Slow boot with Asrock Extreme4

[md1032]

Hello,

I just traded in my Z87 Asrock Pro4 for an Extreme4 because I'm thinking that I'd like to run two GTX 670's in SLI down the road. For now, I have one GTX 670. I also upgraded the power supply from a 600 to an 850 watt unit.

The boot time is noticeably slower than with the Pro4, even with the boot set to "Fast" and logo disabled as I did with the Pro4. With the Pro4, my boot time was a hair under 15 seconds. With the Extreme4, my boot time is somewhere in the 18 second range. What is causing this discrepancy?

 

[md1032]

Well, it took all day, but I finally nailed it down. The primary symptom was an abnormal delay between post and the Windows screen (which I disable, but you can still see the green dots on the upper left). It was a combination of multiple problems:

1) I had the SSD plugged into SATA3_A0_A1 when it should have been going into SATA3_0_1, which are the Intel SATA 3 controllers. I don't know what SATA3_A0_A1 are, but they were giving me SATA II speeds...very sluggish. My jaw dropped when my Samsung 840 returned 250 MB/s. haha, figured that one out quick.

2) I didn't have Intel RST installed (this made a small difference in benchmarks).

3) Benchmarks were still slightly slow, so I disabled CPU power states (C1, C3, C6, C7) and Intel Speedstep. This really helped and made the numbers much more consistent.

After all that, boot time's back to 15 seconds from the time I press the power button to fully booted. Basically all memory throughput issues. Tested RAM with memtest, all good. All hardware was good.

The only other thing of note is that my write speeds in benchmarks are way faster with write caching enabled for some reason. This is the opposite of what guides tell me to do, but I've looked around on some internet forums and apparently this is more common than I thought. My other comp which is an X58 i7-920 system (SATA II) shows the same trend. Anyway, go with what works, I say.

 

[Lion L]

Well, it took all day, but I finally nailed it down. The primary symptom was an abnormal delay between post and the Windows screen (which I disable, but you can still see the green dots on the upper left). It was a combination of multiple problems:

1) I had the SSD plugged into SATA3_A0_A1 when it should have been going into SATA3_0_1, which are the Intel SATA 3 controllers. I don't know what SATA3_A0_A1 are, but they were giving me SATA II speeds...very sluggish. My jaw dropped when my Samsung 840 returned 250 MB/s. haha, figured that one out quick.

2) I didn't have Intel RST installed (this made a small difference in benchmarks).

3) Benchmarks were still slightly slow, so I disabled CPU power states (C1, C3, C6, C7) and Intel Speedstep. This really helped and made the numbers much more consistent.

After all that, boot time's back to 15 seconds from the time I press the power button to fully booted. Basically all memory throughput issues. Tested RAM with memtest, all good. All hardware was good.

The only other thing of note is that my write speeds in benchmarks are way faster with write caching enabled for some reason. This is the opposite of what guides tell me to do, but I've looked around on some internet forums and apparently this is more common than I thought. My other comp which is an X58 i7-920 system (SATA II) shows the same trend. Anyway, go with what works, I say.

So I just order this mobo today with a whole new rig setup but I am curious about your comment "I had the SSD plugged into SATA3_A0_A1 when it should have been going into SATA3_0_1, which are the Intel SATA 3 controllers. " How did you find that out and where can I read more about it?

Also what prompted you to disabled the Cstates? Any other bios config advice you can give for a fresh install?

My new-soon-to-be config:
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
i7 3770k
16gb Gskill Ripjaws
128gb Samsung 840
EVGA 650 GTX

Thanks!

L

 

[md1032]

So I just order this mobo today with a whole new rig setup but I am curious about your comment "I had the SSD plugged into SATA3_A0_A1 when it should have been going into SATA3_0_1, which are the Intel SATA 3 controllers. " How did you find that out and where can I read more about it?

Also what prompted you to disabled the Cstates? Any other bios config advice you can give for a fresh install?

My new-soon-to-be config:
ASRock Z77 Extreme4
i7 3770k
16gb Gskill Ripjaws
128gb Samsung 840
EVGA 650 GTX

Thanks!

L

Sorry, I had forgotten to post my chipset. I'm running the Z87 chipset, so I'm not sure what the differences would be between your mobo and mine. You don't really need to fiddle with it too much. Most of it is set up perfectly from the factory (even AHCI is the default). Just make sure you flash the BIOS to the latest version and don't use a mouse in the BIOS until you do, otherwise it will lock up. The early versions of the BIOS locked up while using a mouse.

What led me to suspect that my SSD was not running optimally was that the comp felt a bit sluggish even though it was brand new and I knew it should have been faster than my old X58 i7-920 SATA 2 system. I then read in the mobo manual a line that said something vague to the effect of "for fastest boot times, use SATA_0_1, not SATA_A0_A1". I ran Crystaldiskmark and noted that my speeds were pretty bad, like SATA 2 speeds.... 250/120 read/write. Did some googling and found out that the intel ports were SATA_0 and 1. Plugged the drive into the correct slot, benchmarks instantly almost doubled. Disabling the C states sounds useless, but in my experience I consistently gained ~10-20 MB/s read. It also removed some hesistation with the system. At that point I also realized that my last comp had speedstep disabled until I reinstalled. I know that it shouldn't theoretically make any difference with the CPU governor enabled, but for some reason with my particular setup it makes a measurable difference. Right now I am getting 530/260 sequential MB/s.

Also, if I could make a recommendation, skip the 16 GB Gskill ripjaws and go with something more inexpensive and just get 8 GB (2 x 4 GB). I would rather take that 50+ bucks and try to swing a GTX 660 Ti or GTX 670. Right now your system is extremely CPU heavy and very graphics light. Of course, to each their own, but I built my system to accept SLI GTX 670's (currently I only have one, I'm waiting for the prices to come down to get the second, but I bought my first one refurbished for only $250) and I'm running it all off a $200 i5-4670k. If you are building your system for gaming, you do not need an i7. The i5 will save you a lot of money that you can use to buy a really nice graphics card like a GTX 770 that will last you a long time before you need to pop in another for SLI. I can honestly say that my i5 system blows the doors off my i7-920 system while using less energy, even though it might not technically have as much "raw" computing power.

 

[j0hnny5]

Well, it took all day, but I finally nailed it down. The primary symptom was an abnormal delay between post and the Windows screen (which I disable, but you can still see the green dots on the upper left). It was a combination of multiple problems:

1) I had the SSD plugged into SATA3_A0_A1 when it should have been going into SATA3_0_1, which are the Intel SATA 3 controllers. I don't know what SATA3_A0_A1 are, but they were giving me SATA II speeds...very sluggish. My jaw dropped when my Samsung 840 returned 250 MB/s. haha, figured that one out quick.

I have the Z87 Pro4 and I have the same issue here. When I power on the computer it just sits there, I'm not sure if it has POST'd yet or not but my monitors do flip on, they're just blank. If I let the computer sit for ~11 minutes the computer will boot but thats obviously a piss-poor solution. If I simply hit the reset button after my initial power on the computer will boot like normal.

Per your suggestion I have moved my OS drive to the SATA3_0 position, no dice. I have also removed all other SATA devices with the exception of the drive with the OS, still no dice. My OS (Win 7 64) sits on a Crucial M4 SSD and I have 2 other OCZ Vertex SSDs in the computer. The issue persists regardless of the drive I put the OS on or the OS I use (no surprise there). I have updated my BIOS version 2-3 times but I'm not currently running the newest revision, I'm 1 rev behind. Any suggestions? It's not a show-stopper but its really irritating and its definitely giving me a bad impression of Asrock since this is my first Asrock product.