Issue w/ boot up on new build

[paJAMbla]

I recently built an AMD pc for a friend and the last few times he's tried to boot up it sits at "Windows XP" an inordinate amount of time before finally getting to the desktop. The loading bar will also stop for a long time. Here are the specs:

AMD 64 3800+ Venice
Asus A8N-E
Corsair XMS 3200 2GB (1GBX2) CL3
Seagate 160GB SATAII HD
EVGA GeForce 7600GT KO
Antec Sonata II w/ 450W psu

Anything come to mind as to what may be the cause of this??? He's being nice about it but I know he's frustrated. It was only my second build and he put his trust in me.

Once it boots up it's fine for the most part. Haven't tried any heavy duty games on it yet but might load BF2 soon.

Thanks!

[rjfvillarosa]

Does he use it on the net? have you scanned it for the usual troublesome trash?
Just a thought, have you done any hardware diagnostics on it? like memtest or harddrive diagnostics?

[paJAMbla]

Yes he's used it on the net a little. He hasn't used it all that much. He just gets his email and thats about it. A light user so far. We have scanned it and have set it up to scan automatically. We have not done any hardware diagnostics. I think I know how to do that but elaborate in case there's more to it. Its pretty well protected and he hasn't gone into any "questionable" websites. I was wondering if firewalls have an affect on boot up??? I think we have the Microsoft SP 2 firewall on AND Norton's firewall. (I think...I'll have to check that). But I wouldn't think that would affect boot up. Anyway...it was fine after I built it for a couple of weeks. This just started the last few boot ups.

[rjfvillarosa]

Remove the Norton firewall, running two firewalls can cause all sorts of problems, the firewall with XP SP2 is perfectly adequate.
Go here www.ultimatebootcd.com and download the "ultimate boot cd" create a bootable cd using the ISO image you download then boot up your friends machine with it in the drive and the boot order set to CDrom first, you will then be presented with an easy to read GUI and from there you can run memtest and harddrive diagnostics, Seagates "SeaTools" is included on the UBCD.

[paJAMbla]

I'll try that...thanks!

[GaryRouth]

Hi paJAMbla

I heard that you might still be having trouble with your system. [And that it may have been a typo concerning the firewall = it was the nVidia hardware firewall feature on your Asus motherboard that you disabled, rather than the software Norton firewall. RjfVillarosa was correct in his reply, that two software firewalls running on one computer will lead to conflicts].

re: the nVidia firewall. It could be a factor in otherwise inexplicable behavior by the system. For one thing: it only controls connections made through the nVidia network port [the nVidia firewall does not provide any protection to communications going in/out through the Marvell network port]. For another: it looks to be a fair bit of work to configure just right - if it's manual is any indication http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_28249.html It also might act up depending on the SATA setup on the system http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4978

If the system you built for your friend connects to the Internet through a router with a builtin hardware firewall, you can likely avoid having to deal with these possible issues at all by leaving the nVidia firewall disabled, using the Marvell NIC port, and using either the Windows SP2 firewall, or upgrading that protection to something a bit stronger, like ZoneAlarm (free-for-personal-use version), or Kerio/Sunbelt Personal Firewall (free-for-personal-use-version). That will provide protection against malware trying to dial home with your personal data. Hardware firewalls are good at keeping the bad guys out, software firewalls are good at keeping bad guys who've slipped in already from sending your data to their prying eyes. Should the nVidia firewall prove not to have been an issue, you always have the option to re-enable it, and to resume trying the nVidia NIC port.

To speed up the boot, try putting the system drive as the first drive in the boot order in the Bios Setup. If there is no Floppy drive in the system, set the Floppy drive to "None" in the Bios. Also disable "Floppy Boot Seek". If you have antivirus that offers to scan at boot-time, make sure that it is a limited scan (sometimes called a "Smart Scan" or "Quick Scan" that it performs, rather than a full, in-depth scan (which would unnecessarily take too much time, running every single time the PC boots). Also make sure that the antivirus isn't set to scan the floppy drive at boot-time, especially if no floppy drive is installed. From the Start/Run box, type in the command "msconfig" without the quotes, and look at the items listed in the Startup tab. You can temporarily trim obviously unnecessary processes here, testing to see if the processes are at fault or not. Those that prove to be problematic, you can stop from running at startup permanently -- either through selections you make in that program's "Preferences" or "Options" settings, or by editing an old-fashioned ".ini" file, or by removing the program's icon from the Start Menu/Startup folder, or by editing the Registry & removing the value that calls that program to run at startup [often in a key like HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run] . . . You can find out where the startups are called from by looking in System Information, under "Software Environment" and "Startup" -- look at the information in the columns displayed on the right-hand side of the screen [Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information] . . . . If any of the Startup items end up being malware, research the best methods for removal, and clean up as thoroughly as you can. To help identify processes the list at sysinfo.org is pretty thorough -- http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

Also - if any external USB devices have been added recently, their detection (or lack of detection) can cause a boot to slow quite a bit as Windows searches for the device. Try booting with such devices unplugged as a test. Check, too, that all the fans are spinning at full speed during startup (some Bios's allow for slower fan speeds at startup - or can have extensive fan contol features) - if things are getting warm right away at startup, the cpu could be throttling back to protect itself.

A system can be compromised in a matter of seconds nowadays, so try some double-check scans, just to be sure nothing else unwanted has arrived for a visit.

Best of luck
. . . Gary


Since the build is so recent, you of course have the option to just start fresh - since it would be a simple thing to save the small amount of data created since then. A single CD-R might cover it all. Scan the backups thoroughly before restoring them.

[paJAMbla]

Thanks for the reply Gary. Yes I wasn't sure when I wrote the post about the firewalls. I'm 40 minutes away from this particular computer. It was the Nvidia firewall I had on that came on the motherboard driver. I only had the "anti-hacker" level on but I shut it off. I have heard that Nvidia firewall is not too good. I'm going to try and remove it altogether.

The Norton anti-virus appears to be totally automatic but I haven't had a chance to look at it in depth. One would think that you could choose how and when it scans. I'll check and see how I do that if I can and set it to scan in the middle of the night or something. I'm sure others are more familiar than I regarding the Norton software. I'd like to change it but my friend took a two year subscription.

When you say set the priority boot so the "system" is first, do you mean the hard drive??? I initially had the hard drive first but put it back to CD because the "how to" guides I've read indicated it should be done that way. If you don't mind elaborating on that....

I was considering a re-installation of Windows XP. I don't know if that's risky or how difficult it is. I ran into another issue which made me think about doing so in light of the other boot up issue. I tried to download the Firefox browser and a very small "error" window came up. I did the initial download but it wouldn't let me "run" it to complete the download. I've loaded Firefox for a lot of people and never ran into that.

Anyway...hoping to get to that computer within the next couple of days.....again!!!

[GaryRouth]

I've been away on vacation - did you get everything going on the computer the way you'd like it to be?

To answer your question about "system drive" - yes, I was referring to the hard drive (that XP boots from). It saves a little time during boot if you set the hard drive first [that way, XP doesn't spend time looking at other drives first, seeing if they contain a bootable operating system files (some folks do leave the system to look at the floppy first, CD second, and hard drive third -- partly because they don't want to enter the Bios Setup screens to change the boot order each time they want to boot from a floppy or CD. If you rarely boot from those, you can set the first boot device to the hard drive, and enjoy a quicker boot. If the system is set to look at the CD/DVD drive first, and a non-bootable CD/DVD disk is left in the tray, it can take a while during boot for Windows to detect that there are no bootable files on that disk. Even with the drive empty, a little time is spent checking it.

Just out of curiosity, run Rootkit Revealer - and see if you might have 1) the Sony rootkit, 2) the Norton rootkit (not exactly a rootkit, and has been patched through LiveUpdate), or 3) HackerDefender or other malware rootkits. These can cause unpredictable behavior on systems (and slow boot times) because they can be used to hide malware completely from antivirus/antispyware scanners. Rootkit Revealer is available on the SysInternals site http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilitie...tRevealer.html --- interesting recent news: I believe that Microsoft has purchased SysInternals. They've long been known for handy system tools (SysInternals, that is!).

For a system this new, I wouldn't bother with repair installs or reinstallations (unless you had a disk image backup of the system that you were happy with). I'd just start clean. But it's your choice -- you could read up on your options http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=151522

The FireFox error might have just been a corrupt download - you could try a fresh download, disabling any "download managers", and download directly. And then try the install again.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[chuck4456]

I had that problem as well. It was 24 seconds before the XP screen would appear. I tried the same things that Gary suggested. The system had an onboard Realtek adapter. On a whim, I went over to Staples, bought a Netgear ethernet card, disabled the Realtek, enabled the Netgear and............ SHAZAAM!!!!!!!!! Only a 6 second delay. No more problems.