My PC is taking way too long to post

[Seska]

Hi all, I got a problem with my pc. Recently, I noticed that it 'idles'(it doesn't seems to be doing anything) very for a long time before it starts post from a cold boot. This idle time increases over the days and today it took me half an hour just to boot my pc...its terrible. Also, I did not have any hardware change recently.

On power up, the pc would just stall with the cd-rom lights on. Its only when it 'decided' to post my cd-writer and hdd would start making the usual noises and everything seems normal from there.

And another thing, my pc would reboot itself if its left to idle for awhile, about 10 mins. I've unchecked the option in xp to auto reboot on error but the blue screen doesn't appear and it does a reboot straight away. I did a virus scan and it came up with nothing either. I also noticed that if I have an application running, say playing a video, the reboot thingy won't occur.

Is my pc gonna kick the bucket or something? I'm so afraid to turn my pc off now as I don't know if it will start again next time I power it on. Please advise me what I can do...except buying a new pc because I just can't afford one.

Thanks.

Here are my pc specs:
Jetway VT82C692BX (not sure about this)
p3 600Mhz
320 MB SDram
WinXp Pro

 

[Jeff7181]

Having the jumper on your hard drive set to "Master with Slave" can do that sometimes... double check that.

 

[Woody419]

Originally posted by: Seska
Please advise me what I can do...

Clean Install


OK, I'll add a few more thoughts:

Backup before you lose everything
Put in a new motherboard battery
Defrag
Backup before you loose everything
Clean registry with jv16 power tools
Windows is searching for a network connection that is not there
Test the hard drive with the hdd's manufacturers diagnostic
And before I forget - backup before you lose everything

 

[chasm22]

You might try this Link

 

[GRIFFIN1]

Try setting your drives to "cable select"

The master drive will be the drive on the end of the cable, and the slave will be the one connected to the middle of the cable.

 

[dougtran]

You can pinpoint the problem in 5 minutes by disabling your HDD (set to none in BIOS and/or pull power and IDE cable).

If it posts quicker, then you know you have some sort of HDD related probem.

If not, then you got some other issues. However, you saved yourself a lot of time.

 

[MulLa]

I once encountered a similar problem. When I press the power button the PC would sit idle for around 5mins before posting. I swapped a PSU but no help. Finally I found out it was the motherboard. I guess you could try the PSU and if that doesn't work it might be the motherboard.

 

[ravedave]

I'm confused as to when it pauses.
is it before it displayes the first bios screen,
before it does the memory check,
before it lists the drives,
or before it starts booting the OS?


try setting the bios to defaults.
if not that then

then try unplugging all drives, just to see if how quick it realizes its not there
if not then

try removing cards
if not then

try flashing the bios(if you have cahones)

 

[Seska]

Hi all, thanks for all your replies.

Sorry if I did not make myself before, I'll try to explain again. When I turn on the power, nothing will appear on the screen for a very long time. Its as long as half an hour. But when it does, it'll boot as usual. This only happens on cold boot. If I do a power off then on again a minute later, it'll boot immediately as usual.

I just tried disconnecting all hard drives and cd-rom drives but its still the same. So its probably a hardware problem? But anyway, I did some registry cleaning, defragmenting, and hard drive testing like you guys suggested.

And the auto reboot is stilll bugging me. It rebooted on me halfway through I was typing this. I have to play an mp3 to keep it from rebooting.

Maybe its this battery on the motherboard Woody419 spoke of. Can anyone tell me how do I go about changing it because I have no idea what and where is it on the motherboard.

Thanks.

 

[BeauJangles]

The battery looks like a quarter, it's about the same size, silver and shiny. There should be a simple release mechanism. Just take it out, go to your local store and buy a new one. Slide the new one in and you're done.

 

[kuk]

Originally posted by: Seska
Hi all, thanks for all your replies.

Sorry if I did not make myself before, I'll try to explain again. When I turn on the power, nothing will appear on the screen for a very long time. Its as long as half an hour. But when it does, it'll boot as usual. This only happens on cold boot. If I do a power off then on again a minute later, it'll boot immediately as usual.

I just tried disconnecting all hard drives and cd-rom drives but its still the same. So its probably a hardware problem? But anyway, I did some registry cleaning, defragmenting, and hard drive testing like you guys suggested.

And the auto reboot is stilll bugging me. It rebooted on me halfway through I was typing this. I have to play an mp3 to keep it from rebooting.

Maybe its this battery on the motherboard Woody419 spoke of. Can anyone tell me how do I go about changing it because I have no idea what and where is it on the motherboard.

Thanks.

Open up your computer, and check the capacitors on your motherboard. A capacitor is a cylinder about one centimeter high, that are normally wrapped in a green or red packaging. A new capacitor has a shiny metallic top. Over time, some of these capactior can leak (especially on older mobos, like yours ... I had this problem with an old Abit Slot Athlon mobo). Signs of this leak are brown substances on top and around capacitors ... this substance can be scrapped of.

If you have leaked capacitors, there are two things you can do. First, if you or someone you know is familiar with eletrical components, and there are only few leaked caps, you can buy new ones and solder them in. If not, it may be time for an upgrade.

Good luck!

 

[Seska]

Hi again, I finally got my pc booted again after a record waiting time of 2 hours. Ok, I located the battery on the motherboard and had it replaced with a new one, though it wasn't the same model. Again, it doesn't seems to solve the idling problem.

I measured the old and the new battery on a digital multimeter and they read 3.175 and 3.35 volts respectively. Both have a 3 volts rating. Is that normal? Also, I did a visual check on all the capacitors I can find on the motherboard and I noticed a speck of brown spot on the centre of 2 capacitor tops. Are those capacitor leakage?

Thanks.

 

[Slammy1]

Well, since you're not even posting to the BIOS screen, I'd say it's one of two issue. Either your video or MB is going bad. See if you can borrow a friend's video card to try first, since that's the cheaper solution.

 

[Woody419]

Originally posted by: Seska
Also, I did a visual check on all the capacitors I can find on the motherboard and I noticed a speck of brown spot on the centre of 2 capacitor tops. Are those capacitor leakage?

That could be your problem. There is more info with photos of what to look for here.

You may be able to RMA the board, some boards have a 3 year warranty, but it look like you will be upgrading real soon.

 

[Seska]

Hi guys, I think my motherboard is really a gonner this time...thanks to me. I just made it worse in attempt to replace the those capacitors that looked faulty.

The capacitors I bought were of the exact same ratings but bigger in size and of different make. I guess I messed it up during the soldering...should have known better not to trust my crappy soldering skills.

On power up, there's a funny beep that came up. It sounds like "be-be-be-beeeep", then stopped. Anyone knows what that means? I only had the video card and ram connected at that time. Nothing came up on the screen either.

Thanks for all the help guys, I guess its an upgrade for me afterall. I can only say to myself,

"doh"