What's a reasonable Login Time?

[Mr.Ben]

Just wondering what you guys would call a reasonable login time from a cold start.

 

Currently the School laptops (connecting through an AP) take about 30 seconds to be able to login, and about 2-3mins to actually login and the desktop appear.

 

In all honesty though some of the machines (the 1.4Ghz celerons etc) are not ready to use until a couple of minutes after that as different settings apply.

 

I've been trying out different methods (processing all before the login box is available), but this takes a good 8+mins

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

[bizzel]

We average about 2-3 minutes here, which I think is quite reasonable. Of course if there's software installs pending that's a different story altogether!

[witch]

Ours take about 4 minutes which is fine

[Quackers]

Our PC's are 30-40 seconds boot from cold. Then 5-10 seconds to login from login screen to desktop loaded.

 

Laptop trolleys are just over a minute to login screen (wireless slows down the preparing network connections), then 15-25 seconds to desktop from login screen if its a full class, same as PC's if its just a few using that AP.

[mikeymike]

4 mins that would cause a riot in our place with the type of boys we have. our good pc's take about 1-2 mins and our older ones just a little longer. alot depends on how much rubbish is in each user account as well.

[webman]

About 35 seconds from login to desktop for a new roaming profiles on a particular machine.

[button_ripple]

We aim for a maximum of 1 minute to log in from cold on a wired computer. We have had up to 20 minutes for an entire class to be ready via a wireless coonection. Staff know they are slow and don't take them anymore!!

[jcollings]

I'd love to hear how those people with very short login times achieve it. Our PC's seem to go quite slowly when applying settings etc. and I've tried various ways to speed them up - any suggestions gratefully recieved!

[webman]

Our machines are Intel P4 or C2D, 1GB RAM minimum and we use RM CC3. Network infrastructure is based on Cisco, 1Gbps fibre and Cat6.

[FN-GM]

Just takes a few seconds for us. What type of profiles do you use?

 

thanks

 

Z

[Pottsey]

From the logon screen 30 to 40 seconds if the user hasn’t been on that PC before. If they have been on before 10 to 15 seconds for the desktop to load and be responsive.

 

Some of the older ones take up to 60 seconds for the first time login.

[jsnetman]

I think the places with fast logon times are using local profiles. Here our logon times are about 2-3 mins and we are using a mandatory profile 2mb in size with loads of logon scripts. 2-3 mins nobody should complain about but over 5 people might start asking questions.

[Pottsey]

jcollings said “I'd love to hear how those people with very short login times achieve it. Our PC's seem to go quite slowly when applying settings etc. and I've tried various ways to speed them up - any suggestions gratefully recieved!”

I wouldn’t do this in a large school but my trick to keep as much as possible local. Never install and run programs on the network when you can install the program locally and put the save folder and/or userprofile folder on the network. Don’t use a BMP as the background use a small HTML file, or I guess a small JPG will work. Icons and scripts are when possible stored locally in the all users start-up and desktop folders. I just use \\pc10\c$\ or whatever the PC name is to update scripts form the server. Haveing the profile cached on the local workstation, then set large folders like my Docs with folder redirection and you should be able to get login time down to under 60sceonds.

The less going across the network the better.

Edited September 24, 2008 by Pottsey

[Geoff]

About 2 seconds....on our thin clients...

 

Fat PC's are around the 2-5minute range depending on their antiquity.

[tech_guy]

About 3 mins on average with the older kit, less than a minute with newer kit / newly imaged kit. We can always tell the kids with the large profiles....serves 'em right!

[bizzel]

About 2 seconds....on our thin clients...

 

Fat PC's are around the 2-5minute range depending on their antiquity.

 

We have a winner!

[gshaw]

Timed on our teaching network as 1min45 from cold to desktop (autologon with mandatory profiles). Would be quicker if it's wasn't for the stupid "Applying Computer Settings" box plus HDD rattle that goes on for about 20 seconds before the user logon occurs

[User3204]

We make them boot in 2minutes, and then logon takes no more than 2 minutes, to a usable desktop.

 

Install software locally, local user profiles, defrag, chkdsk,

 

But I found the best thing, is to make sure the machine "appears" to be doing something, as looking at the windows "blue screen" (IE desktop), makes people think it's crashed. We use Sanako Lab / Study, and by default it changes the default MSGINA to its own one, that doesn't show all the "applying user settings", so I change it back, anything that pops up windows (EG mcafee "proven security" splash) distracts people away from realising they're not able to DO anything yet.

 

I have noticed that on some mis-configured machines (imaged by another person), it goes through a configuring outlook, ie7, which seems to slow stuff down too.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks to a post on this forum i have used a peice of software to diagnose some problems with our policies. Our logon times are now down to less than 2 seconds, and then depending on machine anywhere from another 3-4secs to 30secs for all the processes to fully load.

 

THis is the software. SysPro Software -> Policy Reporter

Install and log on and then off again with the effected User account. Log on as an admin, open the program and goto the User tab, then look at the time elapsed. Look for any periods where it is loading one policy for a long period and go from there.

 

Our problem was with folder redirection. Even though it pointed to a valid destination (both mapped drive and UNC path) it was hanging, not sure why.

Another common problem it would seem is IE7 loading something, cant remember what as it wasnt our problem but it seemed to come up alot when i was Googleing.

 

A few other things ive learned when fixing our professionally installed network are all your GPOs are files and as such are subject to the same bottleneck problems in your I/O chain, specifically your hard drives. GPOs contain LOTS of small files, and LOTs of small files = slow HD reads. Also your NTUSER.file is relatively big when you are talking about several hundred users all wanting to access the file at once. Placeing these files on a server with quick HD reads is very important (not so much the GPOs as we manage to get away with standard desktop HDs, but we do have 2 DCs doing nothing else but AD, DNS, DHCP).

Also worth looking through your scripts. Are there any files coming from inappropriate servers? What about needless copying? THeres no need to copy a file each time a user logs on, why not use Robocopy so that the file is checked first and only copied if the source has changed or the destination doesnt exist.

 

(Sorry if the above is pretty obvious, but it apparently wasnt obvious to everyone who set up and maintained my network before me as everything which wasnt a users file or an application was placed on a DC with a 5400rpm old IDE HD in a DC with a wopping 1.4 celeron in it )

Edited September 24, 2008 by Guest

[FN-GM]

We make them boot in 2minutes, and then logon takes no more than 2 minutes, to a usable desktop.

 

Install software locally, local user profiles, defrag, chkdsk,

 

But I found the best thing, is to make sure the machine "appears" to be doing something, as looking at the windows "blue screen" (IE desktop), makes people think it's crashed. We use Sanako Lab / Study, and by default it changes the default MSGINA to its own one, that doesn't show all the "applying user settings", so I change it back, anything that pops up windows (EG mcafee "proven security" splash) distracts people away from realising they're not able to DO anything yet.

 

I have noticed that on some mis-configured machines (imaged by another person), it goes through a configuring outlook, ie7, which seems to slow stuff down too.

 

Sorting your default profile should clear that

 

z

[ssiruuk2]

Our thin clients take about 10 seconds to get a working desktop.

 

The xp machines around 30 to 40 seconds if its the first time that student has logged onto that machine otherwise its quicker. Most of our fat clients are old 2.2 celeron with 1gb ram.

 

Some staff have much longer login times but thats their choice if they want a few gbs of mp3s on their desktop

[ICT_GUY]

Our new dual core 2.4ghz pcs with 2 gigs of ram and gigabit nics with a gigabit connection direct to the server with very little traffic & 2 x dual core domain controllers and only one client seem to login pretty quick Edited September 25, 2008 by ICT_GUY

[googlemad]

Our machines from last year boot in 30 seconds from cold - Which I wasn't even able to beat with the new machines from this year with an extra GB of RAM (Processors are similar C2D E2180)

 

I suppose even if you get better and better hardware, XP will eventually come to a point where it can't take advantage of it all. My system at home boots Vista much quicker than XP.

 

Log on times vary throughout the day, one minute it is instant and the next it takes up to 3 minutes! But I'm not the network man here

[zag]

Since we went to mandatory profiles that are about 1mb big the times from login screen to usable is around 25 seconds.

 

Its made such a big difference compared to the old 10-15mb roaming profiles.