Help? Really slow bootup - a lot of HDD activity before WinXP is usable...

[William Cheng]

Hi all,

I've been noticing a problem get progressively worst - the time after bootup
which I can start using WinXP. The actual boot up is not that bad, and I
get my desktop quite quickly, however, the HDD activity light is going like
crazy, and I can hear my HDD working overtime for a while before I can
actually use WinXP. I have checked all the usual suspects like
Spy/Ad/wares, or virus and I perform regular mantenances such as disk
defrags on my HDDs. The most noticable jump in time to wait came when I
switched my system HDD to a secondary VIA RAID controller (which isn't being
used as a RAID) - to use my Intel ICH5 controller to control my ATAPI
optical drives (which my VIA controller doesn't support). This was
unfortunately the only way I can get all 3 of my optical drives running at
the same time. I checked that the VIA controller is transferring in UDMA5.
Once everything is running, everything seems fine - just the bootup time.

I am still on WinXP SP1a and my system specs are:

Intel P4 2.4Ghz HT enabled
Asus P4P800 Deluxe (w/2x 512Mb dual channel =1Gb)
Intel IDE:
Primary: Sony DVD-RW (DRU-530A) -master
Secondary: LiteOn CD-RW -master
Secondary: Pioneer DVD-A05 -slave
VIA IDE:
Primary: WD 120Gb (System) -master
Primary: WD 120Gb -slave
Secondary: Quantum 6.4Gb -master
SCSI:
IBM 4Gb HDD
Iomega ZIP removeable
SyQuest 200Mb removeable
ATI Radeon 9000
ATI TV-Wonder

p.s. I heard something a while back that the VIA controller might be the
cause?
Thanks,
Wm

 

[Guest]

Hey there William,

are these serial ata drives? if so, I found a forum thread discussing it at
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid=20&threadid=61287&enterthread=y

I know that VIA has had some issues with these controllers as of late. you
might want to try updating the drivers to see what happens. You can get the
latest drivers here.

http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2

 

[William Cheng]

Thanks,

No they are not SATA drives, just EIDE ones. Although I've been thinking
about adding a SATA which I would make the system drive - but not yet.

I will download the newer VIA drivers and see if they do anything.

Thanks,
Wm

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem with my computer, the HD grinded constantly and slowed
down my computer to the point of total frustration. Tried 4 different
AdWare/Spyware programs which found many suspicious files, but nothing fixed
the problem. Finally found out I had Virtumonde malware which "reruns" files
at start up over and over, so the computer is constantly looking to run these
programs (which really don't exist). Check out this link

www.computerforums.org/showthread.php?t-4214

and see reply #14 regarding HijackThis and Killbox. Follow directions (quite
simple - I am not real computer savvy and was able to do it) and you'll be
amazed.

This totally cured my problem.

Pat

 

[William Cheng]

Thanks FFP,

I tried the link, but it returns a "No thread specified. If you followed a
valid link, please notify the webmaster"
Could you check that link again for me please?

Thanks,
Wm

 

[Guest]

William, I sent you an e-mail to go to www.bleepingcomputer.com and search
the message boards for HijackThis. Let me know how you make out.
Pat

 

[William Cheng]

Thanks FFP,

I tried the link, but it returns a "No thread specified. If you followed a
valid link, please notify the webmaster"
Could you check that link again for me please?

Thanks,
Wm

 

[Guest]

Hey William,

Can I get the Model of the ATA Controller card that your running?

 

[Guest]

Sorry, try this
www.computerforums.org/showthread.php?t=4214

Pat

 

[William Cheng]

Yep, its onboard my Asus P4P800 motherboard, its a VIA VT6410 IDE RAID
controller.
I downloaded the newer drivers, but have yet to install them.

 

[William Cheng]

Are you sure this is the thread you want me to look at? It mentions a
Del-456 virus and hostx.exe problems, which doesn't seem to affect me - nor
do they discribe a slow bootup.

 

[William Cheng]

I've installed the latest drivers - but still no improvement.

 

[William Cheng]

Its taking me around 1minute 10seconds to load WinXP to get a desktop

But when I get the desktop - the HDD grinds on for another minute before I
can really use WinXP

So total time is around 2:10 or 2:20 for boot up (how does this fair - my
laptop certainly boots up and is usable in 40-50sec)

 

[Guest]

Hey there William,

Why don't we try this? Go to Start, Right Click on the my computer icon,
and left click on properties. Click on the hardware tab and then click the
device manager button. Then click on the plus sign next to IDE/ATA Atapi
Devices, the right click on each of the IDE Controllers and left click on
properties. Select the Advanced Settings tab and change the Transfer Mode
Settings to "DMA if available" and reboot. See if this takes care of any of
the performance issues.

 

[William Cheng]

My HDD are using UDMA5 on the VIA controller, while my Intel controllers are
using UDMA-2 (the best that my optical drives can do. I don't think the
transfer rate is the issue here.