long boot-time after fresh install winxp help!!

C

cpush

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 12, 2005
Messages
173
Well I decided to reformat for the summer.

I use a slip-streamed version of windows xp w/ sp2. I have never had such a slow boot-up time before. The bar fills up like 30 times before windows finally loads. I've reinstalled multiple times, OC'd and non OC'd and nothing seems to work. Also with/without the nvidia ide driver.

Chaintech vnf4 Ultra
venice 3200+ @ 2.7ghz
-running 1:1 with ram-
1 gig GEiL ddr500 @ 540 mhz
160gig hitachi t7k250 (or whatever) sata II hdd
sb audigy 2
x800xl

could anyone give me any ideas on what is going on behind the scenes making the boottime go FOREVER?
 
usually that means that a device driver is causing problems when windows is trying to boot. check event viewer and also try removing any device drivers you may have recently installed. I had this same problem with my DFI NF4 board. It turned out to be a problem with the nvidia platform drivers installing the nforce audio when my board used realtek onboard audio instead.

You can also try disabling unnecessary devices in BIOS.
 
Could also be slave/master, jumpers and of the sort....
drivers tooo
 
thanks for all the replies.

I really cant see it being any of them though since my computer was not doing this yesterday before I reformatted. Nothing new was installed, the bios settings are the same, it was a simple reformat.

I have a soundblaster audigy2, the onboard sound is disabled in the bios, and I did not install any drivers for it.

One thing I did notice, i hadnt reinstalled windows in a LONG time, but I remember when I booted up for the first time, windows xp detected my sound, ethernet, and monitor without me installing any drivers. now when I first load windows, it detects nothing.. maybe it never did?

anyway.. any other suggestions? I was playing cs:source and it seemd to be loading maps and the game fine. Its just this boot time
 
Has anything changed with your network configuration? Have you run BootVIS yet?
 
hmm.. nothing new . still behind the same router I was before. what is bootvis?
 
cpush said:
i suppose I could try it, but I still think somethin gis wrong :mad:
Click to expand...
I think you're missing the point. BootVIS will tell you where along the boot process the slowdown is.
 
ah my bad! i thought it was like a boot-tweaker or something.

thanks, ill give it a try
 
Please help,

This is driving me crazy!!!!!! I have tried a million things tonight, re-seating all hardware, changing sata cables, running hdd diagnostics (from hitachi), deleting the boot record, re-installing windows A BAZILLION times. No luck, at all

One thing I did do differently this install, and I dont know why I did this, but when I was first installing windows after the first reformat, I spammed F7 during the blue windows start up. This prompts you with a menu to choose which type of computer you are installing. I did this LONG ago and have no idea why I decided to do it again. Anyway I chose "Standard PC" Could this have caused some faulty driver to load? If so wouldnt deleting the partition and starting over normally fix it?? Or are those files loaded somewhere and I need to take care of them?

bah I need to fix this, the damn bar fills up 30+ times, it used to be like 2-3
 
For the hell of it, see if you can disable NCQ. Not sure where this is going to be. You'll have to check BIOS and SATA controller options. If you've already tried this, ignore me completely.
 
What condition is the Windows XP CD in? Is the media a retail copy or an iso you created yourself? I have seen similar situations where old, scratched CD’s prevent files from being copied correctly or at all.

I’m just curious as you stated that the only thing that has changed system wise was the fresh install.
 
thanks for the replies.

I tried installing windows via my OLD windows installation cd, the original one. The result was the same.

Also, I have tried installs/reformatting both with/without an overclock.

It's weird, shutdown time is fine, its just the start-up. [- - - -] goes FORRREVVERRR
 
I did when I could get into windows, unfortunately, my computer has turned YET AGAIN, for the worse.

I read the bar graphs, and there was one (the first) bar that showed a massive slow down. It wasnt labeled though.. so I was confused. The others showed drivers, etc. But the BIG one was blank, so I have no idea.

Anyway.. an update on my problems: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1068102

just not my week..
 
I was going to post a long drawn out troubleshooting sequence the other day when I first noticed this thread but deleted it before posting it.

My only suggestion is, and I say this coming from a long background of repairing PCs for 30 years, is to follow the steps and do a troubleshooting run as directed:

Pull out all the unnecessary hardware in your PC and create a barebones machine for XP: that means the RAM, the video card, sound card, anything at all really, I mean gut the PC totally and completely, including the hard drives and CD/DVD drives.

Once the machine is cleaned out, verify all the remaining cabling just for good measure. Ensure the power connector is solid into the mobo (I know you said nothing has changed in the PC, bear with me since obviously everything you've tried so far hasn't done anything, what can it hurt). Ensure the cables aren't damaged in any way and when inserted it's solid.

Verify the CPU assembly is still solid, and if you're game, go ahead and take it off and redo the thermal paste and reseat the CPU into the socket.

Take a pencil and very lightly rub the eraser along the contacts on the RAM sticks to clean off any possible buildup or corrosion - and yes, it does happen even on gold plated connectors, I've seen it far more than once in my career. Reinsert them solidly.

Do the same for any PCI cards and the video card. If you have a can of compressed air, use it to blow out the AGP/PCI/PCI-E slots on the mobo, and the RAM slots also before putting the RAM back in, actually. Give a few minutes of time to pass and let any possible condensation from the compressed air to fully evaporate before putting the devices back into the slots, and as always, seat them firmly and solidly when you do.

The point of all this is to create a bare minimum PC to get XP installed cleanly, meaning just the following are necessary:

- The CPU obviously
- The RAM
- The video card (and if you have onboard video capability, use that to get XP installed, not your primary card)
- The hard drive
- The CD/DVD to use for installation of the OS

That's it, nothing else should be in the system, and that gets you a solid basic installation of XP. If you can't get XP installed and running with that most minimalistic configuration, you've got more things to worry about.

Just noticed you're now having the POST beep codes in the other thread you started, so my guess, based on all the information I've read, is that some hardware device in your machine is now defective and needs to be replaced. I'm betting on the CPU itself, actually, but I could be wrong.

I wish you good fortune in finding a solution...
bb
 
I appreciate your response. I just noticed it now, thought everyone gave up on me :)

Anyway, since I just saw it now, I haven't been able to try your suggested steps, however I did something similar last night.

I went and bought a can of compressed air and removed EVERYTHING (except hdd, cdrom, and psu). I did unplug them though. I cleaned everything out, ram, videocard, cpu hsf, fans, motherboard, etc. I then cleared the CMOS.

I booted up, and all seemed well at first. While I was entering the date into the bios, it locked again. I hit the reset button, it booted, and I was able to finish changing the bios settings. I Finally got into windows. This was short lived as it crashed soon after. While in Windows I was actually able to run a HDD sisoft sandra bench, and while on the Memory bench it locked up.

So I pulled 1 stick of ram and went with 512. I was actually on my PC for a bit over an hour, I could run the mem bench no problem, and no crashes.

Then it froze. When I tried to boot I just got a BEEEEEP BEEEEEEP BEEEEEEP. So I tried the other stick. Same thing. That's where I am now :(

Oh yeah, while it was booting (with 512) I changed it to SATA 150, spread spectrum clocking OFF, and re-installed windows. Still SLOW boot-time.

not good, not good.
 
Don't do RAM testing inside of Windows; there are too many variables that can interfere with proper operation and completion (driver issues, hardware issues other than the RAM, etc). Testing one specific hardware component in a PC is ALWAYS best done by a specific benching or testing application designed to do just that one thing by itself. While Sandra has been around for a considerable amount of time, it's a Windows app and... well... Windows is buggy so you can't really trust any Windows-based benching or testing software, ever. And Prime95 isn't any better for testing, really because... well... it's a Windows application too although there is a DOS-based version IIRC.

Head over to www.memtest86.com if you're online and get the bootable floppy or CD version of the best memory testing app there is and give it a run through - meaning let it run for about 6-12 hours, and I'm being completely serious. One cycle pass isn't enough to seriously test memory, so let it run overnight if you can. If the memory/CPU passes that long testing period, it's safe to say those two components aren't the culprits.

Hope this helps...
bb

ps
If you can't get online for some reason, most Linux distros these days have memtest86 as a boot option from their install CDs or LiveCDs. I know Ubuntu has it as a boot time option on all it's variants (Kubuntu/Xubuntu/etc).
 
hmm well, I do have memtest86+ ( i think i mentioned this in previous post ).

I wasn't testing memory via sandra, all I was saying is that I noticed the crash after I ran the bench.

When my computer did boot, I ran memtest86 with no errors. So yeah I've been stuck
 
I know I put this in another post some where, so sorry for repeating myself. Find the manufacture of your HDD, download the diagnostic tool, and run the full test. Unfortunately there is always the possibility that a controller or slot on the motherboard may be failing.

Best of luck.
 
br0adband said:
Don't do RAM testing inside of Windows; there are too many variables that can interfere with proper operation and completion (driver issues, hardware issues other than the RAM, etc). Testing one specific hardware component in a PC is ALWAYS best done by a specific benching or testing application designed to do just that one thing by itself. While Sandra has been around for a considerable amount of time, it's a Windows app and... well... Windows is buggy so you can't really trust any Windows-based benching or testing software, ever. And Prime95 isn't any better for testing, really because... well... it's a Windows application too although there is a DOS-based version IIRC.

Head over to www.memtest86.com if you're online and get the bootable floppy or CD version of the best memory testing app there is and give it a run through - meaning let it run for about 6-12 hours, and I'm being completely serious. One cycle pass isn't enough to seriously test memory, so let it run overnight if you can. If the memory/CPU passes that long testing period, it's safe to say those two components aren't the culprits.

Hope this helps...
bb

ps
If you can't get online for some reason, most Linux distros these days have memtest86 as a boot option from their install CDs or LiveCDs. I know Ubuntu has it as a boot time option on all it's variants (Kubuntu/Xubuntu/etc).
Click to expand...
UBCD has all of these tools in one easy place.
 
yes I have been using the UBCD and that is how I have been getting to the hitachi fitness test, which said everything on the HDD was A O.K.
 
If I were in your position, I’d start swapping out individual components one at a time. This means if you have a different HD, try it, if you have other sticks of ram, use them. If possible, a different MB, CPU, cables, drives, PSU, till every component has been tested.

I understand you may not have the resources to be able to do this, but there must be a hardware issue somewhere in the system since the problem persists after (many) fresh installs of XP.
 
USMC2Hard4U said:
Check to see if DMA is enabled?
Click to expand...

I would definetly check if DMA is enabled because I faced a similar issue 3 days ago and it was because DMA was not enabled.
Usually this can be fixed by uninstalling your primary ide channel from the device manager and then rebooting.
 
still takin a long time, even booted without soundcard. possibly a hdd problem?
 
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