Painfully Slow Startup

[cipro]

I have a Celeron 800 w/ 128Mb running Win XP (fresh installation... no apps installed) ....

I just installed winXP because the computer was taking 10 - 15 minutes to startup using win98 and I figured it was an OS problem (thought a new install would fix the problem).

It took nearly 2.5 hours to install XP on this computer. To troubleshoot the problem I took the harddrive out and put it into a PIII 450 with 256mb (it usually boots into XP after 35-40 sec)... I plugged in the HD and installed XP... took just over an hour but still took approx 4-5min to boot.

Took the hard drive back out and replaced it in the original computer. Had to re-install XP again .. took approx 1.5 - 2 hours. After installation it took 12 Min utes to boot.

I am going to buy a new Hard Drive ASAP but I have a feeling to wont completely solve the problem. Does anyone have any ideas what it might be?

Bios? CPU? RAM?

I am really stuck and need help..

Thanks.

 

[linney]

I have no idea and your problem does sound more technical than software related. The only suggestion I can think of before it's off to the repair shop is to enter your Bios and reset it to the default settings and try that to see if it makes any difference.

 

[BChumie]

Cipro,

I had a system do a very similar thing to me when I had bad ram. You might want to grabe an app off the web that would test the ram independent of the OS. memtest86 (I think that is the name) is a good test that I have used to diagnose bad RAM.

http://www.teresaudio.com/memtest86/

is the website for the test. Good Luck.

Brad

 

[cipro]

Thanks a lot... I appreciate it.

 

[rwise2112]

I've also seen a slow startup with a bad CD-RW drive. Try disconnecting CD-ROM drives and see if the problem continues.

For that matter, disconnect everything you possibly can from the computer and add them back one at a time to see if you can identify the culprit.

 

[walshy]

You should also check the bios to see if the external and internal cache is enabled, Once I disabled the external cache for trouble shooting purposes on a customers computer and left it off by mistake, 6 months later they told me it was running slow (I was a bit red faced)

 

[cipro]

If there are any Bios problems, flashing it should solve it, right?

I have looked for a reset jumper for the Bios but I cant find one (its a jumperless motherboard and I can only find 2 jumpers on it... niether look like the reset jumper).

 

[rwise2112]

Some system board have a push-button CMOS reset, and others (like my ASUS) only have to leads which must be shorted with a screwdriver or something similar.

 

[J741]

Also, you can locate the utility program BOOTVIS and use it to graphically map your Windows XP startup, so you can see what is taking all the time.

 

[cipro]

an update on the problem:

I have not gotten a new hard drive yet incase that is not the problem. I disconnected the cdrom's and floppy and the problem is still there (I left the Video card, NIC and USB card intact). I also tested the ram (which was ok) and then put a new 128mb in. I went through the bios and everything seems ok. THe motherboard is an ASUS CUV4X.

I am going to try flashing the bios tonight.

Does anyone have any more ideas???

 

[jpm121]

I've seen one thing pop up as a culprit in new XP installs, and this fix has solved a couple hairy problems that were causing me grief. I think it has something to do with the sequence of loading drivers in the XP setup.

Check out

http://www.pcpitstop.com

for some quick-n-dirty tests you can run on your PC. This site runs an Active-X component and tests memory speed, CPU speed, and hard drive access times -- this is what was the culprit in my case. I was getting transfer rates below 1 MB/s with a brand new 7200 rpm WD 30GB drive on an ATA/100 channel. Here's what ended up fixing it:

CLick Start, and right-click on My Computer in the menu. Select Properties. Click the Hardware tab, then the Device Manager button. Expand the line for IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Click on your IDE controller in the list (mine is called Intel 82801BA Bus Master IDE Controller) and delete it. Shut down windows, and restart. The hardware will be detected and installed, reboot again, and see if that helps.

I saw immediate improvement (like by a factor of 10).

Hope this helps in your case, and good luck.