A7V bootup takes 3 minutes!!! ARRRRG!

[Whitedog]

I recently built an Athlon system with the A7V. Here is all da stuff I got plugged into it:
Asus 7700 GF2 GTS
SBLive Plat
Modem Blaster 56k
AIC-78* scsi card running a 32x scsi CDROM
2-10 gig IDE HD's plugged into Primary ATA66
Yamaha CD burner, plugged into ATA66 secondary
WinME

Here's the problem!

It wastes about 20+ seconds trying to detect ATA100 devices (which nothings plugged into)
then...
After I see the WinME splash Screen, it goes to the PCI Device listing screen.... and sits there for 70 seconds (exactly, everytime too)
then it continues on and finishes the bootup fine.

There are no conflicts or anything?!!!??!?!?
What is this doing????!!?!?!!?!!!

We have WinME installed on a pooter here at work and it boots in 30 seconds..

What did I do wrong? What BIOS setting did I overlook? What Windows settings did I overlook?

HEEEEELP!!! 3 minute bootups Pissing me off

 

[Muerto]

I'm having the exact same problem too!!!

If you update the BIOS to revision 1004a you can disable the ATA100 check. But I don't know WTF is going on when it's doing the PCI device listing.

Mine does the esact same thing. It just sits there for about 70 seconds doing absolutely nothing and then continues to load Windows after that. I hope somebody out there knows how to fix this!

 

[LiekOMG]

First, install the correct drivers for the Promise ATA100 controller in windows. If its not yet installed, you will see something called a "Mass storage controller" under device manager. The drivers for it can be located on the A7V CD. Once its installed, go to its properties, and click "disable in hardware profile".
This will keep windows from trying to find somethning on that device on startup.

Also, make sure to install the newest BIOS like Muerto said, and to disable the ATA100 controller from there as well.
I also have an A7V, and my startup in WinMe is about 13 seconds (from splash)

Hope that helps

 

[Muerto]

Thanks DOACleric. I've installed the Promise controller but I haven't disabled it yet. I'll give that a try.

 

[techs]

i have the latest bios for both the board and the promise controller. i have a hard drive(ata66)on the ata100 controller cause i have 5 ide devices. I get a ten to fifteen second pause in the middle of the boot. i wonder if anyone knows how to get around that?

 

[rmblam]

Go to the A7V page on the Asus site for the link to the 8-25-00 promise driver. Update to the 1004a or 1004c bios (search the forums here for the link) and disable the ata100 as mentioned. Defrag your HD. Even if you did a clean install. Check for IRQ conflicts. Download regclean and clean your registry after backing it up. Use msconfig to minimize the startup crap. In device manager set you virtual memory to 128mb or 256mb (don't let windows manage). Under the performance tab choose "desktop server" also. Disable floppy detection at bootup in bios and in device manager also. Make sure DMA is activcated on your HD and no conflicts. Go into Device manager and check every singe driver for every device. If you see a driver listed under "driver details" like this xxxx.xxx followed by (xxxx.xxx) then you have a problem. Windows installation crapped out and did not install the driver in (xxxx.xxx) it needs and may delay bootup. Go to your windows install disk and extract the needed file from the "cabs" and place it in "system" directory and "vmm32" directory. Windows will detect the missing file on reboot...cool.

Try those and see if they help. I got mine down from over 2 minutes to about 70 secs (total boot)and still working on it (w98). I do load a lot of crap still at boot though.

 

[hungrypete]

the biggest thing is if you are not using the promise controller, disable it in the bios AND windows system panel, like DOACleric said. Shaves off that 70 secs you were bothered with

 

[Whitedog]

Cool beans

 

[sleepdragon]

update to latest bios 1004 (either a or c), and make sure to download the latest driver from asus website..w/o both latest bios and drivers, regardless if you disable the ultra100 controller or not..boot delay is pretty much gone...

also..for those of who that doesn't need the ultra100 controller..wait and get the asus a7pro...it's the same as a7v except for the on board promise ultra100 controller..

 

[andylawcc]

also, an un-IP-address-assigned NIC will delay boot to any system...
give ya NIC an IP.

and rmblam... thanks alot for those little tweaks... meanwhile, how do I know which "cab" is needed?

 

[rmblam]

Well, I am down to about 30-40 seconds to boot now. I also disabled virus scan so it can't load. I did the NIC trick and it helped. I jacked my memory up to 142mhz @7ns...very cool because my overall stability improved big time??? Very weird but I am NOT complaining. I also disabled shadow flash rom to keep it from taking up a little unnecessary space in my ram. It helped and pushed my bench up to 470/571 in sandra. I disabled my secondary IDE in bios and device manager since it is unused. That seemed to help a lot too??


andylawcc:

In windows 98 the files you will likely need are in cab 53 and 54. In win Me I think they are in cab 20. The common files needed are vmouse.vxd, vflat.vxd, ntkern.vxd, IOS.vxd, configmg.vxd and maybe others. They affect your mouse, IDE bus, agp bus, and modem or NIC to name a few.

For those that don't know how... Set your file options to "show all" in your folder options. Go to the cab and it should let you view its contents. Right click on the file yo want and choose extract. It will then let you pick the folder to dump it to (see previous post). If that does not happen then use Winzip to simply extract that one file from the zipped cab.