Old homebuild waits 8 - 10 *minutes* before normal boot !

[DemoDisk]

Hello again after a long, long, time. This group helped me build my
present Celeron 400 system -- maybe you can help me repair it!

Not long ago, I upgraded from a 19" Hitachi CRT to a 19" Dell 1905fp
LCD. For a couple days, all's well. Then it wouldn't boot -- I thought.

Actually, it *does* boot, but you have to wait around 10 minutes before
the A:/ drive beeps, the C:/ drive spins up and the DOS routine shows on
the screen. Before that, only the case & PS fans and CDRW show it's
alive. I pulled all the cards and RAM one by one, and reseated them.
Replaced the mobo battery. Didn't help and I ain't got a clue.

The system is about 4 years old now. Could the new LCD monitor cause
this problem?

And now it looks like theYamaha 6416S CDRW is down. Either drive or the
Adaptec SCSI card for it has problems. Maybe I got too ambitious on my
first build.

Thanks, I'd appreciate you comments
JM (system specs below, HTH)

ABIT BM6 motherboard
256MB ram
20GB IBM HDD
3DFX 3500 AGP TV/FM video card
TB Quadzilla 2 soundcard
Yamaha 6216S SCSI CD-RW (never reliable)
Adaptec SCSI adapter
ASUS 40X CDROM
Windows 98SE

 

[DemoDisk]

I missed a bit....before doing the F8 sequence go into the RUN dialog and
type "msconfig" without quotes and tick the box that says "diagnostic start
up"

Thanks for such a quick answer, Ginchy. So that's what the step-by-step
option is good for. I was going to say that F8 and MSCONFIG weren't even
available until the problem "timed out," so to speak, but you mean when
it finally does boot. I'll try it out and see where it leads.

Kind of an odd thing -- it looks like I can reboot immediately after
shutting down thru Windows or holding in the Power button, but not if
the system's been off awhile. Guess that makes it a "cold boot" issue.

But it also took several minutes longer this morning to cold boot.

JM

 

[DemoDisk]

It could be anything even a failing power supply but sounds like hw.
Before you do that disconnect the A: drive or change the bios for no
floppy drives. If that doesn't do it do the same for the Yamaha CDRW or
the SCSI card. A loosely seated adapter could cause the same problems.
Definitly a problem log before you try to boot you OS.

Before I posted last night I had already studied the BIOS , but it's
mysterious even with the manual in front of me. The BIOS defaults to the
A, C, SCSI bootup sequence. Changing it to C, A, SCSI seems more
sensible, but didn't fix the problem.

I selected the default BIOS settings out of desperation, and there was
no change. Let's see if a second round will do...

Thanks, jaster
JM

 

[Ginchy]

Have you tried pressing F8 at boot up and then select option 4 I think it is
"step by step confirmation"

then press ENTER to everything excepy auto exec.bat and config.sys which you
press escape to.

This will either repair the fault or it may show you where the fault lies as
you load each driver one by one

 

[Ginchy]

I missed a bit....before doing the F8 sequence go into the RUN dialog and
type "msconfig" without quotes and tick the box that says "diagnostic start
up"

 

[jaster]

I missed a bit....before doing the F8 sequence go into the RUN dialog and
type "msconfig" without quotes and tick the box that says "diagnostic
start up"

It could be anything even a failing power supply but sounds like hw.
Before you do that disconnect the A: drive or change the bios for no
floppy drives. If that doesn't do it do the same for the Yamaha CDRW or
the SCSI card. A loosely seated adapter could cause the same problems.
Definitly a problem log before you try to boot you OS.

 

[David Maynard]

Hello again after a long, long, time. This group helped me build my
present Celeron 400 system -- maybe you can help me repair it!

Not long ago, I upgraded from a 19" Hitachi CRT to a 19" Dell 1905fp
LCD. For a couple days, all's well. Then it wouldn't boot -- I thought.

Actually, it *does* boot, but you have to wait around 10 minutes before
the A:/ drive beeps, the C:/ drive spins up and the DOS routine shows on
the screen. Before that, only the case & PS fans and CDRW show it's
alive. I pulled all the cards and RAM one by one, and reseated them.
Replaced the mobo battery. Didn't help and I ain't got a clue.

The system is about 4 years old now. Could the new LCD monitor cause
this problem?

Generally speaking it shouldn't but I notice that isn't just a monitor. It
has a USB hub in it. Have you tried unplugging the hub?

Also, do you have the add-on speakers? If so, try unplugging those too. (I
know this sounds strange but I've seen an amplified speaker set prevent
boot-up.)

And now it looks like theYamaha 6416S CDRW is down. Either drive or the
Adaptec SCSI card for it has problems. Maybe I got too ambitious on my
first build.

Sounds rather suspicious it decided to act up 'coincidentally' with the
other problem. Pull all the cards, except for AGP, and don't re-seat them.
See if it boots up bare bones and then put them back in one by one to see
which causes it to hang.

 

[Michael Hawes]

Generally speaking it shouldn't but I notice that isn't just a monitor. It
has a USB hub in it. Have you tried unplugging the hub?

Also, do you have the add-on speakers? If so, try unplugging those too. (I
know this sounds strange but I've seen an amplified speaker set prevent
boot-up.)


Sounds rather suspicious it decided to act up 'coincidentally' with the
other problem. Pull all the cards, except for AGP, and don't re-seat them.
See if it boots up bare bones and then put them back in one by one to see
which causes it to hang.

What happens if you boot from floppy? Could be HD slow to get upto
speed, 20GB must be pretty old!
Mike.