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  1. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    I was wondering what would be a good way to boost the boot time for vista.

    I am maxed out on ram on this motherboard (only 2gb - yeah I know it sucks for vista but this dual core is now just for word processing, web browsing and photo printing sans any real editing).

    I don't want to buy a ssd as this is a oem vista pc. I don't think I got discs with it but it lets you do boot discs. It has the partition drive with backup install information. So I don't know how disc cloning would work in that circumstance.

    If there are sub 100.00 usd ssd drives in the 60-100gb capacity range that might be an option I could consider. I know ssd would give a considerable performance boost all around.

    -----------------------------------

    What about the virtual memory and all of those behind the scenes registry stuff that I've never bothered with? How do you increase that? I did just install a 1tb secondary harddrive for my xp machine files.

    ALso I'm gonna look up where the startup programs list is (not the one in the start menu). I know you can strip out more that way but I forgot how to do that. I did remove some using norton 360's tune up utility but there is still a long boot time.

    Suggestions are welcome.

    -----------------------------------------

    And I'm not ready to scrap it by buying a new motherboard and new os (be it 7 or another copy of 8).

    So for now I'm just looking for tweaks to get to a reasonable boot time. (fyi its several minutes right now which seems highly abnormal even for an older computer).

    Thanks for the suggestions. Please keep in mind my conditions here. (150.00 might be acceptable if thats the cheapest low capacity new ssd thats available).
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  2. Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    If there are sub 100.00 usd ssd drives in the 60-100gb capacity range that might be an option I could consider.
    I see 120 and 128 GB SSD drives on sale for well under US$100 all the time. Eg:

    http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-2-5-Inch-SV300S37A-120G/dp/B00A1ZTZOG/
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100008120%20600414917&IsNo...CE&Pagesize=20

    I've bought several (different brands) myself over the last year or two.
    Last edited by jagabo; 9th Feb 2014 at 13:29.
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  3. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    If there are sub 100.00 usd ssd drives in the 60-100gb capacity range that might be an option I could consider.
    I see 120 and 128 GB SSD drives on sale for under US$100 all the time.
    Great. I'll keep an eye out than.

    Thanks.

    Edit - and I realized I could use the full copy archive mode in paragon to do the copy and restore function.
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  4. You just want to boot faster, don't shutdown, hibernate; won't cost you anything. You will have to check your BIOS setting under power management method, make sure it says S3 somewhere in there (S1 & S3 is best).
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  5. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nic2k4 View Post
    You just want to boot faster, don't shutdown, hibernate; won't cost you anything. You will have to check your BIOS setting under power management method, make sure it says S3 somewhere in there (S1 & S3 is best).
    At least on the old xp computer it would seem to wake up just by walking by the computer. it was sensitive somehow, never did figure it out.

    Do you just hit enter to wake it up then? Or do you use the power button?
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  6. You should have to hit the power button, if it wakes on its own it most likely never went into hibernation (suspend to disk) and was just going to sleep (suspend to RAM).

    I have seen an old nForce2 board behave that way, since it wasn't mine I didn't delve too deep into the matter, but I have a suspicion it had something to do with the Nvidia chipset and its driver; maybe I needed to use some Nvidia proprietary utility to setup hibernation.
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    The issue with hibernation via s3 bios function is it must be enabled at time of os install in order to function correctly.
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  8. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    I haven't checked the bios yet. But I did find out that I was setup to hybrid sleep mode. I changed it to hibernate. I'll test it out this week to see if I still need to get an ssd..




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  9. Also SSD is help but not that much
    because you have probably SATA 2 connections
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  10. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    While in BIOS, you might also check if the MB is set to wake up from mouse movement. That can cause wakeups by just 'walking by'. Though with my MB set to go into hibernate, it still wakes up with mouse movement, even though it's not set that way. You could always try the 'sleep' setting if it's a problem.

    Vista is a bit of a resource hog, so that might be related to the slow boot. A SSD would likely help, though.
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  11. That means your PC never went into hibernation, you might want to check the advanced power management settings and disable hybrid sleep.
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  12. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Well I did it. I bought a ssd drive.

    http://www.officemax.com/technology/drives-memory-storage/hard-drives-usb-drives/solid...ct-prod5410493

    I used paragon to backup my original drive to a usb drive. I then installed the new drive with its bracket for desktops. I then used the paragon boot disc to copy my archive to the new ssd drive.

    It seems to still have a slow boot time. I'll have to address this.

    However programs and everything does run more smoothly now.

    Even though it was an oem installation of vista with a recovery partition I was able to get it perfectly copied over to the new drive from the original.

    I think I'll check out sata 3 pci cards.

    Thanks everyone for your help.

    I'll try hibernation with the ssd and see if that helps.

    Oh and nic2k4 - I had dug around in the power settings and found the hybrid mode and switched to hibernate - posted earlier about it.


    Edit - oh and it does feel like a new computer with the fast load times for programs.

    Hopefully I won't get that nasty NOT RESPONDING messages I've always gotten on this vista pc.

    Edit - Holy crap! Hibernate works perfectly with my new ssd.

    It only took what seemed like less than a minute to start. Super fast compared to a cold boot.

    I still don't know why my cold boot takes so long. I guess I'll have to root around more for programs to take off my startup routine.

    But this hibernate is awesome with my ssd now. It is super fast and ready and raring to go.

    Thank you everyone!!!!!
    Last edited by yoda313; 14th Feb 2014 at 19:23.
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    What size is your SSD and who made it? Some are quite a bit faster than others. Be warned that studies have shown that SSDs smaller than 128 GB don't last as long as 128 GB and larger drives. In fact, the larger the drive, the longer it should last. How much free space is on your SSD? More is better than less. I can get Win 7 64 bit to boot in less than 1 minute with my 256 GB SSD.

    Vista is less than ideal for SSD use. You need to look here and go to page 2 for the suggestions and follow them.
    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/08/27/ssd-performance-tweaks-for-vista/1
    Vista does not support TRIM, which is a negative for you although it's not a show stopper. It does mean that your SSD probably won't last as long as it could with TRIM and if you got one smaller than 128 GB as I talked about, it makes it even more likely that you might have it die a lot sooner than you'd like.
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  14. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    @jman98 - its a 128gb kingston as shown in the link in my post.

    I actually did pop for a 2 year store warranty on it.

    Originally Posted by jman98
    Vista is less than ideal for SSD use. You need to look here and go to page 2 for the suggestions and follow them.
    http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/08/27/ssd-performance-tweaks-for-vista/1
    Vista does not support TRIM,
    I'll have to read up on that later. Thanks.

    Originally Posted by jman98
    How much free space is on your SSD?
    I should still have quite a bit. It was a 70gb or so transfer from my os drive. Formatted space was 111gb on the ssd. I should have 30 or so give or take free on it.

    I don't plan on using it for media files. I bought a 1tb seagate regular hdd sata drive for that purpose on the same computer.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  15. Once your satisfied your SSD is running properly clean out all the old restore points. You really don't want to run an SSD much more than 50 percent full.
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  16. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by jagabo View Post
    Once your satisfied your SSD is running properly clean out all the old restore points. You really don't want to run an SSD much more than 50 percent full.
    Thanks.

    Fyi part of it is a 6gb restore partition from the original os drive (a d drive). I don't want to touch that.
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    Depending on your comfort level, here are some tweaks that should speed things up, not only with Vista, but XP, Win 7 & Win 8

    Novice
    Be sure your pagefile is turned off, especially since you cloned the drive. You'll still have a lot of swapping with 2GB RAM, but it will be all through the SSD

    Moderate
    From the command line (type CMD in the search box) type: msconfig. Uncheck and disable any programs you're sure aren't needed at startup. Remove all those "helpful" programs that leave a quickstart icon on in your taskbar. You're running a SSD now, so there's no advantage to having a program stub waiting in RAM.

    Moderate
    Visit blackviper.com and use the "Safe" settings to set services to Manual or Disabled. Be sure to make notes of everything you've changed, even the Safe settings. There may be a service that you're sure you'll never need, but future hardware or software may require that service.

    Moderate to Advanced
    Remove and replace your device drivers (video card(s), printers, scanners, etc) with ones downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Install only those features you need. A plus is that you'll likely get a newer version of the driver.

    Advanced
    Once you're comfortable with tweaking the services, you can move on to the "Tweaked" or "Barebones" settings. I regularly use some of the Tweaked settings, but the leave the Barebones settings alone unless you REALLY know what you're doing.

    Edit: Keeping track "Tweaked" or "Barebones" changes is especially important. I've turned off Bluetooth thinking I'll never connect a device, then wonder why my new phone isn't since my my PC. I once spent hours trying to remote into my work PC, before remembering that turned off Remote Desktop Services because "l'll never need that"....um....yeah.

    Advanced
    Disable unneeded ports and devices. If your motherboard parallel and serial ports, turn them off unless you really need them. Remove any USB devices that aren't necessary at startup. Every additional port and device is scanned at startup.

    Advanced
    Use VLite to trim down Vista before install. You'll need to get a copy of your OEM install disc for this, but you can tweak your install to be smaller and lighter before you even begin your tweaking.

    Finally, seriously consider switching to Win 7. Compared to Win 7, Vista has always been slower at startup (I suspect because of all the unnecessary UAC "enhancements". I've been using the same PC setup in my profile for years and noticed a considerable speedup switching from Vista to Win 7.
    Last edited by lingyi; 15th Feb 2014 at 01:55.
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  18. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by lingyi
    msconfig. Uncheck and disable any programs you're sure aren't needed at startup. Remove all those "helpful" programs that leave a quickstart icon on in your taskbar.
    That's what I wanted! Thanks I forgot what that was called.

    I'll take the other suggestions under advisement.

    Fyi I was wrong it was a 120gb ssd kingston drive. Since its not a 128gb does that mean it will be more prone to early failure?
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  19. Worth trying to fresh/new Vista install on SSD, to see if its change anything
    because I see from this video the kingston V300 performs well in sata2:
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  20. The i5 2500K system I'm on not takes about 35 seconds to boot to the login screen. About 25 seconds of that is the POST. So Windows itself only takes about 10 seconds. After typing in my password and hitting Enter it's only about 2 more seconds before the Desktop appears.
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  21. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by roma_turok
    Worth trying to fresh/new Vista install on SSD, to see if its change anything
    because I see from this video the kingston V300 performs well in sata2:
    Well two issues - one it's an oem and two - how long would it take to redo the updates??

    It has the system restore partition. It's an hp desktop. I don't really know how to do a new install from an oem.

    And actually except for the cold boot issue it's working ok now otherwise. I'll work on doing the msconfig to strip down to the minimum for windows startup and hopefully that will provide some relief on the cold boot time.

    Thank you everyone. I've breathed some new life into this old system.
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  22. Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    It has the system restore partition. It's an hp desktop. I don't really know how to do a new install from an oem.
    Word to the wise, make your recovery discs; there should be a program supplied by HP to create DVD's of that partition so you can re-create it in case you need to replace the drive. Look in the start menu and check your user manual. It usually takes at least 8 blank DVD's to backup the partition.

    If you don't do it, all is not lost, you only need to obtain the Vista files from Digital River to make an OEM DVD and use the key from your CoA sticker. Installing from DVD is as simple as booting the DVD and following the prompts (you may have to change the boot order in BIOS).
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  23. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nic2k4 View Post
    Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    It has the system restore partition. It's an hp desktop. I don't really know how to do a new install from an oem.
    Word to the wise, make your recovery discs; there should be a program supplied by HP to create DVD's of that partition so you can re-create it in case you need to replace the drive. Look in the start menu and check your user manual. It usually takes at least 8 blank DVD's to backup the partition.

    If you don't do it, all is not lost, you only need to obtain the Vista files from Digital River to make an OEM DVD and use the key from your CoA sticker. Installing from DVD is as simple as booting the DVD and following the prompts (you may have to change the boot order in BIOS).

    Thanks. I'm downloading that now.

    question though - would I be better off with the hp dvds so it would have the right drivers?

    I'll still dowload the digital river thing so I have a "clean one".

    And actually will the hp dvd be a true factory clean install then?

    I do remember doing that with the restore dvd once on my xp machine which is an emachine.


    And one more thing - there is a system recovery option on the hp boot screen - would that have the reinstall option built in there?

    Edit - found this:

    http://h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=c01443342#N129

    I think I will do the backup stuff.

    I may not do this right away as it will be a big commitment. But I think having a fresh install will be beneficial on the new drive.
    Last edited by yoda313; 15th Feb 2014 at 20:52.
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  24. From the link you posted:

    "When using the HP System Recovery, it will attempt to restore your hard disk from the recovery partition. If a message appears, indicating that the recovery partition is missing or corrupted, you will need to use a set of HP Recovery Discs to restore your hard disk to its original factory image. If you did not previously create a set of HP Recovery Discs, you will have to contact HP to order a new set of Recovery Discs for your computer."

    The program that creates the HP Recovery Discs should be in the Vista start menu. According to the description, the discs will "restore your hard disk to its original factory image", it will rebuild a new drive.

    The recovery option on the boot screen is used to do the "true factory clean install", the DVD's could be used to do the same, but their main purpose is to backup the recovery partition (they would be much slower at it).
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  25. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    This was an epic crazy install session.

    I kept trying last night with the digital river boot disc. I ended up using a recovery boot disc to do a drive check on the ssd to make sure everything was ok.

    Long story short I ended up using the supplied usb enclosure to format the ssd drive on my other computer. I plugged that back into my hp desktop. Then I used the digital river boot disc and after a few failed attempts (before the usb format that is) I FINALLY got it to install.

    Only took about a half hour and a short time to do the service pack 2.

    So now I'm fully loaded and have my wifi adapter and norton installed.

    I'm doing my video card and sound card driver installs now.

    It's nice having a clean windows install. (I had previously saved my hp desktop to a usb drive so I can copy the folders later to my secondary drive.

    Thank you everyone. It seems much faster now on boot up. With all of the updates though I don't think I'm on my regualr boot time yet.

    Oh and a weird one - in msconfig you have to go into advanced settings in the boot mode tab to select MULTIPLE cores - I selected 2 for the boot up sequence. (a dual core processor fyi).

    So now I should be fully optimized after i get my drivers installed.

    Thanks again everyone.

    (oh and no more hp partitions either - this was a full clean vista install - well the prepackaged install that is I didn't do anything custom just the basic choice).

    And I'm a 100gb free out of 111gb free now.

    Edit - I just did the phone activation. That was weird. All those number blocks. But hey it took it! So I'm all legit now.

    I have to dig around for my installation discs for my video and sound card. I tried downloading them but I can't seem to get them going just right. I think if I unplug and reinsert them it might get the new windows to detect them on startup.
    Last edited by yoda313; 16th Feb 2014 at 13:07.
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  26. Originally Posted by yoda313 View Post
    I have to dig around for my installation discs for my video and sound card. I tried downloading them but I can't seem to get them going just right. I think if I unplug and reinsert them it might get the new windows to detect them on startup.
    Just open device manager and delete the sound driver then click the action menu and click find new device. For the video card it's a little different, you have to replace the current driver with a standard PCI driver. Instaed of deleting you double click the video card, go to the driver tab and update driver, do the manual driver search, un-check the display compatible driver and find the standard PCI driver, close everything and install the driver you downloaded.
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  27. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by nic2k4
    Just open device manager and delete the sound driver then click the action menu and click find new device. For the video card it's a little different, you have to replace the current driver with a standard PCI driver. Instaed of deleting you double click the video card, go to the driver tab and update driver, do the manual driver search, un-check the display compatible driver and find the standard PCI driver, close everything and install the driver you downloaded.
    Thank you.

    I did get the soundcard going just fine with the original disc which I did find.

    I tried that route you suggested but digging up the right inf file from the ati folder that got extracted wasn't working.

    I had started a separate thread on it and db83 provide me a link which appears to have the right driver package I need. Hopefully this will do it for the video card.

    If it doesn't I have to call it quits for today as I've been working on this for too long.

    Thanks for the help everyone.
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  28. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    I finally bought windows 7. I upgraded from vista home premium to 7 home premium.

    Is there anything I need to do to maximize my ssd performance? I seem to remember there was some feature 7 had for ssd that vista didn't. Without re-reading every post above is this automatic with 7? Do I need to turn something on?

    Thanks.
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  29. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    It's automatic with W7 and maybe Vista, not sure on that. I keep my SSDs about 50% full, maximum. That gives the SSD plenty of room to move data around to keep from premature burnout of individual memory cells.

    I would also set up all your drives to AHCI in BIOS. That is easiest done when you install the OS.
    http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/Why-do-i-need-AHCI-with-a-SSD-Drive...-vs/td-p/57078
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  30. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    I guess I'll have to thin some stuff out. I'm at 63.5gb of 111gb. I have a second internal 1tb drive so that won't be an issue.

    I did an upgrade not a clean install. I'll have to root around my bios setup to see if that is an option. It is an older board.

    Thanks redwudz.
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