Slow boot, intermittent

[DrZDO]

For as long as I can remember, about 1/3 of the time I start this machine, it will hang up on the blackish Windows load screen for 3-5 minutes (Obviously very annoying).

I just tried moving the optical drive jumpers both to cable select from master/slave (each is on its own cable) to no avail. I've heard SATA can also cause problems like this, but what do you think it is, and what can be done to fix it?

It's very weird (to me) that it doesn't happen every time, and it seems completely random.

Windows XP Pro SP2
Asus A8NE FM/S, 3200+
Maxtor Diamondmax 10 SATA hd,
Sony DVD,
Sony DVDRW,
eVGA 7800GT,
2x512 Value ram, dual channel

Thanks.

 

[wpshooter]

If I understand what you are saying and the optical drives are IDE drives, I would put the DVD-RW on the primary IDE channel as MASTER, I would put the DVD on the secondary IDE channel as MASTER. And it has been a while since I installed a SATA hard drive but make sure the jumper, if any, is set correctly on it.

Also, when you are booting the machine, are there any media/CDs in the optical drives, if so, try taking the media out of the drives before you shutdown the computer and have NO media in the drives when the machine is booting, either restart or cold start.

Good luck.

 

[DrZDO]

Update for anyone searching w/similar problem: I remembered that the problem started when I downloaded & installed all the NF4 drivers. Since a lot of people have probs with the IDE-SW drivers, I switched back to the Windows IDE drivers, and also uninstalled the Network Access Manager/Firewall.

It hasn't hung up again yet, after about 10 boots. If it reoccurs, I'll report.