Strange issue: 20 seconds to POST on cold start?

**Stifle** · January 17th, 2010, 07:24 PM

I am not sure what possibilities lie hidden with the question posed as I have not been able to find any answers elsewhere.

My PC has always been somewhat sluggish when cold starting but even more so recently.... from restarts or from sleep mode the PC has no problems getting up to speed loading either Windows XP Home or Windows 7 x64 Home premium (like 4-5 second post from restart to windows loading and then 8-10 or so for windows 7 load)

However when cold starting the PC it seems to lag for nearly 20 seconds with the fans on maximum before they calm down, monitor starts receiving and post info shows up. From there I have no problems. So the question is what kind of issues could be causing such a lag from cold start only.

PC Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 920, stock 2.8 GHz
Gigabyte MA-770-UD3 motherboard
4Gb G-Skill DDR2-1033 RAM
Radeon X1800XT
Corsair HX520W PSU - maybe important?
Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler - maybe important?
Western Digital Caviar Black 750Gb hard drive
Another WD 80Gb drive in there

I dual boot XP and Windows 7 from the one drive with different partitions for each OS.

Any ideas?

**CCT** · January 17th, 2010, 09:33 PM

On a cold boot, EVERYTHING that needs, and is allowed, to check for updates does so as you boot the operating system and their respective programs start - even if the internet connection has to be manually started, they still try to check.

30 seconds is GOOD IMHO.

**Stifle** · January 18th, 2010, 08:25 AM

I agree with you CCT, however my problem is not loading the OS (XP or 7 are done loading completely in less than 30 always), my problem is how long it takes to get to the post screen, before software takes over I believe

**CCT** · January 18th, 2010, 08:42 AM

One thing I know of that can speed up that portion is the IDE detect timer, assuming your motherboard has that feature.

On my older Asus mobo that can be set from 0 to 35 seconds, the latter being default.

Another possibility is staggered spin-up.

Those things you can check after reading your manual.

**Stifle** · January 18th, 2010, 09:26 AM

Ill check those things this afternoon possibly and ill get back with you. Thanks

**slgrieb** · January 18th, 2010, 01:30 PM

Sometimes, failing hardware such as a CD-ROM or hard drive can cause the system to take a long time to boot, so you might unplug and the reconnect the drives one at a time to see if this has any impact on the boot time.

**Stifle** · January 18th, 2010, 03:29 PM

No mention of either of those terms in my manual CCT...
Other than the main Hard drive and a backup 80Gb drive I have an SATA DVD-R drive attached, could either of those being on its last legs cause the start up lag?

**CCT** · January 18th, 2010, 04:05 PM

slgrieb is a lot more knowledgeable than I in the hardware area (at least).

Disconnecting what you really don't need for boot up might be an idea as he suggested.

Chkdsk on the hard drive you boot from also might be good (or both).

Is there a 'quick boot' option (minimizes Cmos memory testing since the OS does that anyway).

What mobo do you have?

**Stifle** · January 18th, 2010, 04:25 PM

Gigabyte MA-770-UD3 motherboard is what I currently use. I will try to run Chkdsk on the boot drive and disconnect the other unnecessary items as well and report back

**Stifle** · January 18th, 2010, 04:28 PM

no quick boot option is available as per the manual... Only error stop check options...
checking the drives now

**CCT** · January 18th, 2010, 05:59 PM

Well, I have been through your manual and can't see anything user-configured that would cause slow Bios operation at boot.

SO - hardware??

Check the PC Health area there for voltages/temps and let us know what it shows.

**Ferrit** · January 18th, 2010, 06:12 PM

I would try disconnecting the "Other 80 gig harddrive "
see if that makes any difference.
If not then try disconnecting the cd/dvd

**Guts3d** · January 19th, 2010, 07:03 AM

If you are using IDE hard drives, check the jumpers.

**Stifle** · January 19th, 2010, 07:59 AM

chkdsk ran on boot drive (750Gb) came out clean as a whistle

Western Digital supplied diagnostic check program showed nothing wrong with the 80Gb drive

Both Drives are SATA

as far as temperatures all are within normal range in bios, near room temperature on CPU

Voltages... Since posting this question here I have updated the bios to the most recent, non-beta bios for the motherboard, I then changed the operating frequency of my Ram to 533MHz and upped the voltage from 1.8V to 2.05V as per the manufacturers design of the Ram, that is all I have changed on the Bios from stock settings aside from showing the post data and not the annoying Gigabyte logo on start up. Things are moving much faster within windows and even during Post and OS loading, however no change to pre-post lag.