New computer build, Win XP Pro SP2 booting slowly

[hmack5k]

Hey, I'm new here so I'm sorry if this isn't relavent to this forum. I built a new system last week (specs below) and I'm having boot times of one - one and a half minutes. This doesn't seem right as my previous build (specs below) was much faster, the boot screen only showed for about 35 seconds. I've disabled services, unused ports in BIOS, etc, all to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

New Build:
ASUS A8N-Sli
AMD Athlon64 3700+ San Diego
Antec TruePower 550W
2 GB (2 x 1GB) Corsair Platinum (2-3-3-6)
Seagate Barracuda 250 GB 7800.9 RPM SATA II
XFX 7800 GT
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi

Old Build:
ASUS P4C800-Deluxe
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 ghz w/ Hyperthreading
Generic 420W Power Supply
1GB (2 x 512 MB) Samsung (PC3200, don't know the latency)
2 X Maxtor 120 GB SATA
BFG 5950 Ultra
Creative Audigy 2 ZS


Once again, any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[BadThad]

You have the correct forum and WELCOME!

A couple questions:

1) Did you check the BIOS to be sure the hdd is not running in PIO mode?
2) Did you partition the 250GB drive? I know XP SP1/2 supports large drives, but I never recommend an OS partition greater than 120GB. As a matter of fact, I like an OS partition to be around 60GB and the rest of the drive for data.

 

[Marthisdil]

I'd also make sure you have the motherboard drivers installed for your motherboard. FIRST thing you should install after a fresh OS install, then update with service packs, etc.

I've never had a problem with boot times with large drives. My current p4 3.06 system with an ASUS mb at home boots up in about 25 seconds with a 250GB boot drive. As BadThad said, it's his preference that he doesn't do it.

Also, are you running FAT32 or NTFS on the partition? If it's not NTFS, I'd highly suggest making it NTFS.

 

[hmack5k]

The only thing I overlooked was checking if it's actually running in SATA mode, I installed drivers first thing after installing XP, but no I didn't partition it. I'm going to check BIOS right now, thanks!

 

[LiLithTecH]

Any USB devices connected?

 

[hmack5k]

only mouse and keyboard, and headset when gaming. I had an OEM cd for Dell with XP Pro on it, do you think that maybe Dell drivers are causing some of this?

 

[Scott66]

Also make sure the bios is not checking for raids on the bootup as it seems you are not using one.

 

[hmack5k]

Nope, RAID isn't enabled

 

[hmack5k]

UPDATE:

Thanks for all the help guys. I solved the problem by installing any relevant drivers from the ASUS disc I could find even if I was using the manufacturers drivers and it seems to be rock solid. 20-25 second boot time. ::thumbs up::

 

[patentman]

Originally posted by: LiLithTecH
Any USB devices connected?

This is actually a good point, USB devices will bog down boot times a lot. At one point I had something like 10-12 USB devices (don't ask me why) connected to my machine at once and it would take my computer a minute or two longer to boot then normal.