Startup

[madcratebuilder]

I run HWInfo64 on all my boxes set to start sensors with windows and display temps in sys tray. When W7 starts I get the popup to start HWInfo64, can this be automatic?

Second is the load time, my shinny new GB990fxa/AMD8350/16gb ram blah blah takes 30-35 seconds to load while my old crusty DFI Lanparty/AMD64X2/4GB starts in 3-4 seconds, both display the same info. I just find it odd the older, less capable system loads faster. Is it because of 2 core vs 8 core?

Third a THANKS for this great piece of work. I've tried about every program available that reports temps and/or fan speeds. I find HWInfo64/32 to be the most consistent across the board on my five machines. Now if you would just port it for Raspberry Pi's

 

[Martin]

Which exact popup do you mean - the UAC prompt by Windows for permission, or the welcome screen in HWiNFO ? Solutions for both of them have been already discussed here.

As for the long startup time, this depends on type of hardware used. Some might require more time to scan/access. When HWiNFO displays the "Detecting..." dialog, what exactly does it scan when it takes most time ? In certain cases, there might be a solution to improve startup time considerably.

 

[trodas]

I would like to almost hijack this thread and propose a small feature there. A profiler function, that will save some profile for HWiNFO, forcing it on the next start (till the file get deleted) to check only for the used sensors. That would IMHO greatly improve the starting speed - just check for what the used have set in the sensors info window and that it is.
Not scan for anything else.

That way = no more relatively slow starting. 30, 35 sec is trully overkill. If the mainboard have that much sensort and ways to check, then the HWiNFO should - on demand, of course - limit their curiosity and not scan too much, because the user is getting pretty much bored and impatient. I could not imagine using program that start like 30 sec, lol.
And I have a EXTRASLOW computer, compared to him.

And since this is NOT the fault of the program, it is just "way too much curious and checking" to start fast, then I propose this little feature. If it can be implemented w/o breaking something, of course. Partly like the "no-no-not-touch-this" fix for the Sapphire A9RX480 mobo, just user configurable.

Do user only care about CPU temp + CPU fan speed? Then so be it. Not scan for anything else that the user did not really care about. Maybe this is not that bad idea, after all (my GF claims that I got only bad ideas, so I only humbly suggesting an idea, that I think should work).


Only possible downside is, that if the user forget that, then he might come complain that HWiNFO is NOT detecting his new HW, that he just pluged it. That is the only one real danger that I see there. Maybe that can be somewhat compensated by making this option RED AND BOLD in the prefs stating clearly and NO NEW HARDWARE will be scanned if this option is ON.
Or perhaps even upon updating and starting the updated HWiNFO for the first time - ignore the settings and scan and show in the sensors all and allow import of the old settings that hide most of the values (or for sure hide all the new ones)?

 

[Martin]

Yes, it's a good idea (don't trust your GF everytime ) and I already have been thinking about this in the past. The only problem is as you describe - I'm sure there would be a lot of users which would forget this way of operation..
Anyway, on most systems the startup is much faster (usually just a few seconds). If it takes too long, it might be improved using various settings, but this depends on the exact part where the scan takes too long. For example, if it takes too much time during the sensor scan of GPU, disabling GPU I2C buses (or entire GPU I2C scan in case there are no GPU I2C sensors present) might improve the startup time considerably. However, it your case the 6800GT GPU has such sensors, so you might just try to disable all GPU I2C buses except 2 (which contains those sensors on your GPU).

 

[trodas]

/OT my GF is getting similary or even worser "bad ideas" (tm), so I did not complain as long, as she and her ideas stays off the computers, lol OT/

And glad to hear that I'm not alone in this idea. It is really slow, when the sensors windows is closed and just to see it again the program scan again for everything. This should not be happening either.

As about the users, that will come and complain that "their new shiny videocard is not detected by HWiNFO, what is going on?!" I already proposed number of solutions to combat this problem. First a first line in FAQ about it. Then a bold red option in preferences about it in most visible place. And just to be damn sure, then a first start after update/new run = scan and show everything and only by user activity it can be the profile of what to show&scan loaded again.

That way you make sure, that if problem happen and user update their HWiNFO, then it stear is efortlessly towards this solution. Because if something is not working, then the first is to update, second is confront the FAQ and third is to come and blame HWiNFO on the forum

Where can I see, that the 6800GT is on the GPU I2C bus, so I can disable all others?

 

[Martin]

HWiNFO doesn't display to users on which GPU I2C bus a sensor is. I grabbed this based on the Debug File.

 

[Cmp_Cmndo]

I, too, have noticed that "Analyzing Devices" has gotten a lot slower, especially when "Auto Start" is enabled. After Windows has completed loading, if quit & run again, it's a lot faster, but still takes some time to "Analyzing Devices". Hardware has not changed in several years.

 

[Martin]

Can you try to load HWiNFO with a delay if that makes any difference during "Analyzing Devices" ?

 

[trodas]

IMHO HWiNFO is maybe trying to read more infos?
But if older HWiNFO is faster and fully supporting the hardware, then why use new one? I never update things that does work. Revert back to the older one or push for some form of profile, that let HWiNFO force to read only what user want

(I should mention that I run on Windows 2000 SP4 there... lol)

 

[madcratebuilder]

I understand the longer start up time on my new machine. It has a lot more to scan, five drives, a dozen usb 2&3 ports, 2 graphic cards. I'll dig deeper in to the setup when I have time.

 

[doveman]

I'm also having a problem with HwInfo appearing on the desktop almost straight after booting but then just sitting on "Analysing devices" or whatever the first step is for ages, seemingly until everything else has finished loading and then it continues.

Actually, on my last boot it moved to the second stage and then the PC froze and I had to hard reset, which is weird as it's been working fine for several weeks. I'm in safe mode at the moment, just checking I haven't picked up any malware but it seems unlikely as it was fine when it was last on a couple of days ago.

You mention adding a delay but how would I do that? I don't see HwInfo in Services or MSconfig - Startup, so I'm not sure how it autostarts but I've edited the ini and set Autorun=0, so I can try rebooting in normal mode and see if it still freezes.

---

OK, I managed to boot without Windows freezing but HwInfo still got stuck and I killed it in the end as it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

It seems the first stage is actually "Initialising Kernel driver" and that doesn't stick too long but it's "Analysing Devices" where it gets stuck. I don't know if it's somehow clashing with Avast antivirus, which loads as early as possible to protect the system but that isn't preventing other programs loading. I've also recently scheduled EaseUS Todo backup and that ran at boot as it had missed yesterday's run, so maybe HwInfo didn't like that as normally it gets stuck until everything else has loaded but this time it wasn't even proceeded after that, so maybe the backup was blocking it somehow.

EDIT: I checked after I killed it and restarted it (it loads nice and quick when launched manually after booting has finished) and Autorun is unticked and I can't find a Run entry for it in the registry, so how is it autoloading?

EDIT2: Also, is there any way to disable GPU scanning. As I only have onboard IGP on this machine, I don't really need to monitor it and I note that scanning for Nvidia/ATI cards at the end adds a fair bit of time to the scan (relatively, it's pretty quick when launched manually but still, any excess time would be nice to shave off). I've already disabled GPU I2C Support. I also seem to be able to disable EC Support, Evaluate ACPI methods and Audio Codec check without affecting the results. Is there any chance disabling these could cause problems?

EDIT3: OK, I think I should make a new bug thread for this as HwInfo crashed on the last boot.

 

[Martin]

First, please note that when Debug Mode is enabled, starting of HWiNFO can take much longer.
As for the autostart feature, on Windows Vista/7/8 this is done using Windows Task Scheduler. So you might check there for the HWiNFO entry and I think you should be able to specify a delay there.

 

[doveman]

Sure but I only enabled Debug Mode to create the log for you, it was taking ages anyway.

I did find and disable the startup in Task Scheduler but it still seems strange that the Auto Start setting doesn't disable this task, or that it wasn't removed by uninstalling (unless it was re-created when installing again).

EDIT: Sorry, I see you've replied in my Bug report thread so shall we continue over there, to avoid confusion?

 

[Cmp_Cmndo]

Can you try to load HWiNFO with a delay if that makes any difference during "Analyzing Devices" ?

r2 Studios Startup Delayer with HWInfo the only item delayed makes a difference.
Automatic delay is set to default, i.e. 30% of CPU & HDD must be idle.

 

[doveman]

Can you try to load HWiNFO with a delay if that makes any difference during "Analyzing Devices" ?

r2 Studios Startup Delayer with HWInfo the only item delayed makes a difference.
Automatic delay is set to default, i.e. 30% of CPU & HDD must be idle.

Thanks for the tip about that program. I wasn't aware there were such programs to enable us to do this, so that'll come in handy for stuff besides HwInfo no doubt.

Of course, it might be better if HwInfo could be started via a Service somehow, as then users could probably just set the Service to "Automatic (Delayed)" (in fact, maybe HwInfo could do this automatically when enabling the "Startup with Windows" setting and set the Service to Disabled when disabling that option) and solve the problem without having to install another program.

 

[Martin]

If there's some delay required for automatic startup, I believe this is individual for every user depending on the amount of programs/services loading during startup. So I don't think there's an universal delay for all users, if I'd set it too large, others might claim it takes too long to autostart. So I think the best way is that if such a problem exists, particular user adjusts the delay in Task Scheduler.

 

[Cmp_Cmndo]

Didn't know Windows had a Task Scheduler. WinXP version is completely different from Win7 version. Both seem a bit difficult to configure. Doesn't seem to be an easy way to delay HWInfo as last loaded.

My Win7 coreI3 laptop is fast enough so as to not need a delay (some of the time). At times, it's just as slow to load as the Pentium-D desktop.

Looking through the Task Scheduler on Win7, there's all kinds of junk in there which are probably not needed, i.e.
Apple Update (1 item)
HP Support Assistant (4 items)
Microsoft (47 Windows folders, 1 IE folder, 1 Antimalware folder, 1 WPD folder)
etc, etc.

Win7 Task Scheduler can be found under Control Panel--Administrative Tools

I can see why some days it's so slow & others it's fast. Depends on what is scheduled to run on that particular day.
Can't say what the "Conditions" are for them without looking at each one. I knew there was a lot of stuff going on, but this is ridiculous.

HOLD ON:
I just found an HWInfo Task under Task Scheduler Library.
General - It was configured for Win Vista, changed to Win7, don't know if that matters?
Triggers - Delay task for 30sec is low as it will go, currently not enabled
Conditions - Delay task for 1 min is low as it will go, currently not enabled

Doesn't seem to be a way to: "Automatic delay is set to default, i.e. 30% of CPU & HDD must be idle" as in this: http://www.r2.com.au/page/products/show/startup-delayer/

 

[doveman]

If there's some delay required for automatic startup, I believe this is individual for every user depending on the amount of programs/services loading during startup. So I don't think there's an universal delay for all users, if I'd set it too large, others might claim it takes too long to autostart. So I think the best way is that if such a problem exists, particular user adjusts the delay in Task Scheduler.

Yeah, you might be right. The Automatic (Delayed) setting for services probably uses a pre-set amount (maybe 30s) which would probably be enough for all users though.