PC sloooooow boot

[O2Deprived]

I have an odd problem that I think is due to the power supply, but I'm not 100% sure yet. Temps are fine, monitored with Everest & Speedfan. The problem is that on some boots, the system gets stuck at the Abit splash screen for a few minutes, then takes another couple before it reaches the desktop. When it boots like this, I can surf the web fine, but if I try to play Battlefield 2, it loads frame by choppy frame, super slow, including the audio "EA Games, ....". In order to correct it, it seems that I have to turn off the power to my power supply and wait about 5 minutes then boot again.

I have loaded up Everest Home Edition and the voltages it shows threw me off at first:

ACTUAL
3.3v 3.30v
+5v 5.54v
+12v 9.18v
-12v -8.79
-5v -4.74v

I thought this was the nail in the coffin, until I turned on my wife's pc which uses the same mobo, cpu, and ram but hers listed almost identical numbers (but her pc works fine).

SPECS - 2gb PC6400, Abit IP-35E, E2180 currently @ stock, 640mb 8800GTS, Aerocool 620w psupply

Are my presu

 

[daveybrat]

Sounds like the hard drive is starting to fail. When a hard drive develops bad sectors and windows spends too much time trying to access data from the drive, it gets extremely slow and/or errors. Then windows will usually drop the hard drive from DMA to PIO mode that is extremely slow write times and will make programs and games very choppy.

Test your hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility to see if it's bad and if it can be repaired.

 

[robisbell]

yes, your PSU is bad, your 12V is way under where it should be.

 

[O2Deprived]

I ran the diagnostic tools from Seagate last night and they all came back as PASSED.

I will be trying out with another power supply from a different pc and see if that helps later. Currently I am running memtest86 just to rule out anything with the ram.

Thanks for the input.

 

[O2Deprived]

According to the bios, the PSU seems to be ok with voltages being real close to where they should be. I swapped the power supply with another I had and got the same issues. I'm running Orthos (mix cpu & ram) for 38 minutes without an error.

I'm at a loss of what next to check.

 

[robisbell]

12v should be at or slightly above 12v, it's showing 9v, there's a problem with either PSU or the electrical wiring.

 

[O2Deprived]

In the bios it shows as 12. something, not the 9 that windows shows (Everest Home Edition), which also shows the same 9 reading on my wife's pc which is working fine. Are you sure it's still the power supply?

Also, I don't know if this helps, but when I finally got into the bios it was VERY slow, as in press a key and it takes a second or two for the cursor to move up/down.

 

[O2Deprived]

Would this be another clue to the culprit: When clicking on the start menu and mousing over items that had a "fly out menu" the menu would be pretty transparent for about a second or two before fully coming to regular view.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

+12v 9.18v
-12v -8.79

Outside of the 10% margin

Psu is the probable culprit. If not the entire issue, it is definately a portion of the problem

 

[O2Deprived]

I'm going to swap with another good PSU tonight and check that out.

Is there any chance that XP SP3 could be doing any of this? I just remembered this morning that I installed it "around" the time this started some time last week.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Its definately a possibility any time a major software change is made, however those voltages DO need taken care of

 

[O2Deprived]

Problem seems to be solved. I swapped CPUs with the wife's pc (both had same cpu and mobo) and now this pc is smooth while hers died in boot once and at windows desktop 2 times. Time to get a new processor and rma this one. I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade and I just found it.

Thanks for all the troubleshooting help.

 

[daveybrat]

Wow, that is very rare to have a bad cpu. Glad to hear you fixed it though.

 

[robisbell]

which could be damaged by a bad PSU.

 

[seemingly random]

The voltages reported by mb sensor chips are notoriously errnoneous.

A sampling:

Corsair 520hx + ga965: -12v = -16.8; +5v = 6.85
seasonic m600 + msi nforce4; +12v = 9.98
seasonic ss430 + asus nforce5; +5v = 0
corsair 520hx + asus nforce3; -12v = -16.97; -5v = -8.78; +3.3v = 0