Windows dog slow to load after crash....

[Tumble]

Hi Guys - the story is thus....

A few weeks ago, my RAM died for whatever reason So I gets it sent back etc and in the meantime borrow some memory off me brother. Now the system has been stable as a rock and blinding quick with this stuff in, except for last night when it decided to reboot itself. This morning I booted it, and on the 3rd atttempt it POSTed and then hung. I tried it again and this time it got to where it starts loading the OS and couldn't find any disks - even the DVD drive wasn't in the list (it had loaded the SATA controller at this point).

Now however, it will boot fully, but on the windows splash screen, the little blue bar that used to do 5 & 1/2 laps, now takes over 40! everything boots nicely once windows is loaded and there's no performance drop off while it's working except for longer loading times for games like COD4 etc.

I've reset the BIOS and gone through the settings and there's nothing I've changed from before the crash. I believe it's got the latest BIOS version on it too. The memory timings are set to SPD and the CPU is clocked at stock. It's not a heat issue like I originally thought - under full on SMP folding the CPU barely hits 50c and idles at 41ish (using Coretemp).

Spec:
E6400 C2D
Abit IP35E Darkraider
2gb Corsair XMS2 PC6400 (my own RAM is the DHX Corsair PC6400)
WD500AAKS SATA HDD
Pioneer DVR-215
X1950pro 256MB

Any clues?

[Splash]

chkdsk /r

that and a good defrag

[kalniel]

/f as well, or is that redundant?

[Splash]

CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]


volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
filename FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation
.
/F Fixes errors on the disk.
/V On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
on the disk.
On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
(implies /F).
/L:size NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number
of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current
size.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
(implies /F).
/I NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
/C NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
structure.
/B NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
(implies /R)

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by
skipping certain checks of the volume.


When using /r there's no need for /f

[Tumble]

In fact, after further investigation - it's like the PC has lots less memory than it should have - unzipping archive files takes forever too. It's still reporting 2gb RAM tho, which is set at the correct speeds in the BIOS....

Defrag & chkdsk did naff all either.

[Ciber]

Try using the RAM in a different pair of slots. Worked for me in the past. Also do a memtest86 check from a bootable CD or floppy: http://www.memtest86.com/

[blueball]

Check what your RAM voltage is set to. On occasions after a crash I have seen the voltage drop back to 1.8V (the default) even though I had set 2.1V (what my memory was specced for).

If your memory is speced to run at a higher voltage you may be getting slower speeds at a lower voltage (although the speed drop you have seen seems excessive)

[Tumble]

The RAM voltage is set by SPD, to what it's meant to be, and is right on the money. It's as if the FSB has been turned right down, although it's still reporting as stock in the BIOS settings.

[Ciber]

Have you checked what the settings are by by something like CPUZ? http://www.cpuid.com/

[Tumble]

yeah checked it with CPU-Z - eveything's as it should be, and as it was before this business started

[Ciber]

Did you try the ram in different slots or only 1 module etc..?