Very slow, and unusual boot up.

For a week or so now my XP Home (plus all priority updates) has been slow to boot.

When it gets to the screen which display BIOS information, it only partially loads that screen.

It displays The BIOS verison, details of the Main processor, and then starts to display Memory Test - which is truncated to Memory Tes

The rest of the screen is black, until, at the bottom, it says Press Del to enter SETUP, and then 07/08/2003 - KM400-8235-6A6LYFOEC-OO

The screen stays like that for perhaps 2 to 3 minutes.

It then rapidly displays other information in white on a black screen, far too quickly to read anything, and then goes completely blank for 2 or 3 more minutes.

It then starts the normal Windows start-up procedure, which looks normal, albeit a bit slower than normal.

I can't associate this starting after I had done anything to the system.

I've done a scan with Symantec's, eset's, BitDefender's, Kaspersky's and Trend Micro's on-line scanners, plus SpyBot Search and Destroy, Super AntiSpyware free edition, Malwarebyte's anti-malware, Trend Micro's rootkit buster and Trojan Remover, none of which have coughed up anything nasty.

What's wrong? Is it an undiscovered nasty/nasties, or is it a corrupted system.

 

It seems to be going slow during POST/BIOS before Windows begins so little chance of malware being the cause. A couple things come to mind.

First, do you have any USB devices plugged in? Try it with no USB devices and see if it goes any faster. (If USB keyboard, you need that so keep it attached.)

Because of the age of your system it is possible the CMOS battery has gone bad and reverted you to default settings which might include a full memory check which takes longer. (Although battery going bad is likely after 5years, it may not be the cause of this slowdown since BIOS defaults don't usually include a full memory check. A quick memory check is normal and is probably what you are seeing.)

Bad memory since it stops responding normally at this step. If you have more than one RAM module installed you could try them one at a time to see if it you can get it to fully draw the memory test screen without truncating the word.

 

In the memory case, burn and boot with a CD after changing your boot up sequence in BIOS, with memtest86 to see if that's the issue or not.

 

I checked the BIOS hold-up battery.

In situ with the mains disconnected it reads 3.1V.

In situ with the P.C. switched on it reads 3.1V and removed from the motherboard it also reads 3.1V.

So that looked ok.

I then rebooted and the palaver with the BIOS/memory check screens had cleared up and boot up completed with almost normal speed. Why? :confused



I then disconnected everything from the USB ports [my keyboard is an Omnikey (with real switches) and connects to the serial port] after initiating a reboot.

No difference. It seems normal until after the screen displays the "Loading your personal settings" message, after which the screen goes blank (Windows scary BSOD blue/blank) for about 20 seconds and then the desktop loads.

I'm just wondering about that 20 second delay. Didn't have that before.

 

Although the on board battery shows 3.2v, as it shows the date as 07/08/2003 , I would change it. This is usually a sign of the bcmos battery losing enough power. Once started the psu will top the battery up, and it probably will run o.k
About £3 to £5 -that would be my first step. XP will fail to load if the date is wrong, (I have seen that many times) Try the new battery

 

Ok, I put a new battery in. Can't say I see any difference in start-up time though.

 

That eliminates one possibilty- If you have you XP disc, you can click start, then run, then type in sfc /scannow, insert the XP disc into the rom and watch for the windows protected files to be checked-you may have to click retry several times until the slow moving line finishes, and the box dissappears. This will eliminate windows protected file corruption *you may need to go on line to update XP again afterwards.
When you start up, pres f2/del or whichever button usually gets you into the bios, and check that the date is correct-if it is not, correct it, press f10, and click yes to save changes, and see if that helps.

 

Just thought- When you first started after putting in new cmos battery, it usuallyy helps to load failsafe defaults.
As Sach2, and audiedoggie suggest test your memory , too.

 

I'll just say that if BIOS loads at normal speed now and the only hang is while windows is loading then do a chkdsk on your C: drive.

My Computer then right-click C: and select Properties then under the Tools tab select Error Checking. Tick both boxes and hit OK. It will schedule for next reboot. Go ahead and reboot and after it has finished the chkdsk (may take several minutes) see if the lag is reduced.

 

I ran chkdsk yesterday evening while having dinner. It had finished when I returned to the computer and the desktop was loaded. No idea if it did any good or whatever it is supposed to do - does it write a log anywhere?

It turns out that I had already burnt a c.d. with Memtest and had forgotten about it - never used it.

I started it last night - it is v3.5 - and left it running. It was still churning away this morning and it seemed obvious that it would continue to do so until turned off.
Since the program didn't respond to the Esc key, which is supposed to exit the program, I had to do that by doing a hard reset on the computer's front panel.

I must say that all those numbers on the screen meant nothing to me anyway, so I wonder what you were expecting me to report?

I also have another memory checking c.d. which was given to me by a technician at Novatech - a British manufacturer of PCs from whom I bought a previous machine. I thought I would try that in case it made any sense to me. No luck, it was Memtest v3.2.

For reasons which I have never really understood it seems that unplugging cards and reseating them can sometimes be beneficial. So I pulled and reseated, several times, each of the two r.a.m. cards (one gig and one half gig).

I have also run sfc /scannow, with which I am well acquainted, and subsequenctly checked for critical updates, of which there were none.

I still have the 20 second blank blue screen between the "loading your settings"screen and desktop initiation.

Sorry. What does "load failsafe defaults" mean?

 

Basically just default settings, as these will usually help if the bios has been set different to default, (making changes to set speeds of cpu, ram etc:- Usually there is an option to save changes, or, probably press f9 to save to default bios settings. Changing the cmos battery is a change- sometimes helps to load defaults in bios (failsafe0 to ensure it starts o.k- then if one wanted to it can be toyed withonce system is up and running.

 

Ok, thank you baklogic.

On the rare occasions when I've done anything in the bios it's been following instructions/advice. Don't think I've ever poked around it on this machine anyway, so it is more than likely at its default settings.