expand...

Same thing happened to him in Vista as well (which was also cracked). Pretty sure it has something to do with making the BIOS think it's a valid license.
 
I have the same issue. I have Windows set as my default OS since Snow Leopard sucks. It takes probably 30 seconds before it begins to finally load Windows. It usually takes about 7 seconds for the white screen to first show up, then it turns off, and remains off for about 15 more seconds, then I get the flashing cursor for about 7 more seconds.

Legitimate copy of Windows 7 Professional 64bit RTM off of the MSDN Academic Alliance website for IEEE Students.
 
MadGoat said:
If I do it your way I get the same boot selection window that stays for a minute, then I get my flashing cursor.
Click to expand...

So you're getting the same results as me when you do it the same way huh? And yet other Macs don't have the same delay.

Sounds like it may not be a hardware fault but a design issue.

What model Mac are you running?
 
OK, I think I'm narrowing this down now.

I took the Mini to an Applestore Genius Bar and when we started it up there it was fast and started loading Windows in 7 seconds as against 40 seconds before. Bring it home and it's taking 40 seconds again.

The only difference that I can see is that at the shop the Airport bar on the lower part of the screen doesn't show up. And on the demonstrations that I have seen and the YouTube videos I have seen this is not there either.

So I suppose the question now is:-

Why is the Airport network bar coming up at home and not elsewhere and how do I stop it?
 
This started happening to me yesterday and I'm trying to figure out why. When I clicked on windows the change to the blackscreen with the blinking cursor was instantaneous. Zero delay. Now there's about a 2-3 second delay where it freezes at the Mac OS or Windows screen before booting into windows. I know 2-3 seconds is nothing compared to your guys' wait times but it's still bothering me. :mad:

Any updates as to what could cause an increase in boot times into Windows using Bootcamp?
 
I finally got the answer from Apple. Their Engineering department provided the following...

"Scanning networks can add time to the picker process, depending on the number of networks found. There is no way to turn it off. Only MacBook Air and newer Mac mini support this feature."

So if like me you have one of these 2 Macs and there are a lot of wifi networks nearby then it will take a long time to boot and there is nothing that can be done about it.
 
Who would have ever thought THAT would be it. Well, alrighty then. That explains it. Thanks for posting the results, good sir.
 
"Scanning networks can add time to the picker process, depending on the number of networks found. There is no way to turn it off. Only MacBook Air and newer Mac mini support this feature."

Interesting. Does anyone know how to do this? I'm on a Macbook Air.

-[n3rve]
 
N3RVE said:
"Scanning networks can add time to the picker process, depending on the number of networks found. There is no way to turn it off. Only MacBook Air and newer Mac mini support this feature."

Interesting. Does anyone know how to do this? I'm on a Macbook Air.

-[n3rve]
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this. I am having the same problem on my 21" imac and before seeing this I re-installed windows which obviously did not help.

My question though, is that by "Only MacBook Air and newer Mac mini support this feature", do you mean you can only turn off the picking process with these 2, or only these 2 are supposed to be doing the picking and seeing the slow down?
 
comcomcomics said:
Thanks for posting this. I am having the same problem on my 21" imac and before seeing this I re-installed windows which obviously did not help.

My question though, is that by "Only MacBook Air and newer Mac mini support this feature", do you mean you can only turn off the picking process with these 2, or only these 2 are supposed to be doing the picking and seeing the slow down?
Click to expand...

I would think that they're the only ones with the feature... being the MacBook Air with no CD/DVD drive, and the Mac Mini Server with no CD/DVD drive. It would make sense for it to search the network for shared CD/DVD drives so it can reinstall if necessary. That's my idea at least.
 
Network scanning aside, there's another little trick I found to optimize the boot process - resetting the PRAM, oddly enough, speeds things up for both Mac OS X and Windows booting. Don't know why this works.
 
Thanks for you guys' input. My 21" imac does not allow disabling the scan, and I cannot even figure out if it is scanning, actually.

Found another "alternative therapy", though. If I boot into MacOS first, then restart, hold option key to boot into windows, then it is always fast.

Total time taken to go into Windows can be even longer than waiting through that "freeze"/"scan" but at least the whole process is deterministic and I do not have to wonder if it has stopped working.
 
FASTFIX for sssloww Windows 7 Boot!

So I Just got my first MAC... Never looked at them before because they are very limiting but the MacBook Air caught my eye. Let's face it... No one makes a better looking, lighter, and more ergonomic laptop.

The problem is, I NEED WINDOWS! I have to use IE to access work computers, Verizon G4 only works with Windows, and I do not know or own any MAC programs.

As soon as I got my laptop I loaded windows 7 on it. I used bootcamp and everything worked perfectly until I noticed that same SSSSLLLLOWWWW Windows boot with the flashing curser everyone is talking about.

Well first thing I did is call Apple tech support. Figuring they are experts in "THE MAC" they will surely know exactly how to fix it. How wrong I was!

They gave me so much misinformation it wasn't funny... The first expert claimed it was just windows booting the whole time. She claimed that windows is a much slower operating system and just takes much longer to boot. When I told her that the delay is way before windows ever starts booting she said that I was wrong but she cannot support Windows so she cannot offer any other assistance.

Another "Expert" said the delay is the computer looking and mapping networks prior to booting. I think these guys just make this stuff up as they go along. Obviously the are used to speaking to people that know nothing about computers and take everything they say as gospel. Now I know why I never purchased a MAC before.

So now for the FIX!

The boot gets delayed because the windows version is looking for matching bios and the MAC does not have the same type of bios so it waits until it times out and then starts to boot process.

To FIX you need to emulate PC bios.

SEE:

http://viperfx07.blogspot.com/2010/01/tutorial-fixing-slow-booting-in-windows.html

Now windows boots in 30 sec.


DONE!:D
 
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