Windows 7 takes about 15 minutes to start up
We have a Windows 7 machine that over the past 2 - 3 weeks is taking about 15 minutes to "start" and bring up the login screen. (we are on a network) BUT, if I remote to the machine, it comes up in less than a minute.
Can someone point me in the direction of where to look at why it's doing this?
Can someone point me in the direction of where to look at why it's doing this?
Can you check that the machines are fully patched? Also check msconfig on the machine which will tell you what windows loads on startup and then remove what isnt needed. Also remove un-needed applications.
See if you have superfluous domain profiles that it is working through. Look in Advanced System Settings, Profiles button and delete profiles not needed or used.
Is the machine connecting wirelessly? Try a wired connection to see if this improves things.
Is the machine connecting wirelessly? Try a wired connection to see if this improves things.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
I have had this problem when the hard drive / boot drive was failing. One case resulted in a 45-minute boot for XP!
The mode of failure is apparently not detectable with a hard drive test. I've never been able to detect it.
The failure appears to be an extremely low data rate reading the drive.
It doesn't happen often so is generally hard to diagnose.
Data transfer test programs may or may not reveal it. Puzzling but my belief.
The best solution in my opinion is to do this:
1) Make an image of the hard drive. With slow drives, this can take a day or two. I usually put the image on an external USB hard drive. It's nice to have an image if there's a problem later.
2) Restore the image onto a new hard drive.
3) Install the new hard drive in the system.
Other than a little time spent setting it up, this is not a time-consuming process for you.
(I tend to use Acronis True Image for this purpose but there are others of course).
You could also plug a new hard drive into the system and clone the old to the new. Pretty much the same process but without creating an image.
If it works, you're done. If it doesn't work then you can pursue other things and keep the old hard drive in service, keeping the new drive for other purposes.
The mode of failure is apparently not detectable with a hard drive test. I've never been able to detect it.
The failure appears to be an extremely low data rate reading the drive.
It doesn't happen often so is generally hard to diagnose.
Data transfer test programs may or may not reveal it. Puzzling but my belief.
The best solution in my opinion is to do this:
1) Make an image of the hard drive. With slow drives, this can take a day or two. I usually put the image on an external USB hard drive. It's nice to have an image if there's a problem later.
2) Restore the image onto a new hard drive.
3) Install the new hard drive in the system.
Other than a little time spent setting it up, this is not a time-consuming process for you.
(I tend to use Acronis True Image for this purpose but there are others of course).
You could also plug a new hard drive into the system and clone the old to the new. Pretty much the same process but without creating an image.
If it works, you're done. If it doesn't work then you can pursue other things and keep the old hard drive in service, keeping the new drive for other purposes.
If the machines are booting with a wired connection and also has wireless connection available try disabling the wireless side and see if that improves boot up time, another thing which I found with our laptops in our environment is when they bootup with the wifi on and there is no wifi connection in range it will keep searching and add about 5 to 10 mins to the login time, with this disabled with a wired connection that drops down to about 1-2 mins max.
It could also be that it is syncing large between the PC and the Domain. Maybe you need to cleanup some of the data.
try if it boots up faster without network connection