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Kevin Osiowy
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February 5th, 2005 16:00
Upgraded processor and memory - now WinXP Pro/SP2 boots slooooow!
Upgraded from 1.6Ghz to 3.06Ghz and from 512 to 1024 RAM on Dimension 4500. POST messages and RAID initialization flash by at warp speed but then it takes over three minutes for the welcome screen to appear. Once Windows does boot up, again, everything runs at warp speed. I know several people have experienced problems with the 3.06 processor, but it cannot be the problem because I am experiencing no overheating problems, (ran Sisandra burn in at 100% cpu utilization for 4 hours without a hiccup and CPU-Z showed no drop in speed). Reflashed and flushed BIOS, no change. Everything runs great before and after Windows boot. Sysinfo shows processor and memory as they should be. Boggles my mind that something as straightforward as a processor and memory upgrade could mess up Windows boot speed. Any suggestions? Might a clean reinstall of Windows be in order despite the fact that everything runs great once it boots? Probably going to upgrade to a 4550 soon to take advantage of hyperthreading with the new processor in the near future anyway, so I probably can live with the long bootup till then, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd like to hear them.
Thanks,
Kevin
Kevin Osiowy
13 Posts
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Posted February 6th, 2005 01:00
You might be onto something because a little experiment I tried a few minutes ago confirmed that it is actually the Windows boot process that's eating all of the time. As you know, if you interrupt the Windows boot, the next time you boot, you are offered the option of booting in the safe mode in case you have to troubleshoot a problem. I waited until a few seconds after the RAID initialization finished and the hard drive started activity and I shut the computer down. Sure enough, when I rebooted, the "safe mode" option screen came up quickly. The BIOS may be passing along bad settings to Windows, but at this point, I doubt it since I flashed the BIOS back to A03 and then back up to A04 with no change in the slow bootup. I'll give the repair route a shot, but I think that if Windows is looking for my old hardware parameters and that's what is bogging down the bootup, the repair function won't detect anything amiss.Thanks,Kevin- I agree its sounds like quite a major hardware upgrade. Did this also include a new motherboard for the processor and RAM?
Ohterwise check your Windows Device Manager and make sure there are no hardware issues. Perhapsd some chipset updates are needed.
Also check your virtual memory (pagefile) settings. Perhaps they are now too low at least on initial size since your RAM has been doubled. Settings should be 1 1/2 times on initial and 3 to 4 times on maximum. Or you can set both at 3 to 4 times the 1024. Kevin Osiowy
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Posted February 6th, 2005 18:00
Problem solved! Did a clean reinstall of XP Pro and the complete bootup process now takes less than 45 seconds with all drivers for all peripherals installed. I can't believe that Microsoft designed an OS that cannot automatically deal with something as common and straightforward as a processor and memory upgrade.
Thanks for all the help!
Kevin
fireberd
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Posted February 5th, 2005 19:00
The first thing I'd do, is a clean install. That is a "major" hardware update and XP may be looking for certain info from the old CPU that is no longer there.
You may want to just try an XP Repair first and if that doesn't help then do the clean install - you may get lucky.