Slow WinXP Boot up, P5K and Raptor

robucf4

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My signature has my PC specs. Although I have a Raptor HDD, WinXP takes a while to boot up. Silly example but illustrates my point. My other PC which has a 320GB Seagate driver boots up after 2 scroll bar passes at the WinXP boot screen, where as mine takes like 10 or more to load the sign in screen. I have done all the typical things, msconfig clean up, clean out Windows/prefetch, virus, spyware, defrag, etc things. The system is pretty new so it does not have the clutter yet just an OS and WoW are the teo biggest programs. Is there anything in the BIOS, drivers, etc that I may be missing or need to improver performance? P5K has had its ACHI feature removed... :fou:

E6600 | ASUS P5K | Freezer 7 Pro | EVGA 8800 GTS 320M | 2GB Corsair C4 | WD Raptor 150GB | Antec 900 case | OCZ 700W | Lite-On 20X

Thoughts?
 

Fedor

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Have you tried this tweak also?

Go to Device Manager.
Go to IDE/ATAPI Controllers.
Select primary channel, click properties.
Click the Advance settings tab.
Then on the device (0 or 1)that does not have 'device type' greyed out select 'disable' instead of 'autodetect'. No need to worry, you can only choose disable if there is no drive connected. And yet on Auto Detect, it means Windows wastes time trying to find one.
Repeat for all channels you have in there.

Any help?
 

robucf4

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Not really, thanks for the suggestion.



I have 2, onboard of course and a wireless card...?


It's really weird when its booting up. I hear disk access, then none for a while, then disk access again and the login screen. You two may be on to something, seems like its trying to detect something... then after a timeout it resumes loading windows.
 

Fedor

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Yeah and that detecting is often the IDE channels I mentioned but I guess not for you :/ 10 bars really is quite a bit. Was it like that from the day you installed windows?

Regarding the network, what you could do is unplug the machine from the ethernet entirely and then try booting, is it the same?
 

robucf4

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When I first installed WinXP it was 2-3 bars, I was really impressed. Then it seemed to degrade from there. Like I mentioned, it so odd, disk access, then no disk access for like 4 bars then disk access again. Wish I knew what it was trying to detect.

I use a wireless card, I disabled the onboard lan, since I do not use it, but still no difference.

Would anyone happen to know if the Raptors have to have jumpers set a certain way? Mine came without any.
 

Fedor

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Mine has a jumper but the fact that you had 2-3 bars when you installed Windows at first implies that the reason behind it is something you have done since installation. If you plug out the wireless card entirely, any difference in boot speed?

For the record, the Raptor I have from a friend has a jumper in pins 1 and 2 as on the diagram for Spread Spectrum Clocking. I have no idea what it is, and since it says Factory settings, I wouldn't touch it if I were you. ADFD model.
 

robucf4

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Probaly has to do with the fact I changed out my MB without reinstalling Windows. Probaly some weird driver conflict somewhere, times out looking for something that is no longer there. Its fine once it boots up so I'll leave it alone for now. Probaly going to step up to Vista when SP1 comes out so I will do a clean install then.
 

Fedor

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Oh right, well I didn't know that part but that definitely doesnt help. Lots of residual hardware and drivers and sh*t... If that's whats causing it, you can boot into Safe Mode, open up Device Manager, and go to View and Show Hidden Devices and uninstall all the stuff that's no longer needed.
 

gregor2012

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Dude, that's exactly what your problem is right there. Anytime you use a new mob with a primary hdd you have to reinstall windows. Otherwise it takes days, like you are now seeing, for the OS to load up (if it loads up at all).
 

Fedor

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Well I can't necessarily say that is necessarily his problem, despite me suggesting he remove redundant disabled hidden devices. Why? Because one of my PCs has had the mobo+cpu+ram+gfx removed twice already without a reinstall and it still boots in just a fraction over 1 bar.
 

Rabidpeanut

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I get the same problem, but i get a grand total of 15 bars... Just tried turning off the auto detect but i think that will stop my dvd writer from working.

Tried the tweak turning off auto detect 8 bars now. I get the same lack of disk access crap as robucf4 then as soon as the drive decides to play the game it takes 1 bar to load. I however have NOT changed mobo or ANYTHING since my format. I think that we are having the same problem and since i am using An AM2 6000+ and he is on intel the only common part we have is the raptor and windows so there has to be some setting somewhere that turns off whatever is wrong.

Going to have to ask WD what is wrong with our stuff.

 

Fedor

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That's interesting indeed. Perhaps you can play around with your settings, for example turning NCQ on/off, etc.
 

randomizer

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Remember its Windows we are talking about here. Windows=bloatware. Gets worse the longer you leave it. I get about 15 bars also (not that I've counted but I guess its around that) and I havent formatted in about 6 months.
 

Fedor

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Well I frankly have no idea how but my 1.bit-bar-loading-windows is on a 3-year-old install, running on a Maxtor 80GB PATA drive. My newest and most powerful computer, albeit old now as well (2 years), boots in 5.
 

randomizer

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Probably affected by what programs you have installed and stuff too. This doesnt apply to the OP, but catalyst control centre will add a few bars if you have that installed and starting at boot.
 

robucf4

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I bit the bullet, backed up everything and did a clean install of Windows, guess what sort of the same problem. It seems to happen every single time I do a cold boot. Cold meaning turn off PC wait a few seconds then power it back on. If I do a restart, it's down to 3 bars, but not consistently, every once in a while no disk activity with the restart leading to 10 bars or so. I elimated the possibility of the new mobo switch, but same thing. I think its Windows, I did a few benchmarks with the Raptor and its operation at or near to its specs, (random seek time and such), I compared my results with a few online benchmarks for Raptors.

So it's either the board or Windows, I am leaning towards windows. Wish there was some way to know what it is doing when there is no disk activity. I tried bootvis, but I could not make out anything odd.

On a side note, my wife has a Seagate with the perpendicular write thing, Windows loads in 1.5 bars and she has the drive cluttered with music and crap.

I really thought doing a clean install would fix it, oh well... back to testing, if anyone discovers or thinks they know why, please post.
 

Fedor

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You mean to tell me that the seek time and something (im guessing you tried sequential read speeds) weren't up to spec? What were they?
 

robucf4

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I think I typed my reply too fast, I was saying the Raptor drive seems fine, that it is operating to its spec.

I did some more testing with Bootvis, I noticed sbp2port.sys is taking 8 seconds much longer than any other driver. A google search on that driver yeilded some weird results, no real detail as to what it does.

EDIT: Problem found, or at least I think so. I looked more closely at the Bootvis output after a shutdown and restart. It's clear there is tons of disk activity but then when sbp2port.sys is loaded disk acitivity is ZERO for 8-9 seconds. Now if I only knew how to fix it.
 

Fedor

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My bad, I think I may have read too fast!

It seems like a network-related driver... Unfortunately although I know networking can cause delays, like slow DHCP (have you tried settings a fixed IP for your network card btw?) my knowledge isn't extremely deep here.
 

robucf4

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Ok I confirmed it, that driver on a "cold boot" 8-9 secs, no disk activity, on a restart, .25 secs, one heck of a difference. I did a search on microsoft's site, looks to be a 1394 driver, I do have an external HD connected via firewire, I am going to disconnect and see if that fixes it on a cold boot.
 

Fedor

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wow what the hell was google talking about when it said it was network? heh! id be very interested to hear your results!
 

robucf4

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100% it is my external HDD connected via Firewire causing the slow cold boot. When I disconected by external drive I do a cold boot in less than 2 bars :love:

Why? This is a complete guess, but I think that driver waits for the external drive to initalize itself, once that's done it continues to load or a timeout is in there. Subsequent restarts are fast becuase the drive is already initalized.

Man I hate when its something I did lol, or something you would never suspect.

Anyhow guys I hope this helps the other guy having the same problem and thanks for the replies all.

Cheers! although its Sunday at 11:30 :kaola:
 

robucf4

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Remember that driver from what I saw on Microsoft's site deals with 1394/Firewire, so your USB drive might not show the same issue. If your external drive has a firewire connector try that and see if you have the same issues. Chance are many people have the slow cold boot but don't pay any attention to it, only folks like us would pay such close attention :lol:

EDIT: I switched my drive to use USB, no issues so far. Looks like its only when you connect via firewire.