Windows loads slow

[bugmenot]

Hello
My little bro got my old computer from a year ago fixed up for him (new motherboard), he's only 10 and just uses it for his games (scooby doo, lol). Anyway, once he got the computer back from getting fixed up I reformatted it for him cause it was in FAT32, so I just changed it too NTFS. Anyway, to the computers problems

The first problem is during boot up, right at the beginning when it'll say Primary Master Secondary Master stuff. It'll hang after it says "Auto detected Primary Master IDE HDD Drive" or something like that. so after it says that it'll hang for about 15 seconds then it'll say Auto detect Secondary slave Atapi CD drive. Then the Windows Logo shows up and it'll start booting up normally(well, sorta...takes 3 minutes). I temporary fixed this problem by going into bios and disabling the Secondary Master because when I selected it everything froze for about 15 seconds, so I was like hmm, this is whats causing the hang. Any ideas why it's freezes up during bootup or when selecting it in bios?

The second problem could be linked to the first I think. Windows will take a long long time to boot up, longer then I'm used to for sure, puts me to sleep, it must take like 2-3 minutes. And this is with a freshly installed windows with all the drivers updated , windows updated, you name it. Once Windows has finished booting up, everything works like it should, and it's fast. Well, not fast fast, but 1.8/512MB fast. It's just that it has some major booting up issues. I installed bootvis right from the get go but I am not familiar with it. I tried the "optimize boot" thing, but it had no affect.

It's probably hardware related, something maybe not wired right? I dunno. I'm certainly not afraid to open up the computer and rewire stuff, just that I'm unsure how to do it.
Can someone offer help?
I'd love some help in figuring the computers boot up woes

Mike.

[Adrian Wong]

Hello Mike,

Is it connected to a network?

You can save boot time by manually detecting the IDE drives in the BIOS. Also check through your other BIOS settings. If you need help with them, try checking the BIOS Optimization Guide - http://www.rojakpot.com/bog.aspx.

[1031982]

Sounds like something related to the HDD. Like the cable is not connected properly, or damaged. Or the HDD itself could be dieing.

[kayFX]

maybe the jumper for master/ slave problem..

[bugmenot]

Hi Adrian.
We are all connected to a router (SS 6300).
I'll try setting it to Manual tomorrow, I actually already did do this once but only with the Secondary IDE Slave (CD-R) and I disabled the Secondary Master since it hangs when Checking for it at the beginning (theres only a 40 gig HDD, and 1 CD-R on this computer). So I'll give it a try, as well I'll give your guide a look .
Another thing I did was update the BIOS to the latest which I got from the Asrock website, and there was no change, also tried many other things in BIOS, setting it to default etc etc.(Must give that guide a look)
Anyway, thank you

Mike

[Adrian Wong]

Ahhh.. Try disconnecting this troublesome PC from the network. See if that speeds up the Windows loading time?

Of course, I'm not asking you to leave the PC off the network! Just to see if it's the network that's causing it to stall at boot time.

[bugmenot]

Hi again.
I tried starting the pc with the ethernet cable disconnected and nothing changed .
During the Windows boot up, you know that blue progress bar under the Windows logo? Well I guess 3 or 4 times it'll pause for a couple seconds then start moving again. Also right before the welcome screen shows the monitor will like flash, or glitch out, looks funny
We actually had to bring the computer back once already since it getting a new motherboard for it. When we got it back a couple weeks ago, we tried to reformat it but we couldn't...it would format the disk okay, but when Windows started to copy files to the hard disk, it would always fail half way through saying something like this so and so file failed to copy or that it was corrupted, I forget exactly what it would say, it wasn't always the same file either, could have been any .dll file, for example, oem.dll. Anyway after formatting I'd try to start the computer normally without any windows CD in the drive and it would always say something like Ntl*** file is missing.
So after trying to format the disk about 20 times we returned the computer to get checked out, they determined it was a bad stick of RAM, it had 1 gig of RAM so they simply just took the RAM out, so now it has 512 RAM.

Anyway, ya , any other ideas? Is there a way to determine if the HDD is dying? or do we just wait for it to go *poof*, lol

Mike.

[Adrian Wong]

Yeah, that sounded like a case of faulty memory.

You can always run a thorough scan of your hard drive. See if there are any bad sectors, etc.

Regarding your boot time. Try setting a fixed IP for your computer. See if it speeds things up.