What criteria determine whether W8.1 fast starts.

I've installed W8.1 on a Dell Vostro 3750 laptop and am seeing start times in the sub 15 second region. That is the total time from hitting the power button to being online here. Wonderful.

The older Acer laptop (8 yr old 9301) that I trialled W8.1 on doesn't achieve this. In fact its start up times are similar to Vista and W7 at around 80 seconds. Why might that be ?

One bit of relevant info that might give a clue. I created a task for Defender to update at start up (with a 5 minute delay) and on the Acer it works perfectly. The Dell does not, and I suspect the reason is that the Quick Start is not classed as a full startup. Do a restart on the Dell and it works (I've modified the task on the Dell so that is sorted). But what all that seems to show is that the Acer isn't in a Quick Start mode for some reason although the Quickstart option is enabled. Both Acer and Dell followed the same install procedure, a clean install onto unallocated space. The Acer was a bit challenging to find Wi-Fi drivers that worked (an older Vista one had to be used).

Could it be a driver or non compatible BIOS causing the non operative Quick Start and as such is something that I will never get to work, or is there anything else I should check ?

Windows 8's fast boot is a hybrid sleep mode, so it could be a sleep or hibernate issue.

you could check this tutorial on how to turn on fast boot,for what it worth my computer desnt have the option to turn on fast boot ,its just over 6 mnts old for me ,but I think the technology of the motherboard is about 2 yrs old or less .

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6320-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

Thanks for the link. The more I look into this and the more I suspect a driver type issue. Perhaps expecting an 8yr old laptop to handle this is to high an expectation. I've a vague recollection that a non updated install (non updated in any form and so essentially unusable) did show much faster boot times. If I'm at a loose end I might try installing the 32 bit retail copy under a generic code and see what happens.

caperjack said:

you could check this tutorial on how to turn on fast boot,for what it worth my computer desnt have the option to turn on fast boot ,its just over 6 mnts old for me ,but I think the technology of the motherboard is about 2 yrs old or less .

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6320-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

Click to expand...

I don't use sleep or hibernation on my PC's. One tweak I do is to disable hibernation from the command prompt. This gets rid of the hyberfile.sys file and frees up space on my SSD. What I've also noticed when doing this is that the Fast Startup option disappears from the Power options menus. The S1 S3 sleep state as set in the BIOS may affect this as well.

alphanumeric said:

caperjack said:

you could check this tutorial on how to turn on fast boot,for what it worth my computer desnt have the option to turn on fast boot ,its just over 6 mnts old for me ,but I think the technology of the motherboard is about 2 yrs old or less .

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6320-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

Click to expand...

I don't use sleep or hibernation on my PC's. One tweak I do is to disable hibernation from the command prompt. This gets rid of the hyberfile.sys file and frees up space on my SSD. What I've also noticed when doing this is that the Fast Startup option disappears from the Power options menus. The S1 S3 sleep state as set in the BIOS may affect this as well.

Click to expand...

ok, thanks ,not sure if I disables hibernation yet or not will check it out

caperjack said:

alphanumeric said:

caperjack said:

you could check this tutorial on how to turn on fast boot,for what it worth my computer desnt have the option to turn on fast boot ,its just over 6 mnts old for me ,but I think the technology of the motherboard is about 2 yrs old or less .

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6320-fast-startup-turn-off-windows-8-a.html

Click to expand...

I don't use sleep or hibernation on my PC's. One tweak I do is to disable hibernation from the command prompt. This gets rid of the hyberfile.sys file and frees up space on my SSD. What I've also noticed when doing this is that the Fast Startup option disappears from the Power options menus. The S1 S3 sleep state as set in the BIOS may affect this as well.

Click to expand...

ok, thanks ,not sure if I disables hibernation yet or not will check it out

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't know if its relevant to your situation or not. It's just something I noticed and decided to pass on.