Use Multiple CPUs At Boot Up (Faster Boot up)

If you have a multiple core CPU (E.g. Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad CPU), this tutorial will show you how to change the number of processors being used during boot up.



If you do not have many startup items, you won't notice much difference.

Warning:



Here is an example of my boot up time before (1 core) and after (4 cores)

Before (1 core):



After (4 cores):




Ok, so here's how you do it:

Open the Start Menu >> In the search box type msconfig >> Enter >> Click the Boot tab >> Advanced options.



To Change the Number of Processors used at Boot, check the Number of processors box, then click on the drop down arrow and select the number of available processors you want to have used at boot up.
note: To test to see if this can speed up your boot time or not, then select the highest number listed for all of the available processors to be used at boot up and check the Detect Hal box.

Click OK


For me I will select 4 cores on my Intel Core 2 Extreme X9650


Check the Make all boot settings permanent box in the bottom left >> OK.




A window will pop-up, click the Ok button. You can change setting after that if you want to >> Check Don't show this message again >> Click Restart


If you want to test your boot up time, you can read this tutorial: Test Your Computer's Reboot Time


There you have it, super fast start up. Enjoy!

---

To Restore the Default Number of Processors at Boot >> Uncheck the Number of processors box >> Click OK

Last edited by Doctor Inferno on 26th November 2008, 12:30 pm; edited 2 times in total

Great man! I changed the settings on my office com and the boot time almost decrease by double!! From 131 to 82 seconds Thanks

Cool man! Gonna try it

Trying it out now.

Works well, improved quite noticeably. Got 67 seconds.

Hey it worked! I don't know the previous timing but i got 81 seconds after that, before that it seem to take ages to load

Will have to test this when i get home tonight, i have a pretty fast startup so i'll see the result before i comment.

Well ive done this a day later, it came back to say i booted up in 98seconds, but upon counting myself i got 34seconds to the welcome screen so something seems a miss somewhere....

emu1616 wrote:

Well ive done this a day later, it came back to say i booted up in 98seconds, but upon counting myself i got 34seconds to the welcome screen so something seems a miss somewhere....

Yeah, my personal opinion is that this tweak is a bit of a false pretence, due to vista's set up of the boot.ini file!

Be wary if you're using Bitlocker, you'll want to make sure that you've got access to the BDE FEK file or the recovery password.
When you reboot after applying this tweak, it will trigger the BDE boot protection.

Other users have experienced various problems after applying this tweak including the need to reactivate the OS.

In my opinion, boot time is largely dependant on hard drive speed although your desktop and start-up apps may appear to load faster.

Remember, this is just my personal opinion on this tweak and is by no way gospel!

Worth a try though to see if it works for you.....nice find doc!


Regards

I believe it may have improved slightly but like you say there are other factors there aswell that will affect the boot-up time.

I think it may just be a dodgy counter somewhere with the times tho

cool man! thx

Hey it worked!

Thanks man !!!
You r awesome.

gonna try this

wow my boot up is faster now

Doctor Inferno wrote:

If you want to test your boot up time, you can read this tutorial: Test Your Computer's Reboot Time

Sorry, only administrators are allowed to view this topic.

Fixed.

So my reboot time was 264 seconds. My computer is the worst. When I go to the start menu to change to multiple cores I don't have a search box. When I go to search and look for msconfig I get 3 different ones. When I clicked on one I got something with a boot.ini which I clicked on and I could change one thing to 504 and another to 2. I almost did it but I was afraid I would screw something up, so I decided to ask what to do instead. What do you suggest? Thank you.

So, since I haven't heard anything from you all for two weeks should I just assume you can't be bothered. You've been so great in the past. I am a little disappointed. Is there anyone in Chicago who you recommend to come to my house and fix my problematic slow computer? Thank you.