Have you tried re-setting the BIOS to see if that helps? If something in there went strange, it could be hanging while attempting to access some device. (Hard drive / CD Drive)
Best Regards
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Question
Why is boot up taking 6 minutes
I would be very grateful if someone could help with the following problem.
My recently purchased PC worked fine until a few days ago, but after being switched off by a local power failure it now takes about six minutes to boot up.
It auto detects the hard drive ok and both cd rom devices.
It reports Ultra DMA mode5, S.M.A.R.T capable but disabled.
Next it gives info on the sec master and sec slave
Then does nothing for 4.5 minutes, there is no hard drive activity obvious.
Eventually it bleeps and proceeds to boot up taking in total 6 minutes.
The system is AMD Athalon 64 3200+
200 gig HD
1gig ram
American Megatrends bios A6741 VMS V1.0B7 090303
Release 1/02/04
Motherboard Micro Star PT-2200
Thanks …Dave
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Answers
NOTE: Check your warranty before you open the case and start pulling cards, that will void it in a "flash". If it's new, why not drop it back in the lap of where you bought it? (Just don't tell them about the power failure.)
If you think its non-essential card prob's, run a safe boot on the OS and see what happens. This prevents the drivers from loading that may be causing the conflict.
Micro Star (MSI) does not have a Socket 754 mobo with the designation PT-2200? Would help if I could look up the Bios config on your mobo. Posting what OS your using would help too.
__________________________
What do the last couple of lines of text say (after the Hard drive recognition) on your boot screen.
Do you get the single "beep" that starts the OS boot?
Does it go to a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the uppr left corner, when it stops, or, does it keep showing the hard drive detection screen?
__________________________
If SIRBOUNTY'S memory check didn't fix it, try this:
Check the boot sequence in your bios. Make it:
1st boot = IDE0
2nd boot = none
3rd boot = none
(NOTE: WRITE DOWN WHAT IT IS SET TO NOW BEFORE CHANGING, SO YOU CAN PUT IT BACK)
Run that and see what happens. This should isolate any prob's with CD rom or floppys.
__________________________
Get some spyware software and run it (all free):
1. SpyBot
2. CWShredder
3. HijackThis
You may have something booting that's trying to navigate around virus protection.
Good Luck
DDR Dan
Hi Guys , thanks for all the advice.
So far I have used scandisk….. all is ok
I have enabled S.M.A.R.T.
I have reset the bios ( if that means re saving the settings)
The last two lines when it hangs are:
Sec Master 106-nec dvd_rw
Sec Slave ; ver7.5 ide dvd rom drive 16x
Then we get the long wait…..no flashing cursor. drive detection screen still showing
Single bleep and boots to Win XP sp1
Even this stage seems to take a long time.
It is under warranty but from a distant mail order company and their help line is £1 uk pounds per min so that will be a last resort.
At the start of POST it reports checking NV ram 1048576kb ok.
I’ll start running spyware etc when I get a chance.
Regards Dave.
Actually resetting the BIOS is not just saving the settings. What needs to be done (again keeping ddrdan advice in mind about voiding warrenty) you need to open the case of the computer, and there should be a jumper for re-setting the BIOS. (Motherboard manual should have this information) If you can't find it, you should be a battery on the motherboard somewhere, and remove the battery, unplug the computer, and wait a while. (sometimes only takes a minute, but I have heard people say 1 hour) I would suggest 15-20 minutes. Put the battery back in, and plug compter back in. You may get some error about settings, and may have to go into the BIOS and check your settings. I would also do as ddrdam suggested about setting your boot order to IDE0 being the only thing, just to see what happens. (Some BIOS's may not say IDE0, but C Only, but basically same thing)
Good Luck!
I can't say as I have ever seen a power failure do it myself, but stranger things have happened. Is there by any chance a disk in the CD drive when you are booting? I've set many up to boot from CD first, and they don't USUALLY hang at that point, unless there is a disk in the drive that it may be trying to boot from.
Best Regards
I'm guessing your have WinXP, so you could also defragment the hard drive then take a loo...ng coffee or tea break, eat some scones! Well, I'm saying that your hard drive files might need to be straighten out with a defrag. I know that if the boot files are not in the right order, then WinXP might have a difficult time finding those files and giving you a longer boot time. Well the last thing you could do is re-install Windows if all else fails.
I read about how the POST checks out good with no trouble, if thats correct. So, if the POST is working, then probably some of your WinXP files are jumbled up like the Master Boot Record. I would at least try to defrag your HD first before anything else.
Changing the boot device produced no improvement.
Hard drive defrag carried out........still no better.
System restore to earlier date ....no change.
I've run adware for spy ware and cleaned up the registry with system mechanic but I,m sure the problem is before it looks at the O/S.
I am back to thinking it is a memory problem,as I have noticed that it does not always show checking NV ram 1048576kb ok.
Sometimes it just says checking NV ram .....
However boot up time is the same as when it says ok.
More memory testing on Saturday when my son ( A software project manager) come up from London.
Thans once again for trying to help.
Rgards Dave.
Today we have success very quickly, we went into set up and changed the bootup options to ;
IDE-0
None
None
And this time set ‘Try other devices’ to NO instead of leaving it alone at YES.
After saving these settings it booted up in about 30 seconds J
Next we put it back to
DVD
Floppy
IDE-0
Try other devices YES
And guess what …. It still works ok, so we have fixed it but it is not really clear what the problem was.
Thank you for the suggestions that you all made, they were very useful and I feel I know my PC a little better now. I am attempting to increase the points and to split them. 4 ways……….I hope it works.
Regards to all and thanks Dave
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by: sirbountyPosted on 2004-05-27 at 04:09:28ID: 11170136
Dave, first things I'd suggest would be to run a full disk scan on the drive(s).
Right-click the drive and choose properties - Scandisk is on the Tools tab (some OS's allow you to run CHKDSK from a command line - don't know your OS though)....
Now, with SMART enabled, you may be able to get a reading on any impending failure of the drive. You might try enabling it in your BIOS, since the drive(s) are SMART-capable. (Consider this an early-warning feature).
So, all this is before it enters Windows (or other OS)?
You might also try testing your memory and/or removing non-essential components (sound card, modem, NIC, etc) from your system....
Memory tests:
Memory Diagnostics: http://www.memtest86.com/
MemMXtest: http://panic.et.tudelft.nl
PC Bug Doctor: http://www.pcbugdoctor.com
PC Doctor OnCall: http://www.pcdoctoroncall2
Simmtester/DocMemory: http://www.simmtester.com/