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wordcross · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:26 am Post subject: 1

Okay, so, my downstairs computer is acting very strange. Whenever it restarts/turns on, it goes interminably slow. it takes it hours upon hours (not exaggerating) to check on the RAM and stuff. If I get it to run setup then, it runs really slow while in setup, also.

Once it makes it to the desktop, though, it runs as normal. It will multitask and run media like nothing at all is wrong. This baffles me.

Anyone know of any reason at all that my computer may be behaving this way?
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Courk · Daedalian Member

Sounds like my mornings in computer form.

Antrax · ESL Student

Overheating might do that, though it would have to be an extreme case for it to stall so badly but not just restart itself. So, check your computer's fan to see if it's working.
Another thing that could cause this is if you have some voltage problem, meaning the power, uh, supplier (?) to your motherboard is faulty and gives it the wrong current, or your motherboard is screwed up itself.
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jesternl · Yankee Doodle Dutchie

Take out anything but the bare minimum to run, so leave only one stick of memory, and the video card, remove all else, then see if it's still as slow. If it is, swap the stick of memory. If it's improved, one of your mem is bad, if it doesn't improve, you're SOL.
You could try replacing the CPU at that point if you have a spare, or try and cool it by aiming an extra fan into the case.

Antrax · ESL Student

jesternl, that's a bit extreme, no? Also doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The reasons a computer would be so slow is that either its clock speed is screwed up somehow (underclocking? bad voltage?) or that it gets a huge amount of errors due to heat dispersal problems (fan). I don't see how faulty hardware would cause either.
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Logain · Stretch Armstrong

Antrax, I think jesternl has the right idea cause I was thinking faulty memory as well. And removing all but one chip, then swapping it is a good test.. It's also real easy to just disconnect the cables to any extra hard drives or CD/DVD Roms as another test. Ripping out any PCI cards would be the last thing I would try though.

Antrax · ESL Student

Well, removing the chips to see if any of them is faulty isn't a bad idea, but why take out all the rest of the hardware?
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Logain · Stretch Armstrong

extropalopakettle · No offense, but....

None of what's been suggested so far sounds, to me, to be consistent with what is reported, namely that the problem is severe before windows boots, but non-existent once windows is up. I'm not sure it's any better a suggestion, but I was thinking the CMOS settings might be screwed up.

wordcross · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:58 pm Post subject: 10

I tried to see if it was a problem with the RAM sticks, and neither one nor the other made any difference. I even tried switching RAM slots.

I haven't tried disconnecting any of the other drives yet. I might try that.

But yeah, this is one of the strangest things i think my computer has ever done.
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Antrax · ESL Student

I missed the part where windows works normally once boot up Embarassed

Back to the drawing board.
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

jesternl · Yankee Doodle Dutchie

Hmmm what if you boot in safemode? Still takes forever?
You can go for the confirm each step option and maybe get an idea of what takes so friggin long

Jack_Ian · Big Endian

What's the boot sequence?
Maybe it's trying to boot from network etc. before eventually trying the harddisk.
What about power saving? Maybe the harddisk is taking too long to register that it has reached full spin. Does your harddisk spin down when idle? If not then that might be your problem since it will only manifest itself at boot time.

Disk Doctor · Guest

It does ounds like a 'sticky' hard disk. have you tried squirting some WD-40 in through the floppy disk/ CD slot?

That usually fixes most problems.