speed with alienware m11x

hey all,just a quick question about my new m11x.

so far i like the laptop ( even for less than a month old i have had a screen replacement). boot up time on my m11x seems to be terrible,my 5 year old hp pavillion is quicker and that has far lower spec than the alien. i have disabled the alien stuff at start up but this does not seem to help. just wondered what every one else thought.my spec is

4 gig ram
i7 640um(1.06 ghz)
500 gig 7200


p.s sorry if this is similar to any previous posts.im just new on here.

 

Hi there,
You might have done this already but what I used to optimize my boot-up time was to use the msconfig.exe program.
Just type the above in the start menu and once the window pops up, go to the "boot" tab and check the "No GUI boot", this disables the windows icon from being displayed at start up, thereby saving some resources. You can also go to the "startup" and "services" tabs and uncheck the programs you deem unnecessary (especially all those clunky alienware programs).
I'm not totally sure about this, but you can try increasing the number of processors dedicated to boot-up, you can do this from the "boot" tab and then by pressing the "advanced options" button, it should help.
Apart from that, you can also tweak the services being automatically started at boot-up through the "services" tool (just type it in start menu) and don't forget to regularly defragment your drive.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
Good luck!

 

ok thanks for the reply,tried some of those things but ill check again,cheers.

 

you might just need to reinstall the OS.

i know thats sound stupid because we are taking about a brand new laptop but both the R1s that i got in the last little bit both needed this to be done. i did the standard optimizations and although it did help opening anything took like 10-30sec. i have heard a few owner say that they never needed to reformat and only did optimizations but for both of mine that was not the case ....

i hope that helps

 

I made an earlier post here that addresses your question. My config (Core i5 non-overclocked, 4GB RAM, SSD) gets me from power-button to Windows desktop in about 25 seconds. Video here.

Here is the contents of the post:

When I first got my Alienware M11x, I booted the machine up and uninstalled everything I didn't want. Soon afterwards, I decided to do a clean reformat instead, and boy was there a difference. If you want top performance from your computer, do a clean install from scratch instead of using the factory image.

I did not have an external optical drive. I installed Windows 7 Ultimate off of a USB key, using this guide below. You will need a computer with an optical drive and USB port, and a USB key that is 4GB or larger.
How To: Install Windows 7 from a USB Key! | Maximum PC

Once you complete the install, you need to install drivers. You can find them on Welcome to Dell Support --> Drivers and Downloads. Download these drivers onto another machine, and copy them over to your Alienware M11x after a clean reformat:

• Alienware - OSD Application
• Alienware - Command Center
• Dell - Custom Desktop Themes (optional)
• Audio - Realtec Driver - ALC665
• Chipset - Intel Driver - QS57 Express Chipset (for the R2)
• Chipset - JMicron Driver - JMB380 1394
• Chipset - JMicron JMB380C - Card Reader
• Input Device Drivers - Synaptics Touchpad
• Network - Atheros Driver - AR8132 LAN 10/100
• Network - Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
• Network - Dell Wireless WLAN 1520 Half MiniCard
• SATA Drives - ST Microelectronics - DE351DL Free Fall Sensor
• SATA Drives - Intel Rapid Storage Technology
• Video - Intel Driver - Graphic Media Accelerator HD
• Video - nVidia Driver - Geforce GT335M (or use modded INF drivers)

What you might be interested in is what I *DIDN'T* install:

• Applications - Dell - Custom Desktop Themes (I didn't like them).
• BIOS - Alienware BIOS (since I already had the latest one)
• Communication - Wireless Broadband Drivers (since I didn't have a broadband card)
• Network - Intel Drivers - WiFi Link (since I don't have those cards)
• Network - Dell - Wireless WLAN 1520 Half MiniCard (I downloaded these, extracted these, but manually installed the drivers. I did not go through the Setup.exe program, since it installs a bunch of garbage)

I also went through msconfig, and chose not to start up any unnecessary startup applications. I also disabled AlienSense, the facial recognition login tool, because it consumes a bunch of resources. I also disabled the FAService from Windows Services, because it consumes a bunch of resources related to AlienSense. I also disabled AlienFusion, because it is known to conflict with Windows 7 power management.

Beyond that, you simply download and install the apps that you want off of the internet. Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, Avast! Free Antivirus, Java, Flash, Steam, WinRAR, and Foxit PDF Reader (*NEVER EVER* install Adobe Acrobat Reader. It is a piece of junk. Foxit PDF Reader FTW).

 

just wondering blackjacob... what is your boot time? i think it would help if there was some perspective... if it's a huge amount of time there could be something wrong or if it's a mediocre amount it could just be that you need to do some tweaking.

 

thanks guys. i just timed booting up the laptop just now. from when i push the button till my desktop screen is 2 minutes and 2 seconds and a further 8 seconds till im ready to go online. this includes disabled alien stuff,bluetooth. pretty lame i think.

 

I noticed a performance boost also by doing a clean non-factory install of windows 7 (in my case ultimate 64bit).
Also SSD is a big difference in boottime (and in general) compared to my factory installed Seagate Momentus 7200rpm.
I installed windows 7 ultimate in 10minutes, I really thought "" how can it be this fast.

Your video is 25sec till desktop can be seen, but I also see it hasn't finished loading all programs, so it's a bit misleading imo.

Going to try a Vlited version of ultmate in the future.
Ran windows 7 on a 4GB EEE 701 netbook, just to see how much you can ditch.

 

I run 2000 prof on my 701, along with office ultimate. Was a good work horse for many months.

 

Seems normal, I mean, my i5 takes 50 seconds from full off to desktop, then it takes maybe 1 minute more to load the normal stuff (antivirus, alienware stuff, etc.)

But I can already open programs or surf the net at soon I can move the cursor in the desktop)

If you want faster times, install again windows 7, get a SSD, or disable most programs that load when you turn on the laptop....

 

You are right that it hasn't finished loading all of the programs. I didn't call it out in the video, but I completely recognize the difference between simply booting to Windows desktop, and booting to a *usable* Windows desktop. It is a distinction that I did not make in this earlier video, because I was less experienced.

However, I would argue that a system w/SSD is usable once you get to the Windows desktop (unlike a system that is based on mechanical HDD, which isn't "usable" until the hard drive stops thrashing from all of the startup programs).

I would argue that the extremely high random read speeds of an SSD and the way that it allows very deep NCQ depths (NCQ depth of 8 or higher is not a problem for SSDs, whereas an HDD struggles to get NCQ depths of 2) makes the fact that Windows was still loading startup programs irrelevant. If you have an SSD, the system is still usable through that.

 

i have a vertex2 in my desktop and can open programs as soon as i see the desktop. in the first 5sec of seeing my desktop i have winamp, firefox, tsk mgr and all my notification bar programs loaded. (core temp,evga presion, etc...)

it really is that fast.