Lengthy BIOS boot + successful XP boot

BIOS boot takes about 3 minutes to complete its tasks with the Intel logo displayed. No beeps. Then Windows XP-SP2 boots normally and works fine.

The different BIOS steps are not displayed on the screen any more: no BIOS parameter setup option, no Windows boot option (we set a waiting period of 15 seconds).

We ran a Passmark BurnInTest and the only failure pointed out was a defective NVIDIA GEForce PCX 5300 graphic card. Driver is recent (May 2008, vers. 6.14.11.7519). XP Control Panel Device Manager indicates that the driver is working fine.

PC is 4 years old.

 

The graphics is a card right? it is not integrated into the motherboard?

If BurnIn Test says it got an error on graphics, there is probably something wrong with the card. Try removing it if you have integrated graphics that works.

 

The problem disappeared without my knowing what the cause was.

I managed to get into the BIOS setup procedure for the Phoenix MB at startup. There, I checked all parameters and noticed all components were properly recognized. The only things I changed and which appear to have no bearing at all on the 2/3 minute temporary freeze are the system clock (just 3 minutes slow, so the battery should be okay) and a parameter whereby I requested that the startup procedure stop when encountering an error. The existing option was to go on with the startup regardless of eventual errors.

Thank you for your suggestion.