effect of dual boot on boot speed

maturin · 2009-08-27 15:53:06

Hello everyone,

I realize this isn't Arch-specific, but hours of googling have turned up nothing. I'm dual booting Arch and Vista; it takes 15 seconds from powering up to the OS selection screen (and then another 15 to login). How much of the first 15 sec. could I save if I removed Vista? Thanks.

byte · 2009-08-27 16:00:38

Nothing, as that's all BIOS stuff.

maturin · 2009-08-27 16:05:41

Then there's no way to improve it?

flowheat · 2009-08-27 16:17:00

15 Seconds to the grub screen is pretty long. Should be closer to like 5 at most. What kind of machine are we talking about here? If it's running Vista I'm guessing it's rather new which means its not the hardware so yeah it would have to be a setting in your BIOS. You might want to just go take a cursory glance at your BIOS settings and see if there isn't something strange in there. You might also want to Google something like 'improve BIOS settings for <Insert computer here>' or if it's a custom rig then Google for your mother board.

maturin · 2009-08-27 16:23:04

Thanks, flowheat. It's a Lenovo T400, 2.53GHz processor, 3GB ram. I'm a noob; I don't see anything odd in BIOS. Googling now.

Last edited by maturin (2009-08-27 16:44:10)

neddie_seagoon · 2009-08-27 19:14:26

Maybe also try looking for an option in the BIOS like quick boot or something, that may speed up initial load time.

flowheat · 2009-08-27 19:15:29

Some googling on t400 boot times came up with a few people complaining about similar things.

This thread sounds very similar to what you're experiencing, however the solution seemed to be to call Lenovo.

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-a … /m-p/96819

This guy had an idea about what the problem was, but never reported back as to whether it was the problem or not.

http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-an … m-p/146450

So i'd take a look in the BIOS to see if you have preboot-authentication turned on or any options regarding that, and failing that I'd call Lenovo.

methuselah · 2009-08-27 19:43:20

My HP Pavilion dv9920us takes 13 seconds until the grub screen shows.

flowheat · 2009-08-27 19:55:59

methuselah wrote:

My HP Pavilion dv9920us takes 13 seconds until the grub screen shows.

That's strange. I have an HP Pavillion dv9230us and it takes about 4 seconds to get to grub. The HP screen flashes so fast I have trouble hitting the keys fast enough to go to the BIOS screen. I can't imagine the BIOS are that different.

loafer · 2009-08-27 20:05:55

Why on earth do you have to boot in 15 seconds? If it's too long, chill out and have a cup of tea. :-)

Last edited by loafer (2009-08-27 20:06:32)

R00KIE · 2009-08-27 20:27:56

I've seen that happen with motherboards that have extra raid controllers and it takes them a while to either figure out that nothing is plugged there or to initialize the raid array (I think).

On a notebook it should be under 10s from pressing the power button to having the grub menu and maybe I'd say around 5s if you do a reboot.

methuselah · 2009-08-27 22:19:54

flowheat wrote:

methuselah wrote:
My HP Pavilion dv9920us takes 13 seconds until the grub screen shows.
That's strange. I have an HP Pavillion dv9230us and it takes about 4 seconds to get to grub. The HP screen flashes so fast I have trouble hitting the keys fast enough to go to the BIOS screen. I can't imagine the BIOS are that different.

I just re-timed the whole process and it's worse than I thought it was.

It takes 0:08 seconds from the start button to even show my Bios page. That lasts for a few seconds then it goes blank as it loads grub.

Then at 0:16 seconds I can finally press 'enter' for the first selection in my grub menu. (I have 4 different kernel entires in my grub list, plus a 5th for Vista.)

Then at about 0:50 - 0:55 seconds I get my first view of my mouse, and then quickly after that my wallpaper shows.

At 1:05 I have both my xfce4-panels loaded and I could launch firefox if I wanted to.

1:20 and my computer with both conky scripts and an embedded terminal using devilspie are all loaded. (both conky scripts use sleep start_up scripts, and I start my embedded terminal and devilspie with a shell script using the sleep command also..... this way they load properly)

I even went into my BIOS setup and disabled cdrom boot and floopy boot up options, and I put hard drive boot at the top of the boot order. I also disabled the button sound for the media player quickplay button.... none of this helped. I guess I'm stuck with a really slow BIOS.

My Arch boot up (after pressing enter in the grub list) is very quick.

Last edited by methuselah (2009-08-27 22:22:03)

Anikom15 · 2009-08-27 22:40:17

Maybe it's a hardware issue.

loafer · 2009-08-27 22:42:30

I'm still trying to think what I could actually do in this 15 second window ...

M177ER · 2009-08-28 01:44:28

In your BIOS check the boot from device order. Make sure that the hard drive is the first device.

maturin · 2009-08-28 02:18:13

loafer: lol, I can't argue with you. Actually sipping tea right now. I just thought tweaking the boot process for speed would be a good way to learn it.

M177ER: I rearranged the device order (hd first) but didn't notice a difference.

neddie_seagoon: I have the quick boot option enabled.

Last edited by maturin (2009-08-28 17:13:24)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-27 15:53:06

effect of dual boot on boot speed

#2 2009-08-27 16:00:38

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#3 2009-08-27 16:05:41

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#4 2009-08-27 16:17:00

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#5 2009-08-27 16:23:04

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#6 2009-08-27 19:14:26

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#7 2009-08-27 19:15:29

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#8 2009-08-27 19:43:20

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#9 2009-08-27 19:55:59

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#10 2009-08-27 20:05:55

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#11 2009-08-27 20:27:56

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#12 2009-08-27 22:19:54

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#13 2009-08-27 22:40:17

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#14 2009-08-27 22:42:30

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#15 2009-08-28 01:44:28

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

#16 2009-08-28 02:18:13

Re: effect of dual boot on boot speed

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