Windows 98SE startup time 2

[aardvarkron]

Computer is turned on and it gets to the point where Norton finishes checking for viruses and the C:\> shows up. THEN, the system sits doing nothing for 90-120 seconds. At that point Windows 98 starts and runs well. Question; why the 90-120 second 'nothing' time??

Thanks, Ron Mayne - -midway between Valley Forge and Gettysburg in PA- -

 

[Vansplatter]

Not sure really,

Couple of questions:

Is there a NIC installed?
Is there a bad line in youe autoexec.bat file?

Try a ctrl boot and do a step by step, see if that will shed any light on where it is hanging. Failing that check your startup senario through msconfig and see about disabling some programs that may be running in the rears.

Good Luck.

Van-

 

[cdogg]

When it sits for 90-120 secs, is the Win98 logo displayed, or is the C:> prompt the only thing you see?

If it sits at the C:>, then I suspect the problem lies with either the autoexec.bat or config.sys files. You may want to open them up in Notepad and copy down their contents.

 

[butchrecon]

Check your autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Is there something loading in there that may be causing it? James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[reghakr]

Ron,

A couple possibilities.

The first file we want to edit is MSDOS.SYS. This is a read only file, as well as a hidden file. So before you can edit it, you need to do 2 things to be able to do so.
First, open Windows Explorer, On the top toolbar, chose "Tools","folder options", then click on the View tab. Check "Show hidden files and folders", and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files", and click Apply, then Ok.
Next, do a file search for MSDOS.SYS. Right click on it, and select "properties". You need to uncheck "read only",Then click Apply and Ok. After changing the file attributes, double click on MSDOS.SYS, it should open in notepad. (If this doesn't work, hold the shift key down while right clicking on the file will give you an "open with"... option, select this and choose open with notepad). The changes that can be made are as follows.

Make these changes under [Options]:

Logo=0 (This disables the start-up logo , reducing load time. If you really like the Windows logo, don't use this setting)

BootMenuDelay=<Number>

Default: 30

Purpose: This setting is used to set the number of seconds your system will pause on the Startup menu. If the number of seconds counts down to 0 without intervention, the BootMenuDefault is activated.

NOTE: This option is not functional unless BootMenu=1 has been added to
the [Options] section of the Msdos.sys file.
----------------------------------------------
Change the number to something like 5 or lower.

========================================================

Try hitting F2 or the Del key on startup to access the BIOS. You may see an entry for Fast Boot or similar wording. If so, enable it.

right-click on My Computer, click the Performance tab and verify the File System and Virtual Memory are 32-bit.

Click the Virtual Memory button and make sure that Windows is managing the virtual memory.

If those are OK, try these steps to eliminate unecessary program running:

The things that make the computer slow are the many unecessary items that automatically startup when Windows starts.

Right-click on the icons in the tray area, open each, go through the options to turn off the &quot;tray&quot; or &quot;run at startup&quot; feature.

For the others, go to Start>Run, type msconfig. Leave systray, scan registry, Load Power Profile (both), your virus scanner and firewall if you have one.

Go to Start>Run, type sysedit. Look over the autoexec.bat for unneccessary lines, click the win.ini and check for programs loading here:
[windows]
load=
run=

Open Explorer and navigate to c:\windows\temp and delete all files here. Empty the Recycle Bin

Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools>InternetOptions, click the Delete Files and Clear History buttons. Click the Settings button and choose a reasonable size for the temporary internet files directory. i'd suggest 40MB for a 56K connection, as little as 10MB for cable or DSL.

Close all tray applications and hit Alt_Ctl_Del and end task on all items except for explorer and systray, disable your screensaver, then run scandisk, then defrag.

If you don't know what an entry is or what it does, post back.

reghakr

 

[aardvarkron]

Ref: Windows 98SE startup time
Posted Jan 7, 2002

Windows 98SE startup time
thread615-188353

To the people who replied; here is some vague
info that relates:

autoexec.bat only has the Norton info to have Norton anti-virus run during startup

config.sys exists but is empty

NIC I built a home network of 5 computers for personal education. Upon seeing the reply from 'Vansplatter', I removed the COMPEX card from the computer in question and replaced it with an SMC Series 1211 PCI card.
The 90-120 seconds was reduced to about 70 seconds.

Is it possible to reply to one individual in this Tek-Tips thing??

Thank you,

Ron Mayne- -midway between Valley Forge and Gettysburg in PA- -

 

[aardvarkron]

Hello Van and others;

Van, after your concern about NIC cards (all 5 computers have an NIC between themselves and the HUB), I removed the network card from the more immediate computer.

The 100 seconds apparent pause time is reduced to 20 seconds when I remove the network card. This still allows one system to run fairly well (and slower)from a 56k modem.
However, this would only allow one computer to be on-line at any time (instead of 5 or 6). So, yours truly will certainly tolerate the 100 seconds.

Is there a smart person in the group who might explain the extra 80 seconds versus the network card (different brands of network cards still cause about the same delay)??? The system will not let me change drivers or IRQ choices for the network card.

Input is certainly appreciated,

RON MAYNE- -midway between Gettysburg and Valley Forge in PA- -

PS MY wife and daughters said they will be happy to tolerate the 100 second situation as long as they can all enjoy being on-line at their on convenience!~!

 

[aardvarkron]

Hello Van and others;

Van, after your concern about NIC cards (all 5 computers have an NIC between themselves and the HUB), I removed the network card from the more immediate computer.

The 100 seconds 'pause time' is reduced to 20 seconds when I remove the network card. This still allows one system to run fairly well (and slower) from a 56k modem. However, this would only allow one computer to be on-line at any time (instead of 5 or 6). So, yours truly will certainly tolerate the 100 seconds.

***
***Is there a person in the group who might explain the extra 80 seconds versus the network card (different brands of network cards still cause about the same delay)??? The system will not let me change drivers or IRQ choices for the network card.

Input is certainly appreciated,

RON MAYNE- -midway between Gettysburg and Valley Forge in PA- -

PS My wife and daughters said they will be happy to tolerate the 100 second situation as long as they can all enjoy being on-line at their on convenience.

 

[conceptumator]

You say you have 5 computers networked. Do you have the network shares mapped to each machine? If so, the slow down is probably just the machine trying to connect to the shares when it boots. Right click on Network Neighborhood and choose Properties, then highlight MS Client for Networks and click on Properties. Make sure you have Quick Log-In checked and that you don't have a domain name in the box. This will not remove the share mappings from your Explorer, it just won't force them to connect at sign-in. They will connect on access.

 

[aardvarkron]

Hello conceptumator and others;

thread615-188353

Well, I changed that entry to Quick log-on and made sure there was no Domain entry; no change in the 100 second pause.

I do have the Primary Network logon: set to 'Windows Logon'.

Ron Mayne

 

[Guest_imported]

If you removed one NIC and the pause went away the problem may be the NIC has high latency. The only way I know of to fix this problem is to get another NIC. Try moving one of the other ones to this PC. Also right click network neighborhood and see if you have file and printer sharing enabled. If you do there should be a selection under the tcpip icon for file and printer sharing for microsoft networks. Double click that and look at LM ANNOUNCE it should be NO. This causes the computers to slow down during boots. Hope this helps

 

[aardvarkron]

Hello whoever;

I was able to cut this 'dead time' in half by putting the COM ports and the PARALLEL port in a disable condition in the BIOS.

This only works if you don't need these ports in the system; it also frees up some IRQ values for the rest of the system.

RON MAYNE