<strong>One thing to consider is that the more RAM you have, the longer the RAM check at boot is going to take. I bumped my Pismo up from 256MB to 384MB, and there was a definite pause that wasn't there before, under 10.1.5. I can't imagine how long it must take with RAM banks approaching a gig... yeesh. (Okay, so I can... 1:26 at 704MB... )</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well... I have not really taken the time to "clock" how long my G4 takes to boot... it's faster since Jag but not within 45 seconds... I have 1.5 GB RAM, but I also have 9 (nine) disk volumes for it to check (7 Phisical drives). 5 Firewire Drives (7 partitions), All but one are 5400 rpm drives and the last one is a 7200RPM drive... roughly 400GB of drive-space...
Not sure how much of my boot-time is spent on that memory and drive-checking... but I'm sure it adds quite a few seconds.
Bootup in Jag (from the startup chime to completely ready to use):
32 sec with Radeon 8500 installed
18 sec with GeForce 4 Ti installed <----------
Booting Classic under Jag: 8 sec **
** I heavily optimized Classic that's why it loads fast. If anyone wants to know how I optimize the classic extensions / control panel let me know I will tell you how.
<strong>what is fsck'ing?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hold down 'Option-Shift-S' at startup, and you'll boot up into a text screen. It's called 'single-user mode' and you're essentially booting to a BSD command line client.
From there, you can type in 'fsck' or 'fsck -y' (for a complete check) and the program will run a check on your drive and repair any inconsistencies in the file structure. When it's done, just type 'reboot' and your system will restart like normal.
Essentially, when you see the grey Apple screen sitting there for a long time, it's probably running a fsck check on your drive due to an improper shutdown or just gradual file corruption.
Hmm.. My new Powermac G4 Dual 1GHz MDD's start-up times kinda suck...
23 seconds from pushing the button to seeing the grey Apple screen
+ 20 seconds from grey Apple screen to start-up screen
+ 4-8 seconds from start-up screen to fully being able to use computer
----------
Total: 47-51 seconds to start-up on a brand-new Dual 1GHz MDD with 256MB of RAM and a Radeon 9000 Pro.
I timed this once a few days ago (which actually took about 59 seconds to start-up when I timed it then), and three times consecutively (with pauses before each shutown/start-up) and got these results. An eMac boots faster than me .
I've installed only one application so far: RTCW, which, actually, runs very poorly. My AMD Duron 750 system with a 16MB GeForce 2 MX 200 card runs 2-3X faster (ie. I'm getting only 8fps at minimal quality settings on Beach--I'm awaiting a response from Aspyr about that). Hopefully I won't have to send this in to be checked-out or anything.. Otherwise, everything seems fast and I'm, for the most part, happy.
I'll try using fsck as stated in above posts and see if I get any errors and report back.
EDIT: fsck says my HD is fine so that rules-out one possiility. BTW, its Command-S at start-up to get into single user mode. I had to look that up in Apple's knowledgebase after Option-S wasn't working and Option-Shift-S booted me in "Safe Boot" mode.
[ 09-08-2002: Message edited by: The Inevitable ]</p>
<strong>Actaully, kesh, it's just option-s, no shift.
The -y option is no more complete than the regular command; that just makes it automatically say yes to any prompts that would occur in the process.
And you don't have to reboot afterwards. Simply use the command 'exit' to continue booting where it left off.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thanks for clarifying those points, Brad. That's what I get for posting late at night.
Personally, I prefer rebooting. I know, I know, everything should be fine and an exit should be sufficient... but I prefer to be safe in this instance.
I timed mine last night: G4 Cube 450MHz, 7200 rpm 40GB drive, 1.5GB physical RAM , 100 seconds from power-on to the login screen, and about another 6 seconds from hitting Log In to being able to work.
Doesn't matter too much to me, since I so rarely boot the machine. Wake from Sleep is nigh-on instantaneous.
I don't shut my Mac off any more... it just sleeps. So that's like 4 seconds to fully wake up and spin up the hard drive, and another 3 seconds to log in and run my login apps.
Comments
<strong>One thing to consider is that the more RAM you have, the longer the RAM check at boot is going to take. I bumped my Pismo up from 256MB to 384MB, and there was a definite pause that wasn't there before, under 10.1.5. I can't imagine how long it must take with RAM banks approaching a gig... yeesh. (Okay, so I can... 1:26 at 704MB... )</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well... I have not really taken the time to "clock" how long my G4 takes to boot... it's faster since Jag but not within 45 seconds... I have 1.5 GB RAM, but I also have 9 (nine) disk volumes for it to check (7 Phisical drives). 5 Firewire Drives (7 partitions), All but one are 5400 rpm drives and the last one is a 7200RPM drive... roughly 400GB of drive-space...
Not sure how much of my boot-time is spent on that memory and drive-checking... but I'm sure it adds quite a few seconds.
<strong>what is fsck'ing?</strong><hr></blockquote>
"filesystem consistency check and interactive repair"
fsck is a unix disk repair utility.
[ 09-08-2002: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
Bootup in Jag (from the startup chime to completely ready to use):
32 sec with Radeon 8500 installed
18 sec with GeForce 4 Ti installed <----------
Booting Classic under Jag: 8 sec **
** I heavily optimized Classic that's why it loads fast. If anyone wants to know how I optimize the classic extensions / control panel let me know I will tell you how.
[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: Leonis ]</p>
<strong>what is fsck'ing?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hold down 'Option-Shift-S' at startup, and you'll boot up into a text screen. It's called 'single-user mode' and you're essentially booting to a BSD command line client.
From there, you can type in 'fsck' or 'fsck -y' (for a complete check) and the program will run a check on your drive and repair any inconsistencies in the file structure. When it's done, just type 'reboot' and your system will restart like normal.
Essentially, when you see the grey Apple screen sitting there for a long time, it's probably running a fsck check on your drive due to an improper shutdown or just gradual file corruption.
The -y option is no more complete than the regular command; that just makes it automatically say yes to any prompts that would occur in the process.
And you don't have to reboot afterwards. Simply use the command 'exit' to continue booting where it left off.
23 seconds from pushing the button to seeing the grey Apple screen
+ 20 seconds from grey Apple screen to start-up screen
+ 4-8 seconds from start-up screen to fully being able to use computer
----------
Total: 47-51 seconds to start-up on a brand-new Dual 1GHz MDD with 256MB of RAM and a Radeon 9000 Pro.
I timed this once a few days ago (which actually took about 59 seconds to start-up when I timed it then), and three times consecutively (with pauses before each shutown/start-up) and got these results. An eMac boots faster than me .
I've installed only one application so far: RTCW, which, actually, runs very poorly. My AMD Duron 750 system with a 16MB GeForce 2 MX 200 card runs 2-3X faster (ie. I'm getting only 8fps at minimal quality settings on Beach--I'm awaiting a response from Aspyr about that). Hopefully I won't have to send this in to be checked-out or anything.. Otherwise, everything seems fast and I'm, for the most part, happy.
I'll try using fsck as stated in above posts and see if I get any errors and report back.
EDIT: fsck says my HD is fine so that rules-out one possiility. BTW, its Command-S at start-up to get into single user mode. I had to look that up in Apple's knowledgebase after Option-S wasn't working and Option-Shift-S booted me in "Safe Boot" mode.
[ 09-08-2002: Message edited by: The Inevitable ]</p>
<strong>Actaully, kesh, it's just option-s, no shift.
The -y option is no more complete than the regular command; that just makes it automatically say yes to any prompts that would occur in the process.
And you don't have to reboot afterwards. Simply use the command 'exit' to continue booting where it left off.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thanks for clarifying those points, Brad. That's what I get for posting late at night.
Personally, I prefer rebooting. I know, I know, everything should be fine and an exit should be sufficient... but I prefer to be safe in this instance.
After installed the GeForce 4 Ti card the startup grey screen doesn't hang up as long as when the machine was with the Radeon 8500.
Now the total bootup time from startup tone to finder only takes 18 sec!
[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: Leonis ]</p>
I timed mine last night: G4 Cube 450MHz, 7200 rpm 40GB drive, 1.5GB physical RAM , 100 seconds from power-on to the login screen, and about another 6 seconds from hitting Log In to being able to work.
Doesn't matter too much to me, since I so rarely boot the machine. Wake from Sleep is nigh-on instantaneous.