Slow boot - file system problem?

[justjohn]

Just upgraded the family computer to Windows 7, had an initial boot of 5 minutes, did driver updates and cut some startup processes using msconfig, now down to about 2 minutes.

I used xperf's boot trace (xbootmgr) and saw AVG running "avgmfx64" over and over with long delays. Uninstalled AVG, saw a modest improvement (20sec maybe?).

Checked again and still have fltmgr.sys and Ntfs.sys delays everywhere. I saw the fltmgr ones before but hoped they were linked to AVG. Ntfs delays seem more prominent but possible I just glossed over them the first time.

So does anyone have any ideas what might be causing those delays?

The system is a fairly new HP rig, AMD 2.6 Ghz phenom II (quad core) with 8GB RAM, ATI 4350 video card, 1TB WD hard drive. Not that much junk on it. I assume it should boot ~40sec.

I'm wondering if it might be something with the hard drive. It says it's being used in RAID in the bios, and I'm seeing an Nvidia RAID service in system processes, but it seems weird to use RAID with just one hard drive. Any ideas welcome.

 

[daship]

Upgrades seem to downgrade performance, a clean install would fix the issue for sure.

 

[justjohn]

I just found out if I unplug the USB mouse/keyboard combo it boots 20sec faster. So I can get 1min20sec if I don't want to actually use the computer. Weird.

 

[The_Prophecy]

daship was on to something with his comment. Did you actually do an upgrade install to Windows 7?

 

[justjohn]

Yes. As stated in the initial post.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Wanted to make sure... some people say they've upgraded their systems to Windows 7, but they really mean that they have upgraded by going to the next version of Windows, regardless of the method actually used to do so.

Is there a way in your BIOS to set the SATA controller to Legacy, AHCI, or RAID? If you have not actually created a RAID array but have the controller mode set to RAID, it may slow the system a bit with the extra services? Try setting it to AHCI if you don't have an array set up and see what happens.

 

[justjohn]

I'm thinking it's a combination of things. Just found some newer video drivers, seemed to shave another 20sec off.

AHCI might be a good suggestion. Will try it momentarily.

 

[justjohn]

Tried both AHCI and IDE, neither are bootable.

This is the computer: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3970023&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en except mouse/keyboard are logitech instead of HP.

I want to update nvraid and maybe entire bios, but it says no win7 drivers even though it was marketed as win7 upgradeable. I feel like I should be able to get them from nvidia but I can't find info on the product page ( http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01742903&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3970023&lang=en ) to match it to an nforce board or anything.

 

[justjohn]

Incidentally, both are listed on this page toward the bottom: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01778879&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3970023

But if you go to hp.com/support like they say nothing comes up when you search either one...

 

[justjohn]

Any ideas? If someone who knows what I need to update nvraid and bios could chime in that alone would be a huge help.

 

[Hawkeye22]

The nvraid drivers are part of the platform drivers. Find out which chipset your motherboard uses and download the platform (NForce) drivers from NVidia's web site. Here is what is included in the platform drivers.

Windows Vista/Win7 64-bit Driver Versions:

* Ethernet Driver (v73.14+) WHQL
* Network Management Tools (v73.16) "Sedona"
* SATAIDE Driver (v11.1.0.33) WHQL
* SATARAID Driver (v11.1.0.33) WHQL
* RAIDTOOL Application (v11.1.0.30)
* SMBUS Driver (v4.74) WHQL
* SMU Driver (v1.71) WHQL
* GPU Driver (v190.38) WHQL
* Physx (v9.09.0428)
* Away Mode Driver (v6.0.6000.114) WHQL
* Installer (v7.57)

The nvraid is part of the SATARAID driver.

 

[justjohn]

That's what I'm trying to do. If you click the link I provided you'll see that the chipset is listed as "geforce 9100" rather than nforcewhatever. Luckily I just remembered cpu-z gets mobo information. Going to go try that.


Edit:
Reads as 720a with geforce 9100 which doesn't exist on the nvidia page, but choosing the closest one gave me a download that's the same driver versions as you listed, so hopefully that should do it!

 

[Hawkeye22]

Sorry, I didn't see your link there.

Reads as 720a with geforce 9100 which doesn't exist on the nvidia page, but choosing the closest one gave me a download that's the same driver versions as you listed, so hopefully that should do it!

Hope those drivers work for you.

 

[justjohn]

Installed the drivers, no problems, but no performance change .

Still getting tons of fltmgr.sys and Ntfs.sys delays. Looks like this:

I assume that's not normal. Any ideas what might be causing it?

P.S.
Both AVG and Antivir cause big startup delays. Anything that doesn't?