A way to tell if the User Profile Synchronization Service is actually starting…

Something I noticed while staring at the Services MMC while waiting for the User Profile Synchronization Service to start is that there is an order of processing in while the service is in a starting state.  Each step seems to take some time, so you can refresh the MMC to see the progress.  This may help you get some idea that the Starting status in Central Admin correlates to work actually being done.  This is the order in which you will see changes occur in the Services MMC:

1. Forefront Identity Manager Synchronization Service

1. Log On As is updated to match the farm account

2. Startup Type is then switched to Automatic

3. Service will eventually show Started  - This part seems to take the longest

2. After the Synchronization Service starts, the Forefront Identity Manager Service is handled

1. Log On As is updated to match the farm account

2. Startup Type is then switched to Automatic

3. Service will eventually show Started  -  This never happened after I switched accounts