Intermittently slow boot time

We are testing a build on a Compulab PX255. With no obvious pattern we're
seeing boot-up time oscillate from 90s and > 5 minutes. To clarify: if a
build boots fast it will always boot fast. If it's a slow one it stays slow.

Since we're typically only changing some application files we've tried
comparing the boot-up time after a full Sysgen and after a simple Make Image.
To no avail; we can't see what's happening in the build to make it a hare or
a tortoise. And to reiterate: we're typically only replacing an executable
and some documents in our build. We're not adding drivers or changing memory
maps.

Hope this rings a bell with someone.

Regards,

Matt

Sue
Tue May 16 10:40:06 CDT 2006

Same info I just posted to a different NG thread:

Run celog during boot to measure what's going on.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wcedebug5/html/wce51tskEnablingCeLogEventTrackingInRun-TimeImage.asp

If CeLog shows that there's a thread running all the time, run the monte
carlo profiler to measure what it's doing.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wcedebug5/html/wce50conPlatformProfiling.asp

If CeLog shows that no threads are running, then you probably want to break
into the kernel debugger to figure out what the filesys.exe and device.exe
main threads are doing. What they're waiting for. My first guess would be
that some driver is waiting for a long timeout during its synchronous
initialization, so that it delays the whole system.

Sue
sloh@microsoft.com (remove "online" from reply-to address)
http://blogs.msdn.com/ce_base/
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Bruce
Tue May 16 21:55:15 CDT 2006

Are you saying that on the same machine, with the same project that one time
the build runs okay, and another time the build runs slow? Do you have any
debug output that would give a clue where the delay is happening, if not get
some. Just adding a debug built devmgr.exe and device.exe might tell you
alot about where it is spending time, you would see the drivers loading and
see it stop for a while.

--
Bruce Eitman (eMVP)
Senior Engineer
beitman AT applieddata DOT net

Applied Data Systems
www.applieddata.net
An ISO 9001:2000 Registered Company
Microsoft WEP Gold-level Member

"Matt_UK" <MattUK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:985DF851-F341-479B-8B36-D37F651AAC49@microsoft.com...
> We are testing a build on a Compulab PX255. With no obvious pattern we're
> seeing boot-up time oscillate from 90s and > 5 minutes. To clarify: if a
> build boots fast it will always boot fast. If it's a slow one it stays
> slow.
>
> Since we're typically only changing some application files we've tried
> comparing the boot-up time after a full Sysgen and after a simple Make
> Image.
> To no avail; we can't see what's happening in the build to make it a hare
> or
> a tortoise. And to reiterate: we're typically only replacing an executable
> and some documents in our build. We're not adding drivers or changing
> memory
> maps.
>
> Hope this rings a bell with someone.
>
> Regards,
>
> Matt
>