Longgggg Windows Boot Up Time

[muddyfox470]

Just done a fresh install of windows.

Once inside windows everything works nicely etc. All the latest updates are installed, but the majority of the time it takes ages for it to get to the sign on screen. It goes past the Bios/POST screen as normal, but then it stops on the Windows XP page (with the blue bar) for around 2-3 minutes.

Occasionally it starts up normally.

Anything I can remedy it?

Ian

[GoNz0]

clear your error logs, reboot, take a look for errors, thats a good start.

[cptwhite_uk]

IDE cables in wrong position (although the delay would normally be in POST)...just a thought.

Also how about attached devices causing a timeout of some sort, delaying boot up?

[muddyfox470]

also floppy drive seems to have stopped working :s i have tried switching the cable the other way around to no avail - do they die often?

ian

[this_is_gav]

Mine dies regularly for no apparent reason. Come a fresh install (which normally coincides with a system rebuild of some description) it works fine (need to install RAID drivers), then after perhaps a few weeks I get a message on shutdown, so I just disable it in the BIOS. Noooo idea what's going on with it, lol.

[mike_w]

Try unplugging some components, such as optical drives. I remember on one Windows installation that the bootup took about two minutes more with the ethernet plugged in.

[Zak33]

that sounds every bit like an IRQ confusion.

Unplug everything, and disable your sound card. (they cause the most arse ache with IRQ settings)

IRQ= Interupt Request...its the order than each channel of the PCI bus asks for information.

Once you've got it all unplugged, plug one thing in at a time until it slows down again, and then whatever it is, move it to another slot.

PCI slots share IRQ's with other stuff like USB buses, so all you have to do is move stuff around until you find a perfect match.

Once it's sorted it wont come back as Windows will keep the good order in it's settings.

[muddyfox470]

Ok Ill try those things in a bit.

Strange thing is that everything is in the same place as it has ever been, plus sometimes it boots up fine, othertimes it takes ages.

But thanks to everyone for your help I'll have another delve inside my case this weekend

Ian

[scrandman]

Are you using the nVidia IDE drivers or the MS ones. I certainly had long boot ups with the previous nVidia version, but the latest from the website (6.86) work fine for me now.

[GoNz0]

Just done a fresh install of windows.

Once inside windows everything works nicely etc. All the latest updates are installed, but the majority of the time it takes ages for it to get to the sign on screen. It goes past the Bios/POST screen as normal, but then it stops on the Windows XP page (with the blue bar) for around 2-3 minutes.

Occasionally it starts up normally.

Anything I can remedy it?

Ian

bit of an odd one, but disable or remove your netowrk cards, see if that stops it, if so it might be trying to get an ip from the network and hanging while it times out ?

[dave87]

other thing I found can help is to defrag the boot sector of the drive-

go to Run and type 'defrag c: -b' if it takes a while to complete you may have found your problem.

Dave

[mistrip]

Also try running a prog called bootvis, it might help you identify where the problem is and if you're lucky fix it.