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What is your 2008 Mac Pro Boot Time?

OMGWTFBBQ

OMGWTFBBQ

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 5, 2007
89
21
I know this might seem a bit lame, but I am curious as to the amount of time it takes everyone to boot their new mac pro. More specifically, how many seconds is it from pressing the power button to loading the desktop. Also it would be helpful to know your system configuration.

I have a 2.8 octo w/8800, stock 500gb (Western Digital), 6gigs of ram and it takes me exactly 44.6 seconds.


~J
 
I've only ever timed it from cold boot to as soon as I see the login screen appear (I have multiple users on this machine), and it averages anything between 22-26 seconds, which is damned fast :)

-Bryan
 
22-26 seconds is considered as "standard time". My iMac boots up in 32 seconds, but back in the days of Tiger, my bootup time is 25 seconds. I've read many MP users' bootup times are around 25 seconds+.

OMGWTFBBQ, check your console log and see if there's any errors that explain the extra time.
 
orpheus1120 said:
22-26 seconds is considered as "standard time". My iMac boots up in 32 seconds, but back in the days of Tiger, my bootup time is 25 seconds. I've read many MP users' bootup times are around 25 seconds+.

OMGWTFBBQ, check your console log and see if there's any errors that explain the extra time.
Click to expand...

Ah, I thought mine seemed slow. How would I go about checking the log for errors? I currently have it open, and there are tons of logs. What am I looking for specifically? Thanks for your help.
 
OMGWTFBBQ said:
I know this might seem a bit lame, but I am curious as to the amount of time it takes everyone to boot their new mac pro. More specifically, how many seconds is it from pressing the power button to loading the desktop. Also it would be helpful to know your system configuration.

I have a 2.8 octo w/8800, stock 500gb (Western Digital), 6gigs of ram and it takes me exactly 44.6 seconds.


~J
Click to expand...

About 30s-ish to the login screen, not the desktop. Be careful here:
people measure bootup time in different ways. For example, some
people (not me) measure from when they hear the startup chime.
 
2.8Ghz Octo (2008), 16GB OCW, 2600XT, BlackMagic Intensity Pro, 1x Samsung Spinpoint F1 [Boot] & 2x Spinpoint F1 RAID 0, 320GB WD stock drive.

With 4 external hard drives connected with FW800 and USB2.0, boot time is 1min 34secs

With nothing connected except Input devices, boot time is 36secs

I've found Flash keys and CD/DVDs can really slow down the boot. Back in my days of windows i used to be obsessed with boot times, but since moving to Mac boot times haven't bothered me as much as i rarely need to restart or boot up, but 36secs is VERY nice :)

PS.. i consider boot time to be from when you press the power button and ending when you are able to use the mouse and actually click something.
 
Orpheus: I didn't realize that was considered a normal boot time...I was comparing it my previous PC life (I've been using a Mac for just over a month now)

The PC (Windows XP, not even Vista...) regularly took over a minute to boot to login screen, so I consider the Mac Pro boot time to be amazing :)

-Bryan
 
To be fair to you, IMHO anything below 45secs is superb bootup time. :) I could understand a lag with 4 external drives, but I would think the majority of the users have 1 external drive which doesn't impede bootup time significantly, if any.

Out of the many PCs I had owned, the fastest boot time that I had ever seen is 54secs, and that was a freshly installed PC with no antivirus/spyware apps etc loaded at startup. And I thought that was fast. :rolleyes: Now you could imagine my amazement when my Imac clocked 25secs in Tiger. :eek:

I suppose your next question is how fast is the Mac Pro shutdown time. :D
 
OMGWTFBBQ said:
Ah, I thought mine seemed slow. How would I go about checking the log for errors? I currently have it open, and there are tons of logs. What am I looking for specifically? Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

You would be looking for logs where the OS complains for errors/faults. Read the logs and you'll know what I mean. However, I don't think you'll find any since your MP comes with 10.5.2 pre-installed, unlike many of the Tiger users including myself who had upgraded to Leopard. Most errors in the console log registered are caused by incompatibility between 2 versions of OS brought forward from Tiger as you upgraded to Leopard. Leopard has its own way to resolves the errors, just that it takes time, hence a delay in bootup time. Your OS is a preinstalled version, hence lacking any compatibility issues from previous OS versions. So you don't really have to worry about the logs IMHO.
 
14-17 Seconds from the appearance of the Apple Logo to a fully functioning desktop.
 
I've found that if my iPod Shuffle is connected when I boot then it adds up to 20 seconds extra to boot.
 
Thanks for all the responses. I noticed that after disconnecting my two firewire 800 drives--which I mistakenly forgot to mention--my boot time went to 35 seconds. I wonder if the boot time would be significantly affected if I added a raptor drive at some point in the future (when they finally update the technology, which IMHO is outdated). Also, I noticed in my console logs that the vmware fusion seems to add some time to the startup...
 
Hadn't timed it that way...

29.1 Seconds from button push on a turned off Mac to Dock Rise.
 
32 secs from power button to desktop fully loaded. 2.8 Octo/8500, 3.5 TB on 4 internal drives, 1 ext 250GB firewire drive, 8MB ram and lots of other stuff connected.
 
Just to make you feel pitiful, my 2.2GHz MB with 1GB RAM< a 5400RPM disk, and leopard goes from cold to the desktop with all menu bar icons, desktop icons, and the dock loaded in twenty seconds, from the time you press the power button.

I'm not kidding. :eek:

Seriously, I'm not. Why is this true? Seems all... backwards.
 
iMpathetic said:
Just to make you feel pitiful, my 2.2GHz MB with 1GB RAM< a 5400RPM disk, and leopard goes from cold to the desktop with all menu bar icons, desktop icons, and the dock loaded in twenty seconds, from the time you press the power button.

I'm not kidding. :eek:

Seriously, I'm not. Why is this true? Seems all... backwards.
Click to expand...

That's really hard to believe... amazing if true! My 2.2Ghz Macbook Pro w/ 2Gig Ram and 7200 RPM HDD does it in 35.4

However... bios load times aren't a real indicator of machine speed. I'd say better benchmarks are from the apple logo appearing to dock coming up.

The more you have in / attached to your machine, the LONGER the bios initialization period, etc.

Esp. coming from the world of PCs... if you have a ton of super fast things attached, it'll take twice as long to boot through the bios sequence... doesn't mean the machine is twice as slow ;-) (i.e., SCSI cards attached, etc. etc. etc.)
 
25 seconds from pressing the power button to the log in screen, with one Firewire 800 external drive connected.

Makes a change from over 90 seconds to log-in with my old Win XP rig. Then it was another 30-40 from log in to usable desktop :p
 
Heliconsoul said:
25 seconds from pressing the power button to the log in screen, with one Firewire 800 external drive connected.

Makes a change from over 90 seconds to log-in with my old Win XP rig. Then it was another 30-40 from log in to usable desktop :p
Click to expand...

What kind of internal HD are you using?

Thanks
 
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