extreme slow startup of Windows XP

[rpmi]

System configuration: ECS K7S5A mobo; 256 Mb DDR Ram (266) PC2100; Athlon
1400+; Windows XP Home.

I bought 256 Mb DDR Ram (26, PC2100) extra to increase internal memory but
during booting I got an error message: Secondaire slave drive Atapi
incompatible. This happened to be my CD-burner (never gave any problems
before). In the BIOS I changed the setting of the sec. slave to "not
installed" and booted again. Apparently the memory is recognized because on
the screen it says 512 Mb RAM. This time the Windows startup screens came up
and stayed there, with only the moving green lights, for 2 (!!) minutes.
Then the 3 little lights on my keyboard flashed once and 10 - 20 seconds
later I was able to logon.
I removed the newly bought memory but Windows still starts up with a delay
of 2 minutes. My burner is still not recognized ...
Does anyone recognize this problem? Does anyone know what can be done to get
my Windows to start up in a normal way?
I hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance,
Rene

 

[Jerry G.]

Make sure that your new RAM's were exactly matched. This is important.

Disconnect your machine from any network connections and see if it still has
any start-up problems.

Make sure that the power management is turned off.

Make sure that the virtual cache is properly set up for the amount of RAM in
the machine.

Make sure that there is adequate disk space for the virtual cache size.

These are the first very basic steps to start with.

You may have to run the fix for the operating system, in case any of the
files are corrupt.

--

Jerry G.
======


System configuration: ECS K7S5A mobo; 256 Mb DDR Ram (266) PC2100; Athlon
1400+; Windows XP Home.

I bought 256 Mb DDR Ram (26, PC2100) extra to increase internal memory but
during booting I got an error message: Secondaire slave drive Atapi
incompatible. This happened to be my CD-burner (never gave any problems
before). In the BIOS I changed the setting of the sec. slave to "not
installed" and booted again. Apparently the memory is recognized because on
the screen it says 512 Mb RAM. This time the Windows startup screens came up
and stayed there, with only the moving green lights, for 2 (!!) minutes.
Then the 3 little lights on my keyboard flashed once and 10 - 20 seconds
later I was able to logon.
I removed the newly bought memory but Windows still starts up with a delay
of 2 minutes. My burner is still not recognized ...
Does anyone recognize this problem? Does anyone know what can be done to get
my Windows to start up in a normal way?
I hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance,
Rene

 

[rpmi]

Thanks for the answers! It turned out the all misery was caused by the newly
bought memory. I now removed this memory and all (well, almost all) problems
are over!

Thanks again
Rene