Installed new case fan. Boot time increased 5 min. Please help!

[Spitfire7]

My Specs:
Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz
EVGA 8800GT Superclocked (Core 700, Mem 975)
2GB Corssair XMS2 DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12 2.1v)
700w OCZ GamerXStream PSU
EVGA 680i Mobo
320GB Hard drive 16MB cache 7200RPM
Windows XP

My load times have always been pretty long using XP with my setup and is almost up to a minute or more from power on, but my load light was always working and doing something and I just got use to it. I just installed two small spot fans and as soon as I powered on my boot times have gone from a minute or so now to about 6 minutes. Windows will even load without icons, windows bar, or anything but sits there looking at my desk top background for about 3 minute or so and sits idle. Then after the 3 minutes of idle my load light starts working like crazy and everything comes on. Keep in mind its not a lock up because I can still move my mouse as soon as I enter into windows, just no icons or features.

I tried unplugging the fans and restarting my computer and that didn't work and it still takes extra long. I then installed all new divers for everything including BIOS, CMOS, MOBO, GPU, and Sound Card. Still the same thing. What the heck is going on? There's no way I can be short of power. I have one of the best PSU's. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[basketcase]

Did you bump something in your case when you installed them? Like your ram or an expansion card? Maybe you loosened one of your HD cables? Or maybe your HD is just dying, and it was a coincidence that it started when you installed the fans.

 

[Spitfire7]

Well I re-seated my ram and replugged every cord and wire. So is that what happens when a hard drive is going out it lags? When Windows starts up finally, everything runs up to speed including games, movies, file transfers, etc. So if it were a HD problem wouldn't I notice these lags and long load times through everything?

 

[basketcase]

Not necessarily, but it was just an idea. If everything seems ok in Windows, that "probably" isn't the problem. I honestly can't think what else could be the problem, for sure. If something was shorted out, I would expect more problems that just a long load time.

Have you done regular maintenance on your PC, like Virus scan, spyware scans, registry cleaning and defraging?

Also, maybe inspect what background programs are loading when Windows loads. Maybe there is something that is hanging up for some reason.

 

[mafadecay]

Some Award BIOS and others have a certain voltage temperature setting. Basically on board BIOS diagnostics check system settings like operating temperature and fan speed. If the fan is not seated correctly, is of the wrong voltage or plugged into the wrong place the system will hang while it tries to find your temp and fan speed. Try loading optimal settings in your BIOS.

Also your computer power supply might not be powerful enough to run the new fan aswell as lots of other devices. See if all USB devices are working as the system will priorotise what it needs and USB comes after fan in priority. If you have lots of unpowered USB devices or USB hubs try unplugging all but the imidiate neccesary ones and reboot. If this works upgrade your PSU to one with higher power rating. See if you can check your board manual for correct fan location. You can probably download th emanual. I have 4 fans running in my system and they are all powered from seperate points on the board.

 

[mafadecay]

Just checked and you have a 700W PSU which will be ample. Try booting without a fan see if boot times are better but don't leave it running as soon as it boots shut down and plug your fan back in. I still think this is a BIOS problem.

 

[Spitfire7]

Thanks guys for all the help. I tried everything and still didn't work. I even re-installed windows, new bios, default bios, and everything else there is to do with computers. So I just had to do a complete format and re-install. I was due for one anyways. This time I lost the battle, but still feels like I came out with a brand new computer.

The weirdest part of it, is when I went to format my computer, I did the full format and when I restarted there were still things in my recycle bin from a while ago and things weren't working correctly. Weird. Then I reformatted again and still things weren't being recognized and installing correctly. Also, I was getting missing Dll files right when I first entered windows. So for the third time I re-installed windows again and just walked away fro a week. Came back today and installed all the rest of the drivers and everything worked out perfectly. I have to thank God on this one, because i have no idea what was going on and I build and mess with computers all of the time. I think its the prayers that worked. Thanks God for fixing my computer.