How fast can you boot to your desktop?

[amc11890]

After disabling alot of the startup entries i still have 41 processes on startup but alot of those processes include mcafee viruscan, creative media source for my sound card, nvidia utitlity, free ram xp pro, wireless adapter utlity, logitech multimedia keyboard and mouse utility

Prob reduced boot time to 50 seconds but that is prob as good as it is gonna get unless i get more ram.

One thing i do notice is that when it first boots up it takes a long time to start loading some of the programs.  It stays with a half loaded task bar for 10 seconds or so

[ROM-DOS]

amc11890 ~ yeah,more Ram would help.  Strange mis-match of memory - pc 2100 and pc 2700 ~ is that why you under-clocked your AMD Athlon Xp 1800+?

I've got the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ barton core ~ I plan on over-clocking it when I add some more Ram ~ thinkin' 2 gigs dual-channel ~ I've got 512MB now.  I'm also going to get a new video and sound card and see how fast I can get this baby flying! ~ lol

[amc11890]

http://www.testmy.net/forum/index.php?topic=10505.0~actually i was having a weird problem with the fsb changing to 200mhz from 266mhz whic is why it was underclocked.  U shoud have a good pc after u upgrade the sound card and vid card.

Any particular vid card u interested in?  I recommend the BFG nvidia 6600gt(u can oc it alot)

Wat is the clock of the xp  2500?

[ROM-DOS]

amc11890  ~ An XP+3200 is physically the same as a 2500+ but just operates at a different speed.

With the XP 2500+ (barton core) all you need to do is get a decent heatsink/fan and some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste (which I have already done) and some PC3200 Ram and set the front side bus to 200Mhz and bingo you'll have a 3200+.

The 2500+ is ideal for this because it has an 11x mulitplier.

2500+ runs at 11x166=1826Ghz

3200+ runs at 11x200=2200Ghz

and that's just doing the FSB!

Sweet huh!  and 2 gigs of PC3200(DDR400) dual-channel Ram will just fly!

I've got the MSI K7N2 Delta w/ 6.4GB memory bandwdth (great over-clocking board)

and the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 vid card, right now.

Still lookin' ~ still thinkin'

[amc11890]

Nice  ur pc is gonna have a fast pc. 

[kevmac10]

55 seconds on my G4 1.33 GHz Powerbook.  Out of the box it was more like 85 seconds - I added 1 Gig SDRAM about a year ago and that helped a lot, then OS 10.4 shaved it down to under 1 minute.  Curiously, I just bought my son a G5 iMac, but it doesn't cold start any faster than the G4.  Sweet computer, though!

I do have to comment here that I am amused by all the patches, workarounds, overclocking techniques, hardware mods, etc. that you Windows folks put yourselves through.  Will the long-awaited release of Longhorn/Vista really be the answer to all of your prayers?  Mac OS X was already shipping before Microsoft had even started the first of many Longhorn delays.  Now we are at 10.4x, we love the Unix architecture and the Mac product line, and we will be watching the Steve Jobs keynote on Jan. 10 to get a glimpse at how Apple will be even further ahead with the introduction of the first Intel Macs, seamless integration to home media centers (Tivo rumors, anybody?), and SJ's infamous "Just one more thing...". 

OK, enough holier-than-thou bragging.  I'm sure you all have excellent reasons for putting up with Microsoft after all these years.  Happy New Year.

[amc11890]

WOW u r one of the few if any mac owners here.

I heard the G5 is pretty fast

Windows is much cheaper(to upgrade) and to buy and is also much more compatible with games and wat not

[kevmac10]

WOW u r one of the few if any mac owners here.

I heard the G5 is pretty fast

Windows is much cheaper(to upgrade) and to buy and is also much more compatible with games and wat not

I'm not sure why more Mac guys aren't seen here - after all, this site is mainly devoted to ISP's, high-speed connectivity, networking, etc. and those problems aren't exclusive to Windows users (well except for networking, maybe...)

At any rate, I just need to poke a friendly hole or two in your common misconceptions about Macs:

Price & Upgradability:

As an example, I just bought a G5 iMac.  Here is what it came equipped with (standard, no upgrading):

*1.9 GHz G5 Power PC processor (the clock speed vs. MIPS vs. benchmark performance debate rages on, but that is a whole other topic)

* 160 Gig hard drive

* 8x DVD burner

*17 inch LCD 1440 x 900 pixels

*Radeon X600 Pro PCI Express Graphics card

* 3 USB 2.0 ports (plus 2 more USB 1.1 on the keyboard)

* 2 FireWire 400 ports

* VGA, S-Video and Composite video outputs

* Optical audio out, plus built-in microphone, stereo speakers, and audio line level input and headphone output

* Built-in (quality!) webcam

* Gigabit Ethernet connectivity

* 802.11g wireless AND Bluetooth built in

* Software:  iLife suite (which includes word processing, video editing, photo management and of course the ubiquitous iTunes), plus a slew of useful stuff including video chat, calendar, address book, internet browser and much more.

Total price for ALL of the above:  $1299  and the only upgrade the vast majority of users would even need to consider is RAM capacity.

How much would it cost you to buy an equivalent quality Windows system after you take into account all of the peripherals and add-ons you would need?  Just curious.

I will concede your point about gaming, though system price and performance is not the reason - it is because game developers have (for the most part) been reluctant to spend what it takes to port their titles to Mac (even though the Unix API's are much more conducive to coding intensive graphics routines).  I think you will see a major turnaround in this area very soon, and as an Apple watcher I might even venture to predict some important annoucements in the very near future.

As for the "wat not" applications - there really isn't anything a Windows machine can do that a Mac can't, and there is plenty of cross-platform compatibility for sharing documents, video, photos, etc.  Unless the video was tied to Microsoft's ill-advised DRM, in which case those porn files your friends paid for and downloaded probably won't play on the Mac.

[resopalrabotnick]

i think the only reason you feel like the only mac user here is that with the number of people posting here, you yourself are representative of the market share apple has. with you being active statistically speaking there should be no other mac user here. 

as for macs being good comps, no doubt. good kit, decent os, just the proble, of all other non ms os's, lackadaisical support by the broad mass due to the fact that it's just no a big market.

[dlewis23]

my main computer boots in about 12 sec. and i have 24 things starting up. my computer at my office startes up in about 8sec and i have 12 things starting up.

[TheHalf]

I actually timed boot-up today, from a cold boot-up...63 seconds until my desktop on WinXPPro. I also have WinXP MCE and SuSE Linux.

TheHalf

[kevmac10]

with you being active statistically speaking there should be no other mac user here. 

as for macs being good comps, no doubt. good kit, decent os, just the proble, of all other non ms os's, lackadaisical support by the broad mass due to the fact that it's just no a big market.

True enough, Macs account for somewhere between 4-6 percent of the total US sales of PC's, but the share is on the rise - we will have to wait for IDC to report on the last half of 2005, when Mac sales spiked considerably.  But I'm not sure what market share has to do with support?  If you mean manufacturer support, then you must be aware that Dell, the number 1 online retailer of personal computers, gets a dismal support rating - while Apple, the number 2 online retailer, gets stellar ratings.  If you mean user support, like this forum, there are quite a few Mac tech sites and user groups where the discussion gets every bit as deep and technical as the Windows groups do.  If you mean 3rd party hardware support, the reason there isn't a Fry's warehouse full of Mac peripherals is that, for most users, the machine comes already equipped with everything you need.  If you mean software support, how many Solitaire titles does one really need to choose from?  Microsoft Office, QuickBooks, DreamWeaver and Photoshop - those are the 3rd party apps I use 95% of the time, and they all provide great Mac support.  Hardcore gamers are the only group with a legitimate reason to stick with the Windows platform, and as I said before, that is about to change.

I don't want to start a battle here.  I just get annoyed when long-time Windows users buy into the common myths and misconceptions about Macs when most of them haven't even touched one since they used an Apple 2 in grammar school, let alone really evaluated them as a viable alternative - all the while passively accepting the endless flow of security patches, OS re-installs and complicated bios adjustments as the way things are.  The Mac is a better machine with an even better OS, and it isn't going away.

[resopalrabotnick]

by support i mean having products targeted at the mac market in the first place. most of the consumer stuff, which is what leads to cheap prices for a lot of widgets and gadgets, is targeted at the pc user. what the mac user gets is all that is compatible because they happen to use the same standard, but not much really in the way of aftermarket keyboards etc. i was tempted to nab myself an iMac keyboard because i liked the usb port on it. makes mouse cable management so much nicer.

[Swimmer]

I just got my 1.8 centrino w/ 512mb, 60 gig 7200rpm hd to boot under 30.  Not to bad.. I have yet touch the process start tree.. 

As far as mac users on the forum.. there have been a few over the time that I have been here.. Most of them with powerbooks.  I have yet to meet anyone with a G4 of G5. 

I have used windows for just about all of my life and was forced to use OS X for the first time last semester.  Part of a "see what else there is in the world of computers" course.  I must admit that OS X does have some nice features.  But I couldnt make the switch.  To many nit picky things that I think windows does better. But they are beautiful machines!

[netmasta]

Mine takes less than a minute to come on from hybernation mode. From a complete start, it probably takes 60-90 secs, althougt I'm not sure, since I haven't timed it.

[jared]

Mine takes aboot a min.