2.4Ghz iMac bootup times

[Muncher]

My new 20" iMac boots up i about 40 seconds. Isn't that slow? What can I do to speed it up?

On the plus side, when it does finally boot up, it is an amazing machine. I'm still learning the ropes, but already it has impressed me with the startup times for the different programs. The 20" screen is huge, much bigger than I need. And to think I would have bought a 17". Hah.

Cheers,
Alex

 

[swordfish5736]

my g4 powerbook can boot up in about 30 seconds on a good day so that sonuds a little slow. Not sure what you can do to fix that though. If you dont speak the million languages apple put on your comp you can always remove them with a program called monolingual. It saves a few gigs of space

 

[mward333]

Mine seems to boot-up almost immediately. On the other hand, we have the 2.8 GHz version, but I wouldn't think it would be much different in startup times....

It's at home, so I'll have to check this later. Hmmm..... 40 seconds "seems" slow to me too. Strange.

 

[daneoni]

You either have some logging items set to run or maybe you need more RAM. ALso make sure that the startup volume is your HDD so the iMac doesn't keep looking for boot volumes where non exist

 

[Muncher]

I just got this thing yesterday... It shouldn't be bogged down yet. I haven't plugged in any external drives, so there's only one place for it to boot from. It has the base 1GB of memory. Oh well. I can deal with 40 seconds.

 

[JBat]

My new 20" iMac boots up i about 40 seconds. Isn't that slow? What can I do to speed it up?

On the plus side, when it does finally boot up, it is an amazing machine. I'm still learning the ropes, but already it has impressed me with the startup times for the different programs. The 20" screen is huge, much bigger than I need. And to think I would have bought a 17". Hah.

Cheers,
Alex

Are we talking about a cold boot here, or awaking from sleep mode?

 

[Craiger]

Does RAM affect a "cold boot"? I thought it was more about the HD and processor?

 

[lofight]

have a 17" intel imac core duo and it boots up in like 17 secs with logging in my user account... that seems a little bit slow but still faster than pc's

 

[ZaniCWB]

BlackBook in 19 or 20 seconds at most...

My new 20" iMac boots up i about 40 seconds. Isn't that slow? What can I do to speed it up?

On the plus side, when it does finally boot up, it is an amazing machine. I'm still learning the ropes, but already it has impressed me with the startup times for the different programs. The 20" screen is huge, much bigger than I need. And to think I would have bought a 17". Hah.

Cheers,
Alex

The 2.16GHz, but with 2GB Ram... everything else standard.

 

[togermano]

mines 2gb and boots up in like 15 seconds

 

[Craiger]

someone needs to define boot up because I seriously doubt everyone here is using the same definition. The op is talking about booting up after a complete shut down not sleep and I assume he is talking about the end time being when his desktop is completely loaded?? Clarification would be great.

It took my new 2.4 35 sec (using the above definition) to boot and that includes me entering my password.

 

[Hibbsy]

Just tested this on my 2.8Ghz imac and get something like 25 seconds to boot from cold to desktop fully loaded.

If you time from restart pressed to desktop fully loaded again I get 35 seconds. This wipes the floor with my work PC which runs log off scripts and stuff for ages, I can restart and make a cup of tea though which is a bonus

So the benefit of PCs are you get more breaks

 

[astewart]

My 2.16GHz C2D boots up from a complete shut down in about 22 seconds

 

[profit42]

whiners....

my Vista machine (3.4Ghz P4...) takes +- 5 minutes to load...

For those interested, the following stuff takes 5 minutes: sony welcome screen > grub "fake bios" loader (vista crack, timeout = 1 second) > darwin osx86 boot menu (timeout = 4 seconds) > vista load screen > vista welcome screen > empty vista desktop > loading applications (messenger etc.) > connecting to wireless network > loading external hard drive > displaying useless "help I need updates" messages

 

[rds]

40 seconds is nothing to be worried about.

There are many variables to consider - what devices are attached, login items, etc.

I would only be asking questions if it took more than double that.

 

[ethernet76]

My new 20" iMac boots up i about 40 seconds. Isn't that slow? What can I do to speed it up?

On the plus side, when it does finally boot up, it is an amazing machine. I'm still learning the ropes, but already it has impressed me with the startup times for the different programs. The 20" screen is huge, much bigger than I need. And to think I would have bought a 17". Hah.

Cheers,
Alex

That does sound slow. My CD 2.0 Macbook boots in 30 seconds.

I'd perform a clean wipe and install only the stuff you need. Get rid of the language packages and all the printer drivers.

I prefer to do this with any new computer I buy including Windows computers.

Alternatively you could go into terminal and type ps -aux

That'll give you all current processes and background processes. I've used it to track down memory hogs and rogue applications that eat CPU.

 

[Muncher]

Well, when I booted it up again, it clocked 21 seconds. Later, 38. I could care less after the 3+ minute boot times of my last compter, though.

 

[veedubdrew]

Well, when I booted it up again, it clocked 21 seconds. Later, 38. I could care less after the 3+ minute boot times of my last compter, though.

As a mac noob, maybe nobody has told you, but there's virtually no reason to shut the machine all the way off.

Just put it to sleep and wake it up, takes all of two seconds. The only time I've ever shut down my macs is for software update restarts. Other than that, sleep only since 2002. Works great.

-Drew

 

[Yuppi]

Since I had a Windows PC that often failed at awakeing from sleep I didn't use that. The sleep function in Mac OS X works incredible good. And most applications can handle it way better than most windows apps do. No broken network connections that will bother you for another 30 seconds after awakeing etc..
I really love my mac for that. But it annoys me that taking of the iPod of the USB awakes him... Same for unmounted discs and mouse moves. It woul be nice to define the awakeing signals by restricting it to only enter and network or so..

 

[MK2007]

My white 24" iMac with 3 GB (4 GB actual) takes about 35 seconds to boot to the desktop. Add to that another 15 seconds or more for the machine to settle down.

The boot time doesn't matter much to me because it does not take long. I usually reboot about once a while. I power on the iMac, walk away for a while, and then come back when it is ready to be used.

 

[DoFoT9]

whiners....

my Vista machine (3.4Ghz P4...) takes +- 5 minutes to load...

For those interested, the following stuff takes 5 minutes: sony welcome screen > grub "fake bios" loader (vista crack, timeout = 1 second) > darwin osx86 boot menu (timeout = 4 seconds) > vista load screen > vista welcome screen > empty vista desktop > loading applications (messenger etc.) > connecting to wireless network > loading external hard drive > displaying useless "help I need updates" messages

you poor poor thing. i feel for you !!!

on my CD MBP cold boot up is ~30( which includes me typing in my 16character password) and then bringing up the desktop and logging in and opening about 5 startup items.

As a mac noob, maybe nobody has told you, but there's virtually no reason to shut the machine all the way off.

Just put it to sleep and wake it up, takes all of two seconds. The only time I've ever shut down my macs is for software update restarts. Other than that, sleep only since 2002. Works great.

-Drew

thats the good thing about many computer they dont need to be turned off these days. especially server machines.

 

[Dave Marsh]

Back in 1978 it took approximately 20 minutes to boot up my TRS 80 computer using the standard audio cassette storage device. And that was if there were no errors during the startup process, which there frequently were. Oh, and that computer cost $3800, with 32K of RAM! During the day, fluorescent lights would corrupt the RAM, forcing a restart to continue using the machine.

But, all in all, it was a fun machine, and my first computer.

In the end, that computer experience was why I purchased a Mac in 1984. It was a rocket ship by comparison...a computer that one could actually use without having to write your own programs from scratch...

So, I agree... 40 seconds for a startup is OK.

I've also found that using Coriolis System's iDefrag monthly to consolidate fragmented files and rearrange their locations on your hard drive can have a positive impact, although some argue that modern hard drives are fast enough not to need this. One of the first things I do with a new computer is to partition it into three volumes: one for the primary startup, one for a utilities startup (for diagnostics and repair on the primary startup volume), and one for data (odds and ends of installers, software updates, and the like). The utilities startup volume is small and where I have my major utilities installed to perform routine maintenance on my system (iDefrag, DiskWarrior, Tech Tool Pro, Disk Utility, etc.). After performing my monthly maintenance, I restart from the primary startup volume, run each of my applications once to rebuild its caches (remember, iDefrag moved files around), then perform four restarts (shutdown from the Desktop, restart from the Desktop, shutdown from the login screen, and restart from the login screen), just to assure that all the system caches have been updated. Following that, my systems pop again.