A7N8X Deluxe - Painfully slow hand-over from Bios to XP

D

Derek.2

I've recently put together a new system based around a A7N8X Deluxe (rev. 2)
board and Windows XP.

After about a week of working perfectly, the system now takes about two to
three minutes to start or reboot. It makes no difference if it's a warm boot
or a cold boot! The system get as far as Betty Bios telling me that the
"system is now booting from operating system" then it hangs for over two
minutes before XP eventually starts. Because it hangs on the hand-over from
the Bios to the Operating System, I don't know which one is to blaim?
Otherwise it still works fine. A stripey b&w line appears at the very bottom
of the screen just before the OS takes over.

Other specs are:

Hitachi S-ATA Hard Drive (installed using beta Silicon Image drivers)
XP2800 Barton / Two sticks of Crucial PC2700
Antec Sonata Case (using the fan control which slows the case fan)
Mobo Bios updated to rev. C1007
CD/RW on the Primary IDE (set Master) / DVD on the Secondary IDE (set
Master)
GF4 ti 4200
Logitech mx700 USB mouse / MS keyboard
Windows XP SP1 plus all updates

I've tried using System Restore ...no luck
Uninstalling and reinstalling my mobo drivers ...no luck
Rebooting with the case door off ...no luck
Putting the Bios settings back to the default ...no luck
Booting from the XP disk and repairing my XP installation ...still no luck

Any ideas would be great?? ...Derek
 
S

SexyBeast

1) if you use a command prompt from winxp

start -> run -> cmd <enter>

type msconfig <enter>

check the delay in tab BOOT.INI

2) properties for my computer or system from control panel
Tab Advanced
Tab Startup and Recovery
see time settings

Sexy
 
D

Derek.2

The timeout in BOOT.INF is 3 secs. When I select "Check all boot paths" it
tells me that all boot lines are okay.

The time settings listed under Startup and Recovery are 3 and 10 seconds.
I've tried lowering both but I still have the same slow startup prob :-(

....Derek
 
P

Patrick Phillips

The timeout in BOOT.INF is 3 secs. When I select "Check all boot paths" it
tells me that all boot lines are okay.

The time settings listed under Startup and Recovery are 3 and 10 seconds.
I've tried lowering both but I still have the same slow startup prob :-(

...Derek
Hi, do you have a unassigned network card installed? A common cause of hang
at boot or stalling such as you've described is Windows search for a DHCP
server. Assigning a static IP address to the network card will stop that
search and should result in shorter boot times and should eliminate the
stalls.

Try assigning your network card a static IP address.
- Right click Network Neighborhood and click Properties or go into Control
Panel and open Network
- Double click the TCP/IP --> Ethernet network card line to open its TCP/IP
properties
- Click the IP Address tab
- Click on Specify an IP Address and enter 192.168.0.1 and 255.255.255.0
for the IP Address and Subnet Mask, respectively
- OK your way out and reboot
- If you have a problem you can reverse the process by going back into
TCP/IP Properties and selecting Obtain an IP Address Automatically

This assumes you don't have a local area network. If you do have a local
area network you need to choose an IP address consistent with your network
setup.
 
D

Derek.2

I tried assigning IP addresses to the 3com controller and the Nvidia
networking controller. Had to change the address you gave me slightly for
the second controller.

Start up time is still very slow. XP gives me a warning about both these
controllers that a "network cable is unplugged". I don't want to plug in a
network cable so I tried disabling both these controllers using the device
manager however the slow startup problem persists.

I do think I'm heading in the right direction however! Thanks for the lead.

Derek
 
J

Jim

You might try turning off in the bios any hard drive controllers that dont
have drives on them.


Derek.2 said:
I tried assigning IP addresses to the 3com controller and the Nvidia
networking controller. Had to change the address you gave me slightly for
the second controller.

Start up time is still very slow. XP gives me a warning about both these
controllers that a "network cable is unplugged". I don't want to plug in a
network cable so I tried disabling both these controllers using the device
manager however the slow startup problem persists.

I do think I'm heading in the right direction however! Thanks for the lead.

Derek


paths"
 
P

Patrick Phillips

Start up time is still very slow. XP gives me a warning about both these
controllers that a "network cable is unplugged". I don't want to plug in a
network cable so I tried disabling both these controllers using the device
manager however the slow startup problem persists.
Hi, Press delete key during boot, then look in BIOS setup for the disable
onboard network controller option.
 
D

Derek.2

Woo hoo! ...My start-up time is back to normal. The only problem is I'm not
exactly sure what the cure was?

I left the two troublesome network controllers disabled using the Device
Manager then re-downloaded all the critical updates for XP. Previously I
still had the start-up problem under both these conditions, so I wasn't
expecting anything different.

However when I started up the next day, the start-up time was back to
normal. My firewall also informed me that my Cable ISP had assigned me a new
IP address. The Cable Modem is connected through a USB cable but also shows
up under network adapters. I wonder if the problem could have been something
to do with my Cable Modem connection not responding correctly or quickly
enough when I started up?

thanks for all the help ...Derek
 
P

Patrick Phillips

However when I started up the next day, the start-up time was back to
normal. My firewall also informed me that my Cable ISP had assigned me a new
IP address. The Cable Modem is connected through a USB cable but also shows
up under network adapters. I wonder if the problem could have been something
to do with my Cable Modem connection not responding correctly or quickly
enough when I started up?

thanks for all the help ...Derek
Hi, hard to say for sure which was the problem...but congratulations!
 
K

Keith Polivka-Rohrer

Derek.2 said:
Woo hoo! ...My start-up time is back to normal. The only problem is I'm not
exactly sure what the cure was?

I left the two troublesome network controllers disabled using the Device
Manager then re-downloaded all the critical updates for XP. Previously I
still had the start-up problem under both these conditions, so I wasn't
expecting anything different.

However when I started up the next day, the start-up time was back to
normal. My firewall also informed me that my Cable ISP had assigned me a new
IP address. The Cable Modem is connected through a USB cable but also shows
up under network adapters. I wonder if the problem could have been something
to do with my Cable Modem connection not responding correctly or quickly
enough when I started up?

It could've been your firewall was being slow to give your PC a network
address. We're just surprised you're using USB rather than ethernet to
talk to it...

Keith
 

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