Maximum PC

Problem: The amount of time it takes to display the desktop after entering password at the login screen is unacceptable. It takes on average 30.1 seconds!?

How the system was installed:

• Selected AHCI for SATA mode; instead of using IDE.
• Installed Windows 7 x64

Things Tried to Fix The Problem:

• Patch Windows fully (done)
• Verify BIOS on motherboard is up to date (it is)
• Download/install Intel chipset drivers from ASUS site (done)
• Download/install latest SATA drivers from ASUS site (done)
• Changed BIOS setting from AHCI to IDE... didn't help so switched back to AHCI

System Information:

• Motherboard: ASUS P6T DELUXE V2
• CPU: Core i7 920
• Memory: 6Gb
• SSD: Crucial C300 (using system SATA port [3Gb/s] until my addon card arrives)

Motherboard options that might of interest:

• System Configuration -> Configure SATA as [AHCI]
• System Configuration -> IDE Detect time out (sec) [35]
• AHCI Settings -> AHCI CD/DVD Boot time out [35]

If anyone has an idea of what I did wrong please post, this problem is driving me crazy. My previous SSD was an old Intel X-25M 80Gb and I no such problems with it....

SOLUTION: I used a solid background color, apparently it's a bug.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

When I installed Windows I setup my SATA in the BIOS to be AHCI. While trying to fix the problem I changed the SATA back to IDE and of course that didn't fix anything. When I changed it to IDE I noticed Windows saying it needed to reboot because of new hardware.

Question, by changing it to IDE that one time do I now need to reformat the SSD in AHCI mode again in order to get full benefits?

If it's a bug and that blank screen fixed it, DL the hotfix listed on that page and you should be able to go back to using images again.