How To Speed-up Booting Process

[Tywais]

tywais thanks but i dont need the lecture, have made my money working in it as im sure you have -incl desktop, sun/pc support 1st/2nd tier, over the phone (no citrix or remote support) -confused as the guy first notes boot issues and then discusses file transf.

I think we are on the same page h5n1, and I think you have to agree as professionals neither of us would take kindly to being accused of not knowing what they are doing. My comments about 'reading the posts' were because some questions you asked were already answered by the OP. So let's just let it go and continue helping the OP.

OK, doesn't appear to be a temperature problem now that the OP has checked all of that. Also he has swapped out his 512MBx2 memory modules so doesn't appear to be that. So let's focus on the hard drive(s) again. He has 2 SATA drives and possibly they have a bus contention problem due to some configuration error. You may remove one of the SATA drives (disconnect the cable and power cable) and reinstall windows with just a single drive and see what happens.

[Plus]

All fans working perfrctly, but according to Windows Task Manager, CPU running at 98-100%, and I'm only transferring 3 MB to another physical drive.

Now you are talking! In the same Task Manager window click on "Processes" tab and find which process exactly takes that 98-100%.

Note that numbers you see in CPU column in "processes" is percentage of that 98-100%, not percentage of the total capacity. If you don't run any programs System Idle Process still should take 98-99%.

Anyhow, please find the culprit that loads your CPU to the maximum.

[bonsaimax]

Note that numbers you see in CPU column in "processes" is percentage of that 98-100%, not percentage of the total capacity. If you don't run any programs System Idle Process still should take 98-99%.

Anyhow, please find the culprit that loads your CPU to the maximum.

Prett much any program, (windows media player, winamp, Norton Antivirus, etc.) or maybe all of the programs including windows explorer.exe, bring the CPU usage up to 100%. Which means it is virtually impossible to run two programs simultaneously.

More ideas pls.

[bonsaimax]

if the cd rom is involved it should be on its own cable. it is very possible after reload that you did not get right drivers for cdrom if involved. did you do a format? did inadvertyently chg anything related to the drive config and/or bios? maybe you reset the bios to standard but needs tweaking. maybe you did something to the hdd config? were you in the bios?

The CD ROM is alone on its own cable. The two SATA HDDs each have their own cable connection. The only thing I touched in the BIOS was when I had to boot from the CD ROM instead of the HDD. Otherwise, everything else remains unchanged.

[Tywais]

Note that numbers you see in CPU column in "processes" is percentage of that 98-100%, not percentage of the total capacity. If you don't run any programs System Idle Process still should take 98-99%.

Anyhow, please find the culprit that loads your CPU to the maximum.

Prett much any program, (windows media player, winamp, Norton Antivirus, etc.) or maybe all of the programs including windows explorer.exe, bring the CPU usage up to 100%. Which means it is virtually impossible to run two programs simultaneously.

More ideas pls.

In my previous post I mentioned disconnecting one of the SATA drives and re-installing XP. You might try instead and just disconnect the secondary SATA drive cables without re-installing XP and see how it boots.

[Plus]

Prett much any program, (windows media player, winamp, Norton Antivirus, etc.) or maybe all of the programs including windows explorer.exe, bring the CPU usage up to 100%. Which means it is virtually impossible to run two programs simultaneously.

Do you really mean that? And your boot time is reasonable? In that case it's not just a lousy driver or some sound card you can reinstall. Try seriously tinkering with connecting hard disks. In fact what Tywise has just suggested might narrow your problem significantly, and, of course, you should see further than just booting up process.

[Tywais]

if the cd rom is involved it should be on its own cable. it is very possible after reload that you did not get right drivers for cdrom if involved. did you do a format? did inadvertyently chg anything related to the drive config and/or bios? maybe you reset the bios to standard but needs tweaking. maybe you did something to the hdd config? were you in the bios?

The CD ROM is alone on its own cable. The two SATA HDDs each have their own cable connection. The only thing I touched in the BIOS was when I had to boot from the CD ROM instead of the HDD. Otherwise, everything else remains unchanged.

I assume you reset the boot priority back to the HDD or else it will try to seek a boot block on the CDROM before giving up and going for the HDD, slowing the boot down. However doesn't explain after booting the slow file transfer, so do the SATA removal tip I gave.

[bonsaimax]

In my previous post I mentioned disconnecting one of the SATA drives and re-installing XP. You might try instead and just disconnect the secondary SATA drive cables without re-installing XP and see how it boots.

As I am writing this, I am running on just one HDD. Disconnected the other one before booting. Total boot time was 2min. 28 sec. This formerly took no more than 30 sec. when everythin was OK.

I assume you reset the boot priority back to the HDD or else it will try to seek a boot block on the CDROM before giving up and going for the HDD, slowing the boot down. However doesn't explain after booting the slow file transfer, so do the SATA removal tip I gave.

Yes, I have reset the boot priority back to HDD.

QUOTE

Prett much any program, (windows media player, winamp, Norton Antivirus, etc.) or maybe all of the programs including windows explorer.exe, bring the CPU usage up to 100%. Which means it is virtually impossible to run two programs simultaneously.

Do you really mean that? And your boot time is reasonable? In that case it's not just a lousy driver or some sound card you can reinstall. Try seriously tinkering with connecting hard disks. In fact what Tywise has just suggested might narrow your problem significantly, and, of course, you should see further than just booting up process

Boot time is definitely a lot slower than normal. I at first suspected it to be a temperature related problem, but have ruled that out now.

[Tywais]

Boot time is definitely a lot slower than normal. I at first suspected it to be a temperature related problem, but have ruled that out now.

If you boot XP up in "Safe Mode without networking" does it still boot slow?

Another test is to boot up in "DOS with command prompt" and do a manual copy of a large file to another file name. Eg. copy filename1.xxx filename2.xxx where the filename1.xxx is the name of a real file. This pretty much eliminates a lot of drivers and in case the NIC became active on your new install.

I know you said you were not networking on that computer but it is possible you have an on-board lan and it is active and searching for a DHCP server (though normally if it doesn't see another NIC it won't enable). If you do have then disable it in the BIOS and try again (sorry h5n1) .

Wish you were in Chiangmai, I would just have you bring it to my laboratory and sort it out.

Edited March 13, 2006 by tywais

[bonsaimax]

Wish you were in Chiangmai, I would just have you bring it to my laboratory and sort it out.

Funny you said that. The reason I wasn't online last Saturday was because I was there in Chiangmai. But I flew back to Bkk the day after

I'll try tinkering with the BIOS. I'm positive that I have an onboard LAN. I know I've never messed with this setting ever. But I'm almost desperate and willing to try anything to make this work.

Don't worry h5n1. I'm not as stupid/ignorant as I appear to be. Your advice however, will always be appreciated. Thanks too tywais.