Long story short, I've managed to install & run W7 x64 on an X570 board. No small feat. Basically followed this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6_MdxMUpRE

The heretical concoction runs amazingly well, save for a little too long boot time (about 16 seconds from the Windows 7 "meatballs" getting together to desktop, should be 1 to 3 seconds tops).

Investigating with the Event Viewer I've found this:

But I haven't the foggiest idea on how to deal with this gremlin  . Though I suspect the beta USB 3.0 drivers for Windows 7 on X570 might be related to the problem ...

Any help or ideas would be much appreciated!

A good explanation of the boot process by our old friend: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/sudden-slow-reboot/7e4d38c2-8c2e-4e19-a2aa-c60bb5b62b75?auth=1

Using a spinning disk or SSD?

I come to think of boot time as being important only if uptime is not important.

SSD (SATA3 for now; the next round of headaches will be trying to boot W7 from an M.2 NVMe one  ).

I can live with the extra 13 secs of boot time, but it is annoying. All my other PCs boot up lightning quick and I'm spoiled  .

I suspect the "special" beta USB 3.0 drivers for W7 on X570 are connected to the problem, because before them the time from "meatballs together" to desktop was just ~2 seconds. But right after installing these drivers the problem appeared and that time grew to ~16 secs:

 

Edited August 25, 20205 yr by TELVM

Semi-random thought, but maybe - just maybe - you can tweak loading settings for that driver/service.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/specifying-driver-load-order

jaclaz

Thanks for the idea, Jaclaz.

These are the "OEM" loading settings:

 

X570_149C_Drivers_B2\USB DRIVER\AMD_USB3.2_WinA_Beta_9.0_7052\AMDXHCI.INF

[AMDHub3.AddService]
DisplayName    = %AMD_HUB3.DriverDesc%
ServiceType    = 1                  ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER
StartType      = 3                  ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START
ErrorControl   = 1                  ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL
ServiceBinary  = %10%\System32\Drivers\AMDHub3.sys
LoadOrderGroup = Base

 

X570_149C_Drivers_B2\USB DRIVER\amdhub31\amdhub31.inf

[amdhub31_service]
DisplayName=%amdhub31_ServiceDescription%
ServiceType=1
StartType=3
ErrorControl=1
ServiceBinary=%12%\amdhub31.sys
LoadOrderGroup=Base
AddReg=WinToGo_amdhub31.AddReg

 

X570_149C_Drivers_B2\USB DRIVER\amdxhc31\amdxhc31.inf

[amdxhc31_service]
DisplayName=%amdxhc31_ServiceDescription%
ServiceType=1
StartType=3
ErrorControl=1
ServiceBinary=%12%\amdxhc31.sys
LoadOrderGroup=Base
AddReg=WinToGo_amdxhc31.AddReg

 

Any suggestions on how to fiddle with them?

Hmmm.

No.

Those drivers are seemingly Kernel drivers and SERVICE_DEMAND_START (PnP), in this case (I believe) the LoadOrderGroup is ignored.

I think that you can try disabling them (setting StartType=4) without uninstalling them and see if they are the actual culprits.

You can also try using loadord:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/loadorder

to see how they "fit" in load order, then try changing the LoadOrderGroup to something "later" than "Base", the list is in :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder

but I don't think it may change anything

Be warned, there is  a risk the thingy will BSOD/hang, so have handy a way out.

jaclaz