Weird problem... 20 minutes to boot

[professorbooty]

so yesterday my computer shut off when my girlfriend accidently bumped it (not hard at all), and when i tried to turn it on, it only displayed the clock speed, which is underclocked, and wouldn't even get to the IDE test. this morning i tried again and just let it go, and after about 5-6 minutes, it did the IDE test and went to my boot selector, where i picked windows XP and then it takes about 10-15 minutes for windows to actually load up the loading screen for windows. it does the same for linux, so it's not the OS. I've tried unplugging everything but the main drive, taking out sticks of ram, resetting bios, etc... it actually won't even save any bios changes i make.

once it boots up it seems to be fine (i'm typing this message on it right now), except for the underclocked processor.

any ideas would be awesome, i'm kind of lost.

 

[mechBgon]

Could you fill in the following hypothetical template with your info as far as practical:

• Power supply Antec TruePower 430
• Motherboard Asus K8N-E Deluxe
  • Revision 1.03
  • BIOS 1005
• CPU Athlon64 3000+
  • Core 130nm Clawhammer
• Memory (2) 512MB Corsair XMS 3200C2 modules
  • Voltage Manually set to 2.7 volts
  • Timings AUTO, results in 2-3-2-6 @ 200MHz
• Primary video card ATI Radeon 9800Pro AGP 8x
• PCI slot #1 (top) empty
• PCI slot #2 empty
• PCI slot #3 LeadTek Winfast TV/FM tuner card
• PCI slot #4 Creative Audigy 2 ZS
• PCI slot #5 LSI Logic Ultra160 SCSI
• PCI slot #6 (board only has five PCI slots)
• Boot drive 160GB Seagate 7200.7
  • Interface Serial ATA
  • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 SATA controller
  • Jumper setting not applicable (SATA)
• Additional hard drive 40GB Seagate 7200.7
  • Interface Parallel ATA
  • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, primary channel
  • Jumper setting Master
• Additional hard drive 18GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.3
  • Interface SCSI
  • Controller hosting this drive LSI Logic U160 card
  • Jumper setting SCSI ID 01
• Optical drive #1 NEC 3500A DVD burner
  • Interface Parallel ATA
  • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, secondary channel
  • Jumper setting Master
• Optical drive #2 Lite-On combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW
  • Interface Parallel ATA
  • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, secondary channel
  • Jumper setting Slave

The devil's in the details sometimes...

 

[professorbooty]

Motherboard - MSI K7N2 Delta-L
CPU - AthlonXp 2500+
Ram - 2x256, 1 is "ValuRam" or something, can't remember the other
PSU - Antec 350watt
Video - Radeon 8500LE
Harddrive - 2x80gb WD IDE
Optical - 52x Lite-on
All PCI's are empty
Sound - USB Extigy

This config has been working since march, just did this yesterday.

 

[mechBgon]

I've tried unplugging everything but the main drive

Be aware of this quirk of WD drives: if they are the only drive on a cable, they will expect to be jumpered to their Single Drive mode and not Master, Slave or Cable Select. The symptoms of a single WD on a cable jumpered as anything other than Single Drive is... (drum roll) ...slow boot, non-detection of the drive, or complete POST hang.

So maybe do that same test but with the drive set to Single Drive (jumper cap removed entirely). If it works normally now, then perhaps its companion died when the system was bumped, leaving the boot drive as the only (functioning) drive on the cable, and thus the slow POST, etc.

 

[professorbooty]

the second drive works just fine right now, when i'm in windows. i don't think there's anything wrong with it.

i should probably mention that if i hit the computer really hard sometimes it would post normally, but windows would still load slow, which makes me think maybe there's a loose connection in the power supply or motherboard (more likely, i think).

 

[mechBgon]

You can run WD diagnostics on the drives: link to Data Lifeguard download page. BTW, I wouldn't recommend any more "percussive maintenance," since physical shock can damage the hard drives

 

[professorbooty]

the harddrives check out fine. I can boot with the second one plugged in, it again just takes about 20 minutes, same as without.

 

[ZYFER]

to try and rule everything out, I am sure you have extra IDE cables around, try replacing them to verify their workability, I have had IDE cables just quit working properly for no reason, the bump and sudden cut of power could have affected so many things, if possible lets take it one at a time

 

[professorbooty]

well i'm in my dorm right now with no spare ide cables around, but i'm going home thursday, so if i can't figure it out by then, i'll check that out. thanks for the advice.

let me be clear, though, the problem is there whether or not 1, 2 or 0 drives are connected.