S-l-o-w bootup

[UnheardEcho]

Here is my problem from another board that never really got rectified:

In the past day or two my computer has gotten extremely slow at booting up. It went from seconds (30ish) to minutes and I think the problem is where windows begins to load, right after the DFI LanParty splash screen. After that, the screen goes black until the white bar at the bottom appears and takes a full minute or two to load, whereas it used to take no more than half a second. Windows also takes an inordinate amount of time to load. Any ideas as to why? I should mention that I haven't noticed any slowdown in actual computing or gaming once windows loads.

Here is the thread for your reviewing pleasure

 

[UnheardEcho]

bump

 

[airfoil]

Is your HDD activity continous from the beginning to the end of Windows being loaded up? I would install all the drivers that came with the board on the CD to exploit the full potential of yhe chipset.

Need information about type of HDD and other system specs, whether DMA is enbled in the BIOS & Device Manager, AntiVirus/Anti-Spyware installed etc.

 

[UnheardEcho]

Grisoft antivirus is installed and runs at the start of windows.
Single 200GB Hitachi Deskstar 7200/8
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1.5GB PC3200 Corsair Value RAM
DFI LANParty UT nF3 250GB
Windows IDE drivers because I was told by DFI support in the other forum that the NV ones are no good.

Now that you mention it, I think that there is continuous HDD activity like you said. Don't know what DMA is, no other antivirus/antispyware installed that runs at windows start, though there is also AdAware and Microsoft anti spyware

 

[UnheardEcho]

bump. . . need help!

 

[UnheardEcho]

After a BSOD while playing a relatively non-taxing game, I restart, leave for about 2 minutes to get some food, and the game has frozen. I turn it off at this point, go to a movie, come back and turn on and when I log into windows theres a nice message saying my registry had to be recovered using a backup file. I can only think that this might have been cause by my new RAM (Corsai ValueSelect 1 gig kit added to my identical 512 and I switched their order). I'm beginning to think a windows reinstall looks pretty good for fixing my registry, my crashes, and my uper slow bootup. Thoughts?

EDIT: Just got the second BSOD in the same game, it was BAD_POOL_ERROR I think. Same bs about the registry after restart as well. Would a windows reinstall fix these problems?

 

[Jiggz]

You need to review your Start Up Menu. You may have to trim it down to minimum if you want a faster boot up. Use MSconfig or other third party software to disable some Start Up programs. You might want to clean you registry also. Easy Cleaner works great and its free.

 

[sniperruff]

i bet it's one of your IDE drives messing it up. put them back at the old configuration, or try deleting the primary and secondary IDE channel in device manager.

 

[ionoxx]

I would try to load your computer with another HD. If it works out fine, you can then assume that the HD is a likely source as being the problem. BSODs are common with failing drives. DLLs get corrupted and other files get messed up and Boom! One day you have nothing. The fact that it boots up so slowly tells me that the corrupted sectors are mostly located where windows it, while its try to boot, the drive itself tries to read the data and s having a hell of a time.

If you have access to a copy of SpinRite, i would suggest you run it. That will tell you everything you need to know about your drive

 

[Ausm]

When is the last time you reinstalled your O.S?

Sounds like you possibly picked some spyware which is robbing you of your CPU cycles or it could be a corrupt driver especially if you hasve gone alooong time between reinstallations of your OS.

If you noticed this behavior just recently try these things:

1) Start---settings---accesories----system tools--- system restore. Try rolling back to the last sucessful save of your registry.

2) Start ---run---msconfig----startup----turn off the things that are not necessary for boot up. If you need help on this PM me and I can help you.

3)Reinstall your OS and completely format the hard drive.

4)Still runs slow then it is a hardware problem most likely.

Ausm

 

[UnheardEcho]

My startup Menu is empty as it usually is, and I keep tabs on msconfig and it's quite trim. I'll try easy cleaner and see if that helps any. If it still doesn't work then I guess I'll reinstall windows since it has never been done before (I only put the machine together right after X-mas).

Sniperruff: I have 3 each for primary and secondary IDE channels in device manager, which do I delete?

Ausm: Are you talking about the last tab in MSConfig, because that's the only one I play around with, any other tabs and I'll need your help.

ionoxx: Windows disk checking program show my drive as fine, when you refer to it as failing, do you mean physically, or would a good, full reformat and OS reinstall remedy it?

Thanks for the help so far guys.

 

[Ausm]

Yup just talking about the last tab

Ausm

 

[UnheardEcho]

Ok, I'm alright then. Had another BSOD, in the same game, Ill try some other games and hope they don't crash as well, because to me that would signal it isn't/isn't just the HDD that I'm having problems with.

 

[bigboxes]

Go Hitachi's website and download DFT (Drive Fitness Test) ---> burn to CD or floppy ---> set boot order (in BIOS) to start the media (with DFT) at bootup ---> run the test on your drive ---> See what (if any) error codes are posted ---> determine if you need to repair or format.

 

[UnheardEcho]

Will do, thanks

 

[UnheardEcho]

I am beginning to think that my HDD needs a good full format and OS reinstall in addition to 1 or both of my two new memory modules being faulty. I say this because I just tried playing teh Doom 3 Demo and very shortly into that I got a nice big BSOD. In the other game (Knight Online) it is not nearly as demanding on hardware so I am beginning to think it is the RAM for those reasons. I'm going to run memtest and if it doesn't turn anything up I'm going to remove the two new sticks and go back to the way I had it because none of this happened until I installed my new RAM

 

[UnheardEcho]

Just ran memtest and need help interpreting results. It ran for what I think was about 1 full loop of all the tests, and it came back with a whole bunch of stuff at the bottom, I'll post the pictures I took tomorrow. What I did see, though, was that for tests 5 and 7 there 372 and 371 errors, respectively. Is this normal, or bad? I've never used memtest before this and have no idea. All other tests had 0 errors.

 

[Googer]

I may have the solution for you if you are running the right version of windows; What version are you using?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: UnheardEcho
I am beginning to think that my HDD needs a good full format and OS reinstall in addition to 1 or both of my two new memory modules being faulty. I say this because I just tried playing teh Doom 3 Demo and very shortly into that I got a nice big BSOD. In the other game (Knight Online) it is not nearly as demanding on hardware so I am beginning to think it is the RAM for those reasons. I'm going to run memtest and if it doesn't turn anything up I'm going to remove the two new sticks and go back to the way I had it because none of this happened until I installed my new RAM

Sounds like a driver issue, one may have become corrupt. What does the screen say when it goes blue? With out knowing anything else i would download the appropriate driver removal utility from either ATI or nVIDIA's website, run the unistall removal tool then reboot the machine, install the newest driver and reboot again.

I highly doubt it, but IF you think it is the ram, I would eliminate the OS as a bottleneck posibilty for BSOD and Download the Ultimate Bood CD; It is independant of your HDD's OS and can test various parts of your machine including RAM, CPU, HDD, etc.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4019

 

[UnheardEcho]

I'll remove and reinstall my Video card drivers and see if it helps. I'm running XP Home with SP2. The blue screens have said at least 3 different errors, I'll start writing them down if they keep coming up.

 

[Net]

i would run a anti-virus program and adware. then for all the things you don't need I would remove or check not on start up or don't display in taskbar. Then I would defrag my hard drive. And for added speed overclock my memory.

 

[Net]

I just thought of some good programs to use besides adware, Hijack this, KazaaBeGone, CWShredder.

 

[hippotautamus]

I had a similar problem to yours, though I don't believe it was for the same reason.

I fried one of my HDDs (alcohol + computer=nono) and had to RMA it. While it was away, I installed my OS onto my secondary HDD. It booted ridiculously slowly, even for an old 5400 RPM HD.

When I got my 160 back, I plugged it in and even without doing anything to it, it booted faster.

As it turned out, I had the old one that I was booting from jumpered as slave w/ master present, so it was constantly looking for a master drive (which wasnt there). If you've changed your drive config lately, you may be having a similar problem.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: UnheardEcho
I'll remove and reinstall my Video card drivers and see if it helps. I'm running XP Home with SP2. The blue screens have said at least 3 different errors, I'll start writing them down if they keep coming up.

Windows XP makes you a perfect candidate for MS BootVIS. Download it and do a Driver Trace and optimization.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bootvis&btnG=Google+Search

 

[UnheardEcho]

Googer, could you possibly provide me with a quick walk-through of what to do in bootvis, I'm not really sure what to do. Also, does anyone know what to do with the Ultimate Boot CD files, I can't find an ISO image, and that's the only one that there aer tutorials for. Right now I just have a bunch of files that I don't know what to do with.