very slow start-up screen (picture included)

[Jenova314]

i've had this installation of winxp pro on my laptop for about a month now. one day, i whipped it out in class as usual wanting to take notes, only to realize that it kept staying on this screen for literally like 2-3 minutes before it moved onto other stuff like "applying your personal settings" or something like that. i don't remember having changed anything.

here's what i've tried so far... since i'm guessing that had something to do with my logon procedure, i uninstalled my network drivers, rebooted (same hangup) and then had windows reinstall them. didn't work.

i used system restore to restore it to a date when this wasn't happening, didn't work.

i had a backup image using norton ghost (this should be a perfect image) from about 2-3 weeks ago when this wasn't happening. still the same problem.

at this point i concluded it probably isn't a software problem. i looked in my bios (even though i didn't change anything). enabled 32-bit transfers for my HD controller. still didn't help.

so now i'm out of ideas... anybody have suggestions?

 

[Lord Evermore]

What about performance after you've logged in? What kind of system is it? If it's a P4 and the fan failed then it may not be running at full speed. Does the POST screen show everything as it should be? Do you have the software installed for SpeedStep so you can check the speed?

 

[Jenova314]

it's a desktop CPU in a laptop... P4 2.8Ghz. POST is fine, fan is running.

one thing though... i've been carrying around portable speakers in my laptop bag as well... i'm thinking maybe the magnets in there have corrupted some data on the hard disk, but shouldn't this have been fixed with the image restore using Norton Ghost? maybe the MBT needs to be rewritten, but forgot how to do that.

Edit: oh and performance is fine after getting past that part

 

[dawks]

Where is the domain controller located in relation to the laptop when trying to log in?

 

[Jenova314]

Originally posted by: DaZ
Where is the domain controller located in relation to the laptop when trying to log in?

it's on the local network, everything's hooked up... again, i've done nothing differently as far as the network configs, etc. go.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I don't think your speaker magnets would be powerful enough to cause such damage, especially such selective damage. The master boot record being corrupted would also prevent it from even booting at all.

Assuming you can either boot from CD or have a floppy that will allow you to restore the Ghost image from a CD, you could use a manufacturer's diagnostic utility to write all zeroes to the drive just to be sure the the drive is good and that there's nothing corrupted left on it.

You might also be able to figure out what's taking so long by using Microsoft's boot speedup program. Search for "bootvis" on their site. It tracks everything that loads during the bootup, in order to rearrange data for faster boots, but it can also show you exactly how long different things take to load, and should show you one or more items taking an enormous amount of time.

I can't remember if WinXP has an option to log a bootup like Win9x does, but if it does, that should have timestamps for everything during the bootup as well so you could look at that.

 

[Jenova314]

perhaps you're right about the speakers.. i did try bootvis. an image called "mrxsmb.sys" was taking an awfully long time.i tried copying that file from my desktop to my notebook in case it was corrupt, but that didn't do much..

i'm not too sure about the manufacturer's diagnostic tool, i did try the surface scan during bootup via chkdsk, but it didn't solve the hangup after it was done.

 

[Jenova314]

another thing i've noticed that may help you guys troubleshoot this....

once i get past the first logon procedure... if i log off (without restarting or shutting down), and log back in, then it's as fast as it was before all this started happening; almost instantaneous.

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: Jenova314
another thing i've noticed that may help you guys troubleshoot this....

once i get past the first logon procedure... if i log off (without restarting or shutting down), and log back in, then it's as fast as it was before all this started happening; almost instantaneous.

Which again would point towards the domain controller, since your logon info is cached, so the second logon would be much faster...

 

[Jenova314]

see if you find this strange as well....

if i plug in my wireless card (yea we have a wireless hub), logon time is back to normal, even with the cat5 wire hooked in. i'm guessing the wireless works faster than cat5 at logging on for some reason....

 

[Jenova314]

Originally posted by: Jenova314
see if you find this strange as well....

if i plug in my wireless card (yea we have a wireless hub), logon time is back to normal, even with the cat5 wire hooked in. i'm guessing the wireless works faster than cat5 at logging on for some reason....

scratch that, it was just a lucky draw that time...

 

[toant103]

try logging on without using the domain. Unplug the network cable.

 

[Intelman07]

It does take a long time to log into a domain. I have the same prob. There was a tweak but I couldn't get it to work and i forget where it is.

ITS NORMAL

 

[Jenova314]

Originally posted by: Intelman07
It does take a long time to log into a domain. I have the same prob. There was a tweak but I couldn't get it to work and i forget where it is.

ITS NORMAL

that's not necessarily true though. i have no problem doing the same thing with my desktop, (right next to my laptop), with the same configuration.

and would it be a lot of trouble for you to find out where that tweak is? or what it's called? or how i might find it, etc?

try logging on without using the domain. Unplug the network cable.

when i logon as administrator onto the system (not onto the domain, then it is instantaneous.

Edit: however, when i logged OFF from the admin account just now, it took just as long as logging onto the domain... strange?

2nd Edit: and after THAT, logging onto the domain was instantaneous! doubly strange! it's almost as if every reboot/startup i need to go through one "hang" before things run smoothly.

 

[Intelman07]

First of all what is the domain controller running if it is 2000 or 2003 (.NET) it seems more of these long logins accour with those. (research brought it up) tweakxp.com is where I found the tweak.

 

[Jenova314]

the server is running W2K Advanced Server....

the thing is... the laptop should be able to log into the OS even w/o the domain controller hooked up, it just won't gain the domain resources. this is the case because i bring my laptop to school as well and i don't change the network settings... i just logon as if i was still on the domain, and it did it fine for a long time. once i pulled it out in class and it refused for the first time to load quickly.

tweakxp.com is where I found the tweak.

thanks i'm gonna look into that right now

 

[TonyRic]

Sounds (potentially) like a DHCP problem or DNS. When you are finally logged in, do you have full network access? DHCP timeouts are 60-120 seconds and this would be in your time frame that you stated. Also, make sure if you are static (or DHCP for that matter) that ALL DNS settings are correct.

 

[Jenova314]

Originally posted by: TonyRic
Sounds (potentially) like a DHCP problem or DNS. When you are finally logged in, do you have full network access? DHCP timeouts are 60-120 seconds and this would be in your time frame that you stated. Also, make sure if you are static (or DHCP for that matter) that ALL DNS settings are correct.

i checked it, and had my brother (he's the one running the server) check it. no problem. the thing is, i didn't change any of the network settings before it started doing this. and yes, we are using dhcp.