Boot Camp + win 7 = Slow Startup (really slow)

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Level 1

1 points

Boot Camp + win 7 = Slow Startup (really slow)

Hello,
I installed windows 7 on my Macbook pro (Mid 2009) with no problems.

Whenever I hold Alt at startup and then select Windows, the computer seems to freeze for about 2 minutes and then starts loading windows. While it is frozen I just get a blinking dash line in the top left corner.

Is it normal for it to take so long?
OSX (10.6.2) boots up completly fine. i tried resetting the pram and still no luck.

No new programs were installed on windows after its installation.
I'm not sure where to go from here. Any help is greatly appreciated.
All the best,
Cassiano

MacBook Pro (mid 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Dec 17, 2009 1:28 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Dec 17, 2009 1:37 PM in response to cassiano

Set Windows as the default and see how long, it will take longer, some under the hood loading does go on (and using ALT/OPT can add 30-45 seconds).

Have you inserted and run Apple setup when in 7 off your Mac DVD?

Startup should be in the 45-75 second range for 2009 Mac I would guess.

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Answer 2

cassiano Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 17, 2009 1:44 PM in response to The hatter

I have already tried setting the bootcamp partition as default, but It did not change things.
Yes, I have installed the windows drivers.
My startup is taking more than 3 minutes on a newly installed win7.
Thank you for your help anyways The hatter.

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Dec 17, 2009 1:53 PM in response to cassiano

Other than buying an SSD drive, or giving Windows more of your hard drive (not just the slowest last tracks) I don't know why or what is wrong.

I know in my case one of Apple's EFI firmware updates "to improve Windows compatibility" was responsible for adding at least 30 seconds booting Windows from what it was previously -- so much for "improvement" and progress 😟

More RAM? using a 2nd drive like Flash memory to boost system startup?

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Answer 4

Dec 17, 2009 2:07 PM in response to cassiano

cassiano wrote:
Hello,
I installed windows 7 on my Macbook pro (Mid 2009) with no problems.

Whenever I hold Alt at startup and then select Windows, the computer seems to freeze for about 2 minutes and then starts loading windows. While it is frozen I just get a blinking dash line in the top left corner.

Startup to Win7. Then restart to your Win7 install DVD and repair startup using the repair Windows links you should see on the first screen or so after starting to the DVD.

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Answer 5

b noir

Level 9

72,336 points

Dec 17, 2009 2:50 PM in response to cassiano

Is it normal for it to take so long?
OSX (10.6.2) boots up completly fine. i tried resetting the pram and still no luck.

Not normal.

By any chance, do you have an external USB or Firewaire drive attached to the Mac? If so, by way of experiment, try disconnecting those prior to booting into Windows. Do you get a faster boot then?

(Typically I associate the issues I'm thinking about with slow boots on Vista systems. But it does no harm to check with a Windows 7, too.)

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Answer 6

cassiano Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 18, 2009 3:00 AM in response to b noir

Unfortunately I do not have anything attached to the computer, except the power plug. I just made a small video showing what is going on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cke9CeZCG0o

I'll try to repair the install as suggested by donv and post back with the results.

The Hatter suggested that I give windows more space. Could a small disk space really do this? At the moment win7 only has 8gb available. I made a 25gb partition but I think I'll use Winclone and size it up.

BTW, My HD is a 500gb with 7200rpm.

Thanks a lot once again.

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Answer 7

Ron Ross1

Level 1

112 points

Dec 18, 2009 3:16 AM in response to cassiano

That is way too long. BTW, how much memory is in your MBP?

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Answer 8

cassiano Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 18, 2009 3:22 AM in response to Ron Ross1

2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM

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Answer 9

Ron Ross1

Level 1

112 points

Dec 18, 2009 3:34 AM in response to cassiano

Did you experience any difficulties when installing Win7? Take a look at what processes are running.
Go to>>Control Panel>>>Performance Information and Tools, and do a check of your performance index to see if anything is out of whack.

Did you load any programs, virus checkers, registry checkers or any other performance programs or utilities?

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Answer 10

cassiano Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 18, 2009 5:13 AM in response to Ron Ross1

I did not experience any difficulties installing win7.
The repair startup using the repair windows disk gave me no errors whatsoever.
I just ran the Performance Info and here is the result:

Processor (Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz): 6.4
Memory (RAM) 4,00 GB: 5.9
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT: 5.9
Gaming graphics 2163 MB Total available graphics memory: 5.3
Primary hard disk - 8GB Free (32GB Total): 5.9
Base score: 5,3 (Determined by lowest subscore)

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Answer 11

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Dec 18, 2009 6:07 AM in response to cassiano

Page file, hibernation file, temp space, and really want space for 2-3 restore points, plus for any apps, updates, and other data.

Thumbnail images also get cached into your AppData/Local/tmp

Definitely WinClone, but then give CampTune a try maybe to re-size.

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Answer 12

teehee

Level 1

0 points

Dec 18, 2009 8:29 AM in response to The hatter

You seem to have pretty much the exact same machine as I do and the exact same problem.

I previously had vista installed without any delayed boot problems, I do have vmware fusion installed, the trial has run out but the software remains installed.

No virus software or anything other than windows as it was a new installation. I'll also try the repair option and see how that goes.

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Answer 13

b noir

Level 9

72,336 points

Dec 18, 2009 10:39 AM in response to cassiano

The Hatter suggested that I give windows more space. Could a small disk space really do this? At the moment win7 only has 8gb available. I made a 25gb partition but I think I'll use Winclone and size it up.

Yes ... I'd be a bit concerned about space for virtual memory on a 4-GB RAM system with only 8 GB of disk space available. Especially if there's a lot of third-party services and startup items loading doing the boot (the sorts of things that Ron is asking about).

The shutdown in your video seems reasonably fast, so I'm thinking that the hatter and Ron have identified the two likeliest suspects.

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Answer 14

cassiano Author

Level 1

1 points

Dec 18, 2009 12:11 PM in response to b noir

I forgot to say that I do not have vmware or parallels. Also the only applications I installed on my win7 were Autodesk Autocad 2009 and 3D Max 2009.

I just removed the bootcamp partition (gladly I used winclone, but unfortunately I didn't know about CampTune). I will resize it and let you know if things got better. I'll try 80GB. Can't afford more than that. Is it possible to install win7 to an external USB drive??

@teehee: I hope you don't be mad at me, but it is good to hear that I'm not the only one. Please let us know if the repair worked for you. Mine had nothing to repair.

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Answer 15

The hatter

Level 9

61,031 points

Dec 18, 2009 12:51 PM in response to cassiano

For 'extreme performance' people buy SSDs for boot drive and claim to cut booting down to couple seconds!

Of course $$$ and small, and no way to boot Windows off RAID when in Mac environment.

What's that feature in Windows? turbo boost using flash memory card?

Good luck with the restore (or clean install even) this time. Sometimes removing a partition doesn't return all the free space back to the pool of unfragmented space needed.

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