BIOS boot delay

[Charles Howse]

Hello Group,
I have an old clone with a Celeron 300, and AMI BIOS.
When I enter BIOS Setup, it tells me:
AMIBIOS HIFLEX SETUP UTILITY - VERSION 1.20
I have an 8GB HDD as primary master,
a 2.1 GB HDD as secondary master,
and a CDROM as secondary slave.

During post, there is about a 30 second delay while the drives are detected.
The computer continues to load the OS (FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE-p4).
During device detection there is another 30 second delay after the
detection of the atapi controller.
All drives are detected properly, and I can read and write to them.

If I make the 2.1GB HDD the primary master and the 8GB HDD the secondary
master, there is no delay, either in post or during device detection while
loading the OS.

What might be the cause of this delay, and what can I do to avoid it?

TIA,
Charles

 

[Rod Speed]

I have an old clone with a Celeron 300, and AMI BIOS.
When I enter BIOS Setup, it tells me:
AMIBIOS HIFLEX SETUP UTILITY - VERSION 1.20
I have an 8GB HDD as primary master,
a 2.1 GB HDD as secondary master,
and a CDROM as secondary slave.

During post, there is about a 30 second delay while the drives are detected.

You can get quite noticeable pauses with some drive pairs
on a particular ribbon cable. Thats basically just because
a particular pair dont coexist that well on a single cable.

The computer continues to load the OS (FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE-p4).
During device detection there is another 30 second
delay after the detection of the atapi controller.

Likely its doing the drive presence check all over again.

All drives are detected properly, and I can read and write to them.

If I make the 2.1GB HDD the primary master and the
8GB HDD the secondary master, there is no delay, either
in post or during device detection while loading the OS.

Pretty good evidence that its the pairing of the 2GB
hard drive and the cdrom drive thats causing the delay.

What might be the cause of this delay,

See above.

and what can I do to avoid it?

Move the cdrom to primary slave.

 

[Charles Howse]

detected.

You can get quite noticeable pauses with some drive pairs
on a particular ribbon cable. Thats basically just because
a particular pair dont coexist that well on a single cable.


Likely its doing the drive presence check all over again.



Pretty good evidence that its the pairing of the 2GB
hard drive and the cdrom drive thats causing the delay.


See above.


Move the cdrom to primary slave.

Hi Rod,
Thanks for the reply.
I'll try your suggestion tomorrow morning and let you know how it works.

Just one question for my information now...Isn't it correct that moving the
CDROM to primary slave will slow down transfers from CD to primary master
device, because devices on the same IDE channel can't read and write to each
other at the same time?

Isn't that the reason that OEM's put the HDD on primary and CDROM on
secondary in single HDD systems?

 

[Rod Speed]

Hi Rod,
Thanks for the reply.
I'll try your suggestion tomorrow morning and let you know how it works.

Just one question for my information now...Isn't it correct that moving the
CDROM to primary slave will slow down transfers from CD to primary master
device, because devices on the same IDE channel can't read and write to each
other at the same time?

Its not that so much as the fact that head seeks are rather
slower on the cdrom drives and so they do tend to hold up
ops on the boot drive while they are happening.

But you dont normally copy all that much stuff
from the cdrom to the boot drive anyway, and
even with say major installs, the difference in
total time can be zero with the cdrom drive as
slave on the primary or on the secondary controller.

So its more theoretical than real in most real world situations.

Isn't that the reason that OEM's put the HDD on primary
and CDROM on secondary in single HDD systems?

Not really. In fact the cheapest systems often have them
on one ribbon cable just to save a cable. And most users
wouldnt be able to pick the difference in a double blind
trial when you add an extra ribbon cable in that config.

 

[Charles Howse]

Its not that so much as the fact that head seeks are rather
slower on the cdrom drives and so they do tend to hold up
ops on the boot drive while they are happening.

But you dont normally copy all that much stuff
from the cdrom to the boot drive anyway, and
even with say major installs, the difference in
total time can be zero with the cdrom drive as
slave on the primary or on the secondary controller.

So its more theoretical than real in most real world situations.


Not really. In fact the cheapest systems often have them
on one ribbon cable just to save a cable. And most users
wouldnt be able to pick the difference in a double blind
trial when you add an extra ribbon cable in that config.

Well, no joy.
First I disabled the CDROM in BIOS.
I told it there was nothing on the secondary slave, and changed the boot
order to exclude the CD.
Still had the delay.
Next, I unplugged the power and ribbon cables from the CD, still have the
delay.
I take that to mean that the delay is caused by the 8GB HDD.
For various reasons, I will not change the 2GB drive to PriMaster, I'll just
have to live with the delay unless we can figure it out.

Here are the details of each drive:
PriMaster - WDC WD84AA 8063MB UDMA33 (Note: *under* 8.4G)
SecMaster - Quantum Fireball EL2.5A 2445MB UDMA33
SecSlave - Matshita CR-588 PIO4

BIOS Details:
American Megatrends, Inc.
From Top Left of Screen - A6117MS V.1.8 082198
From Bottom Left of Screen:
61-0821-001169-00111111-071595-440LX-1440L000-H

BIOS Settings:
Auto Configuration with Optimal Settings
Change boot order to: CD, Floppy, IDE0

I have also Googled around a bit, and can't seem to find a site to download
a flash upgrade for AMI BIOS.
Do you have any info on that?

 

[Charles Howse]

moving to

Well, no joy.
First I disabled the CDROM in BIOS.
I told it there was nothing on the secondary slave, and changed the boot
order to exclude the CD.
Still had the delay.
Next, I unplugged the power and ribbon cables from the CD, still have the
delay.
I take that to mean that the delay is caused by the 8GB HDD.
For various reasons, I will not change the 2GB drive to PriMaster, I'll just
have to live with the delay unless we can figure it out.

Here are the details of each drive:
PriMaster - WDC WD84AA 8063MB UDMA33 (Note: *under* 8.4G)
SecMaster - Quantum Fireball EL2.5A 2445MB UDMA33
SecSlave - Matshita CR-588 PIO4

BIOS Details:
American Megatrends, Inc.
From Top Left of Screen - A6117MS V.1.8 082198
From Bottom Left of Screen:
61-0821-001169-00111111-071595-440LX-1440L000-H

BIOS Settings:
Auto Configuration with Optimal Settings
Change boot order to: CD, Floppy, IDE0

I have also Googled around a bit, and can't seem to find a site to download
a flash upgrade for AMI BIOS.
Do you have any info on that?

I had the drive jumpered for 'dual master' when it was the only drive on the
primary channel, and should have not been jumpered at all.
My bad, thanks for the conversation.

 

[Rod Speed]

I had the drive jumpered for 'dual master' when it was the only drive
on the primary channel, and should have not been jumpered at all.

Yeah, one of the real quirks of the WD drives.

With some motherboards/bios you dont even get to
see the drive at all when its not jumpered correctly.

My bad, thanks for the conversation.

No probs, thanks for posting the washup. Far too many dont bother.