Dead time at boot up

[Matt]

Hi. P4-2800, 512 Ram, XP Sp2.

The machine is slow to boot. Done it all; virus scan, compact, spyware,
etc etc. All programs under msconfig-startup should be there, no extras.

At startup I go through a 'dead period.' Once I get to the windows
screen I pop up the system monitor and watch. Goes through a 1 minute
second period were there is seemingly no activity. About 0-2% CPU
activity but no disk accessing at all. It's like its lost for a while.
When it finally goes again it goes quickly as expected.

Any ideas as to how I can find out where this 'dead' time is coming from?

Matt

 

[db]

do you get dead time
in safemode too?

- db
Hi. P4-2800, 512 Ram, XP Sp2.

The machine is slow to boot. Done it all; virus scan, compact, spyware,
etc etc. All programs under msconfig-startup should be there, no extras.

At startup I go through a 'dead period.' Once I get to the windows
screen I pop up the system monitor and watch. Goes through a 1 minute
second period were there is seemingly no activity. About 0-2% CPU
activity but no disk accessing at all. It's like its lost for a while.
When it finally goes again it goes quickly as expected.

Any ideas as to how I can find out where this 'dead' time is coming from?

Matt

 

[nesredep egrob]

Hi. P4-2800, 512 Ram, XP Sp2.

The machine is slow to boot. Done it all; virus scan, compact, spyware,
etc etc. All programs under msconfig-startup should be there, no extras.

At startup I go through a 'dead period.' Once I get to the windows
screen I pop up the system monitor and watch. Goes through a 1 minute
second period were there is seemingly no activity. About 0-2% CPU
activity but no disk accessing at all. It's like its lost for a while.
When it finally goes again it goes quickly as expected.

Any ideas as to how I can find out where this 'dead' time is coming from?

Matt

As I remember there is a facility to make 'silent boot' in BIOS. Undo that and
you will see what happens, like testing memory and so forth. It will keep you
amused and certainly as I have a sus motherboard, I like to see if memory
testing does occur, if not I have to restart.

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[Matt]

No, I don't. What should that tell me?

 

[db]

well, it's hard to say
from my end what exactly
you need to do for your particular
system.

basically, you need to figure out
what are the differences between
your safe mode and your normal mode
and eliminate the problem that shows
up in your normal mode.

in your research, you will find that
safemode does not load up your startups
indicated in the msconfig.

in safemode, only "first party" drivers
are loaded.

However, there are other differences
between the two modes. But the primaries
ones are mentioned above.

my guess is that there is either a startup
in the msconfig that is not working as
well as it should be

or

there is a third party driver(s) being loaded
that is/are not compatiable with your normal
operational mode of the o.s.

a suggestion would be to go back
into safemode, run msconfig and
temporarily disable "all" your startups then
reboot into normal mode.


- db

No, I don't. What should that tell me?

 

[Matt]

Some news. I turned on everything in startup then watched the processes
during bootup with the perf monitor. More orderly startup shows that
first NTPROTECT.exe fires then the system goes to 0% CPU for about 35
seconds. Then wuaudt.exe fires and the system goes into that same state
for about 40 seconds. Not sure what these two programs do but they seem
to get lost doing it.