Laptop Boot Time

Nymins · 17 Oct 2009 at 13:59

So i got my Dell Inspiron 1545 a few days ago and decided to reinstall Vista to get rid of Dell's bundle software that i would never use.

However, i have noticed that the boot time is somewhat slow in my opinion for a fresh install of Vista. I timed it once and it clocked in at 1min 11seconds before the little blue circle stopped on the mouse cursor. My main desktop PC clocks in at around 45seconds and it has had vista on it for a good few months.

My PC and the laptop are similarly specced too:

Laptop = Pentium Dual Core (Not Pentium D) T4200 @ 2Ghz, 4Gb ram, 320Gb HDD (defragged yesterday), ATI HD 4330 256mb.

Desktop = Core 2 Duo E4300 @ 2.7Ghz, 4Gb ram, 250Gb HDD, 8800GTS 320mb.

The only main difference that would effect startup time is the processor, but the T4200 is just a C2D but with 1mb cache and clocked a bit lower. Maybe its just me thinking that it would be just as fast, but it seems odd. It hangs more so on the "Welcome" bit after the windows logo pops up and disappears.

Looking online some people say that network cards not configured properly can cause slow startups? The Dell drivers were a bit funky cause it actually installs Dell's own "Wireless Center" thingy, but i just ignore it and use the normal wireless configuration that Vista has built in.

Any ideas? Does it seem slow to have a boot time of over 1min on a fresh install with those specs?

Cheers

raptormonkey · 17 Oct 2009 at 14:42

That does seem slow as my brother has a similar Dell with almost the same spec and his boots quite quick! I asked him about it just now and he said his boots in approx 45 seconds. His only has 2gig of ram though not 4 like yours. Otherwise same spec.

Nymins · 17 Oct 2009 at 14:46

Hmmm. Also i noticed that a lot of the Windows Updates failed when i first tried them (on the 14th when i got it), but i only noticed last night that they failed when i checked the download history.

Dunno if that would affect performance, but it does seem strange.

Nymins · 18 Oct 2009 at 15:00

Ok installed Windows 7 to see if it would fix the boot time, but it didn't, so i did a boot log and found this:

Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\vga.sys
Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS

Looking online it seems to be a network error, but the laptop doesn't show any other network cards/drivers in Device Manager or anything. I also tried the same on my desktop and it only came back with one NDProxy.SYS error, not 4, and my desktops boot time is about 50secs from bios loadup to the vista/win7 mouse wheel stop spinning. Also the VGA driver error is strange too cause the ATI drivers installed fine and it performs as it should in games.

Speaking of the vista/win7 mouse wheel, i noticed on the laptop that it will spin as normal when it boots up, but after I open a program or something the wheel becomes static and doesn't spin. It appears and disappears as normal when something is loading and when something is not, but it doesn't spin.

raptormonkey · 18 Oct 2009 at 15:05

Could it be the trackpad drivers? I ask this as my brother was having slowdown issues with his and he removed the trackpad drivers and all was hunky dory!

Nymins · 18 Oct 2009 at 15:08

raptormonkey said:
Could it be the trackpad drivers? I ask this as my brother was having slowdown issues with his and he removed the trackpad drivers and all was hunky dory!

Don't think so. The boot time still wasn't great before and after i installed Dell's own drivers