why do so many people at Wincustomize prefer to get their software from third-party sites?

seriously, get the stuff from source, at least you can be be sure the third-party site does not put any extra crap into the installer.  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Guys,  if he's been having the slow-boot/sluggishness from day-1 on a fresh Windows install it is not likely to be software/registry/etc. etc. related.   I have never in the many years of owning PC's had a fresh Windows install take longer than about 20 seconds (certainly no longer than 30 secs) to boot to desktop.

I'm averaging around a minute and 30 seconds. You would think it would boot faster being a quad core. It was booting quickly until I added SP1. BIOS settings are fine, most are set at default. 

Every time I run them. Takes forever for them to finally start. Chrome strts very quickly. Firefox and IE take forever, as does iTunes.

Sorry, I don't use regedit. Afraid I will screw something up. Suffice it to say I have everything but AVG turned off to run at startup using MSCONFIG. 

Superfetch is disabled.

Once you're in the 20-30 seconds for boot to desktop realm, CPU speed etc. has nothing to do with anything.  As stated previously, my 1.6GHz Pentium M with a 5400rpm HD booted Windows 7 Pro to the desktop in the same 20-30 seconds that my Core 2 Duo 3.15GHz with SSD does.  I just always run the default(s) for everything and never really change anything in the OS from the fresh install even after I add my data to the system.  Keeps things fast'n snappy throughout I find.

Again, if you were seeing this sluggish performance right from the first boot I'd be looking at hardware issues (or failing driver somewhere).  I seriously doubt any of this has anything to do with the OS itself or what registry entries/startup items/etc. etc. are in use.

Like I said, it was acting fine before SP1. Don't get me wrong, it's a very snappy system, better than my old one bu far, I was just curious if this slow boot time was normal. 

Well you didn't mention before that the boot time was fine before SP1.  Regardless of SP1 or not, even my 2005 1.6GHz mobile proc can boot to the Windows 7 desktop in under 30 seconds.  There is something amiss there. 

Especially since you said your iTunes and IE etc. 'take forever' to load.  If I click on IE (on the 1.6GHz notebook after a fresh clean boot) even with the homepage set to MSN it is up in less than 5 seconds.

Before I installed an SSD, my rig with 4GBs of OCZ Reaper 1066 RAM and an AMD Phenom 9850BEx4 took about 1 minute to the welcome screen and about 1min 40 secds to the desktop with Win 7. With the SSD, about 40 seconds. I run a minimum of services and startup items also. 20-30 seconds?......

 Monk, you must be running your rig on 220 volts.

There are 3 gaming rigs, 3 notebooks, a few other desktops/servers etc. in the home.  With the exception of the servers which take much longer to boot all of the desktops (not only the gaming rigs) and notebooks boot their respective Windows OSes in 20-30 to the desktop.  Anything longer than that would be unacceptable to my family members and I would need to 'fix' it asap!  

I should also mention that I run a 100% Intel proc-shop (not that I have anything against AMD I've just always used Intel), all mainboards are Asus (I used to use Intel boards years ago but finally moved to Asus due to the 'extras' included and the lower price-point), and Kingston or Corsair for RAM.  Hard drives are all WD or Seagate and SSD's are Corsair only.

EDIT:  Those of you with much longer boot-times might have too many bloody fans spinning up on boot-up.   You know 2 well-placed fans are good enogh right?    You don't need air blowing in/out of all of possible case openings.....hehe

Except in my case - my system uses 12 fans and generates enough heat to keep my room warm all winter, with no help from the central heating system. As a matter of fact, the only time the floor vents are open in my room is during the summer to allow for cooling from the AC system. My boot times are still very reasonable though. I don't fret a few seconds here or there. Life is much too short to stress about such small inconveniences in our daily lives in my opinion.  -- Ace --

Monk, you're getting "out there" now.

Fans will have no bearing on boot up time. Man, get a grip....lol.

I almost think you're just baiting Kona. Some of the stuff you've said here is ludicrous.

There's no way platter drives are gonna boot as fast as you say, unless they are completely empty of anything other than the OS.

Hell, I have two rigs with SSDs that won't boot that fast.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but what you're saying is almost impossible and serves nothing other than to get Kona tore up.

My 2 cents.

It must be that pesky Power On LED thats slows me down. I'll unplug it to speed my rig up.  BTW, Monk, the gfx card, CPU and PSU all have fans too. Do you advocate getting rid of those?  Go ahead and disable all your fans and tell us how fast your rig boots in a few days.

If only I could afford a 10KW PSU, I could boot in 2-3 seconds, I'll bet.

Yeah, Wiz. That LED takes a few nanoseconds to light up. Better disable it, you'll increase your boot speed!  

I've been running AMD machines for about 8 years and a 20 - 30 second boot time with a clean install on a platter drive is nigh impossible.  I can get below 30 [25 - 26 seconds] with my SSD's in RAID0, but a regular platter drive is not going to replicate those times.

As for the fans, I have 6 big buggers spinning up at boot on my rig and I doubt very much that I'd see faster boots from switching them off.

Now kona, your most recently posted boot time of a 1m.30s is not bad, okay!!!  You cannot expect to get the kind of boot times others here are getting with SSD's, not with your hardware. However, given your hardware, a minute thirty is quite decent, so not to worry, okay?

What the good Cap'n said.

Alright......alright people.......so apparently the 'seconds' I count in my head are really long seconds!  hehe 

I timed it with a watch and my systems boot to the desktop between 44-54 (SSD's at 44) seconds not the 20-30 I originally claimed.         My apologies for misleading anyone in this thread. 

I had a guy at work tell me his laptop with an I7 boots to desktop in five seconds, I just kept my laughter inside!And I bet it had a fan too.

Turn on computer, go get coffee, come back, works like a charm for me. A minute and 30 is fast,, IMO.

Yep, I agree......that is well within an acceptable boot time. You should not worry Kona, your rig seems to be doing just fine imo. My boot times are not much faster and I have a homebuilt custom rig, so I can confidently say that you're doing well my friend.

Question, why is boot time that big of a deal to all of you? I may re-boot my main system once every couple weeks at best, the rest of the time it's up and running.

Do you guys really shut your PCs down that much? 

There is more to life than spending it trying to increase its pace.