PC boot up time taking 5 mins+ ????

drlight_2

The dma mode 2 is 33mb/s you should be set to udma mode 4 or 5 (100mb/s). First you need UDMA enabled in the bios, then autodetect your disk drive. windows in theory detects your drive and installs it's own drivers.
I've also seen windows use slower modes after setting the disk, i think t4i has more experiance on this.
Try checking udma is enabled if win stays on mode 2 you could delete primary ide channel and let windows re detect and install drivers the next boot.

danmanchester

Thanks drlight...the only options I can see in the primary ide properties are:
PIO only or the DMA if available.

But I'll get into the bios now and see if there's an option for udma to change it.

cheers.

danmanchester

Just enabled udma (didn't even know it was there!) current transfer mode now shows:
Ultra DMA mode 5 ...does that sound better?

Joe_Bloggs

This is just a thought. Is your PC faffing around trying to find something on the network prior to booting up. Some bios settings can allow a boot from a network.
The operating system could still be trying to establish an old network connection prior to user login. What you end up with is a huge delay as it tries and fails. Maybe there is a log that details what the operating system was trying to do in those five minutes. This logging might have to be activated first.
J_B.

danmanchester

Well even after enabling UDMA and disabling as many unnecessary start ups as possible.....still taking almost 6 minutes lol......

Not sure about that trying to find a network connection thing J B - my internet connection set up is a wireless pci card through a bt voyager wireless adsl modem. Used to have a usb adsl modem but am sure I've removed all traces of the drivers and software for that.

Joe_Bloggs

It would not supprise me if your wireless network connection was trying to find something that is no longer there, share resources or wait for something that cannot be accomplished. Can you temporarily disable your network interface ?
J_B.

T4i

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/download.php?request=HdTach-3.0

Try this to test your HDD speed. Did you notice if the HDD light goes inactive during bootup?

---

As a comparison.....

HD Tach reports;
Random Access : 15ms
CPU % : 0%
Avg Read : 49.5mb/s
Burst Speed : 79.7mb/s

Have you run a online anti-virus? http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

Other than that I'd try hijackthis for a quick scan to see if anything is slowing things down.

danmanchester

I'll give that a go later today - in fact I'll uninstall/reinstall, see if that works better..failing that..I'll uninstall the wireless pci and revert to usb adsl...and see how that works.

If all those fail to improve it I think I have to assume the HDD has got arthritis and needs to be retired!:p

danmanchester

T4i wrote:

http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/download.php?request=HdTach-3.0

Try this to test your HDD speed. Did you notice if the HDD light goes inactive during bootup?

I didn't check to be honest...will do a quick(!?) reboot now and observe - thanks for the link.

Rave

Since you've now done all the obvious stuff, I'm inclined to think that your Windows install is just old and borked. You could try a repair install, or if that doesn't work, a re-install. Back up all your data first though obviously.