Windows XP takes 2 minutes to start-up still... hmm...

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:20 pm

This is instead of my topic here http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... 0760#70760... even after I've made sure the HDD is totally flat (measured it with a ruler, pretty flat indeed), Windows still takes about 2 minutes to start up instead of 1.

Most of the time during start-up, the HDD light shows no activity. I've disabled Norton Antivirus 2004 Professional Auto-Scan, but also done a full system scan and defragged (although it didn't think it needed to).

Is it possible this could be caused by something not plugged in right on the motherboard?

Nothing was installed / added to startup since the re-format, so that's what makes me think it's still a hardware problem.

I just ran DiskSpeed (
http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~roadkil/ ) and these are the results:

Linear Read: 38.6739 MB/S
Random Read: 2.6789 MB/S
Access Time: 10.13 ms

Does that sound right for a 7200rpm drive? I've got the Barracuda ATA IV ST380021A. According to it's specs it's got a seek time of 9.5 ms avg.

Thanks!

toltery · Post by **toltery** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:34 pm

What do you have in your pci slots?

Try removing your pci cards 1 by 1 and see if windows boots faster.

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:41 pm

AGP Slot: GeForce 4 MX440-SE 64mb
PCI: Firewire Card (3 ports)
PCI: 56k Modem
PCI: 10/100 Network Card

Nothing too major. I used to have another video card for when I get a 2nd screen, but that had a mini-fan on it and isn't being used at the moment, so I took that out. I also disconnected my 20gb HDD in the removeable Hard Drive bay (I disconnected the whole bay), but nothing was on there.

I'll try doing that yeah, and see what happens. I wonder if it could be the other video card I just left out. Might as well try putting it back in too.

Thanks, *fingers crossed*

woodpecker · Post by **woodpecker** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:57 pm

I've had the same problem. The problem was when windows(XP) automaticaly asigned IP adress and were waiting just about 2min to "figure" out which adress is suitable. The solution was just to put IP adress (192.168.1.0 or whichever you want) manualy.

tay · Post by **tay** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:41 pm

Yeah this is definitely a DHCP problem. If you do manual addressing your router/cable modem may not accept that IP address as valid. How are you connected to the net?

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sun Feb 01, 2004 11:56 pm

i have an idea: try uninstalling norton antivirus.

there's recently been a stuffup with regard to some veridas license thing that n.av uses which causes your computer to pause while waiting for a response from the veridas servers. this happened to me and it made me wait ridiculously long times to just right click on a file.

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:16 am

I'm connected by 56k, but I know the IP address of some network settings (either dial up or firewire connection) has been played with to get a network to go several times in the past.

How do I set the IP address?

I tried removing the PCI cards, no luck. After trying the IP address I'll remove Norton yeah. When you say it caused your computer to pause, was that when running LiveUpdate?

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:22 am

no, it was when doing seemingly unrelated things. the pauses would occur if i right clicked any file in windows explorer. pauses also happened during startup and shutdown, which is why i think it might be contributing to your problem.

embarassingly i don't know how to set the ip address for a dialup connection, but my guess would be it's in the control panel -> network connections dialog.. *shrug*

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:41 am

Oh, ok that would be really annoying yeah.

Yeah in the Properties to connections, under Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) you can set an IP address. With a 56k modem, I thought they had to give me an IP address though. But with my firewire... maybe that's it. I can access Network Bridge and get to settings like that.

Just out of interest I wonder if System Restore would do anything too. Another thing worth a try.

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 8:15 am

Bootvis might give you some insight.

CallMeJoe · Post by **CallMeJoe** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 9:16 am

56K connection only gets IP address during dialup, not during boot.
Is your network active? Your ethernet card could be your delay, as the network adapter looks for a connection that's not there.

samwc912 · Post by **samwc912** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 10:23 am

IMO I think it's Norton antivirus that's slowing you down. Cuz my computer was slower to boot up when I had it. And that happened even when I disabled the liveupdate and the other services.
You should try uninstalling it and see if it helps.

Am I alone in this? I don't like programs like Norton antivirus or Real player... cuz once you install them it "invades" your computer and generally add unessecary things all over the place. Generally making the computer much slower.

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:29 pm

Bootvis? Cool thanks. Yeah I ran it, then uninstalled Norton Antivirus and LiveUpdate, then ran it again. I also just disabled my "Local Area Connection 4" (the network card) and Firewire, and removed both from a Network Bridge. Sadly they were all the same...

(reduced to 16 colors to save on downloading)

There's that giant gap before the HDD light actually comes on. All this time it's in that Windows XP Professional screen with the black background and animated bar.

Also, bootvis is no longer available from Microsoft, but for anyone else that wants it, you can get it from http://download.softpedia.com:8080/SYSTEM/bootvis.msi

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:40 pm

Your problem is that "disk" thing. I don't know what it means but compare it to my bootvis trace. My Bootvis is with all sorts of things (including NAV2003, network and a sw firewall) loading:

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:16 pm

Disk I/O? Yeah I'm not sure what that means either.

Does anyone know if the HDD times posted up the top of this thread are normal?

I tried all 10 or so of the System Restore Points but they all fail. Doh!

Jan Kivar · Post by **Jan Kivar** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 1:45 pm

What's in your boot order?

Anything on the FireWire card?

Cheers,

Jan

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:38 pm

1st: HDD-0
2nd: CD-ROM
3rd: Floppy

The Primary IDE Master is my hard drive, the Secondary IDE Slave is my CD-Rom.

I also timed and it's 42 seconds between the Windows screen fading in, to the hard drive access begins. Something interesting though, I tried to boot up in Safe Mode:

A whole list of files appeared, and it stopped at Mup.sys. 42 seconds later the HDD light flickered on for a second, then it stopped and doesn't do anything after that... it just sits there. So my safe mode doesn't boot.

tay · Post by **tay** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 4:35 pm

Power down. Remove all the cards except video. Reboot. Uninstall all your local area connections and firewire drivers and everything that is associated with the hardware that you removed (sw/drivers/etc). Reboot and time it.

If you really want to be sure, reinstall windows with this setup fresh.

Slowly add one card in at a time, your network/dialup card being the last ones. If those introduce latency its your network.

Make sure you disconnect the power chord before INSERTING any cards in. You can fry your board if you dont.

Anyone disagree?

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Mon Feb 02, 2004 10:02 pm

Just got back online. I decided to try a fresh install of Windows XP, which isn't horribly bad because I have multile partitions, but I still lost all my programs and settings.

The bad news... it still hasn't fixed it! The c:\ partition was formatted before installing, so the mup.sys file I'm fairly sure it's hanging on has been replaced. Reading up on mup.sys online, it seems Windows will hang on that, and then when it times out move on with the start up.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 5:08 am

TailsNZ wrote:Reading up on mup.sys online, it seems Windows will hang on that, and then when it times out move on with the start up.

Here's the results of a Google search for "mup.sys". Lots of people seem to have hanging trouble with this and there are multiple different fixes discussed in these various threads. Good luck....

TailsNZ · Post by **TailsNZ** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 12:12 pm

Thanks, yeah I've got a whole list of ideas now. I'll start with the easiest one, swapping my RAM sticks over to different slots.

aborro · Post by **aborro** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 2:45 pm

TailsNZ wrote:1st: HDD-0
2nd: CD-ROM
3rd: Floppy

The Primary IDE Master is my hard drive, the Secondary IDE Slave is my CD-Rom.

Switch the jumper on your CD-ROM drive to Master. If you configure a slave device on the Secondary IDE Channel without a Master, Windows 2000/XP will take an unusually long time to boot as it searches for the Primary device.

JVM · Post by **JVM** » Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:25 pm

I don't know if this is the same problem you guys are discussung above, but after the XP logo shows up, it takes quite awhile before getting to the desktop. After the XP logo, the screen stays black for quite some time. Once it loads to the desktop, everything goes well. I have a cable modem connection.

The odd thing is this just recently started acting like that. I ran NAV 2004 and did a full scan but that didn't reveal any problem.

My boot sequence is:

SATA HDD
CD-RW
Floppy

Windows XP takes 2 minutes to start-up still... hmm...

Windows XP takes 2 minutes to start-up still... hmm...

If you still want to experiment

Re-installed Windows, no luck (shock!)

Re: Re-installed Windows, no luck (shock!)