Most end users aren’t going to need to boot from CD or USB having bootable media connected can cause the system to attempt a boot from that device, slowing down the process. How often do you update the BIOS or drivers on computers once they’re out the door and in the hands of the customer?Īlso check the BIOS boot order on systems and ensure that systems are skipping things the user shouldn’t be booting from without IT assistance. Computers often go out to customers with the BIOS that the device shipped with and the drivers that were downloaded when the OS deployment was built. Watch for other hardware issuesīe on the lookout for BIOS and driver updates that may improve system performance. Windows 7 and later should automatically defragment, but some organizations occasionally remove or change the schedule leading to degraded system performance. Your customers are going to be shocked by the speed increase if you upgrade them to SSD drives-especially if you’re replacing 5400 RPM drives in laptops.Įven if replacing hard drives is out of the question, check that existing systems are defragmented properly. Just install the software, connect the drive with a USB dock, transfer the data, and swap the drives. As an example, Samsung’s Data Migration software does all the work for you without requiring that you re-provision the OS and reinstall software. And, most SSD manufacturers make the transfer process fairly painless. On an existing system, the cost is still very easy to justify with the increased productivity of the end user. However, the $35 per month savings in salary I just showed you, over the typical lifetime of a desktop/laptop computer, more than covers the cost of the upgrade on a new system. Yes, SSDs cost more, and they increase the cost of new computers. If you’re not buying SSD drives in all of your new computers, you need to talk to whoever is responsible for purchasing computers and change that now. Most vendors that I deal with are putting 4GB as a minimum on low-end systems and 8GB on mid-tier new systems. If those systems are going to be refreshed to a 64-bit/圆4 OS, or if you have other 64-bit systems, the limit is really up to what the system supports and how much you want to spend. If you’re still running 32-bit/x86 systems, there’s no reason they shouldn’t all be maxed out at 4GB (the maximum a 32-bit system supports). First, RAM is an easy upgrade for most laptop/desktop systems. Obviously, replacing existing machines with newer models is going to improve boot and login speeds, but you can perform certain upgrades to existing computers if complete replacement is out of the question. These reboots also don’t take into consideration things such as software deployments, updates, or user-initiated reboots that could run the number up higher. (6 minutes – 3 minutes) * ($35/60) * 20 = $35.00 (saved per month based on daily shutdown)Īs you can see, slow boots/logins are potentially costing your organization a lot in wasted productivity. If we’re able to take a slow boot of 6 minutes to 3 minutes for an employee that makes $35 an hour: (Slow Boot Time –Fast Boot Time) * (hourly rate/60) * Monthly Reboots = Money Saved per Month We’re not looking for the exact number for specific employees here-just a generalized number for a department or group of employees so we can show how much time is being wasted by slow system startup. Next, you’ll need to visit someone in the Human Resources (HR) department to find out hourly rates for employees. Once you’ve performed your optimization, you’ll want to come back and repeat the process to get the new boot/login times. ![]() Then, time how long it takes from Ctrl+Alt+Delete to when the Desktop is up and ready to use. Visit your end users in their offices, take a stopwatch, and time how long it takes their computer to boot from completely off to ready to log in. I recommend enlisting the support of some of your customers to do this step don’t do this with VMs or test systems that aren’t being used day to day. If your project requires funding, these numbers should help you.įirst, we need to establish the current boot and login times for some of our existing computers. Before you start a project to improve desktop/laptop computer boot times, I would recommend collecting a few pieces of information.
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