8Rda+ slow boot problems

[r1013a]

I just built two computers for me and my wife.
They are identical with the exception of the
Graphics card brand.

My problem is that my computer boots very slow.
It takes my wife?s computer approx 15 seconds to boot
and mine around a full min.

I have had them both up and running now for about
2 days and other than the boot thing they have run fine.

Now I also noticed something odd about the network connection.
I use a Lynksys switch for our network. It has a set of lights for
each computer. Now after boot? my side goes off? until I wiggle
the network cable going into my computer. And then it comes back up.
I thought it was a loose connection? but it does it only at boot and works all other times.

My set up:
Athlon 2000
8Rda+
Samsung DDR 2700 512 MB
GF TI4200 Mine (Leadtek), My Wife?s (PNY)

 

[mechBgon]

I assume you have broadband internet? One of the classic causes of slow boot is your network adapter trying to contact the "boss" of the network it's on, to get an Internet Protocol address assigned to it by the boss. In your case, if your Linksys is a pure switch and not a router such as the BEFSR units, your cable modem or DSL modem is the "boss," and may have already given out its only available IP address to your wife's computer. Your computer asks for a minute or two, then shrugs and finishes booting, in this scenario.

Assuming I'm on the right track at all, whose computer accessed the Internet first, hers or yours, and are you having any problems accessing it from your system while hers is ok? First guess, anyway.

 

[r1013a]

I have a 56K connection, and I'm the server. Yes slow when we are both on.. but best I can do right now.

After I boot.. the lights go out...

At this point I can connect with no problem. She cannot connect, and we cannot access each other computer... its simply dead...

I barley touch the RJ45 where its plugged in and the lights come on and within 10 sec... we can access each other computer and she can browse the net.

Since this has been up and running for the last two days... there has been no problems except the boot thing (which is driving me nuts). The network problem just started tonight.

 

[mechBgon]

I see, and that makes sense. To your wife's computer, yours is the boss (because Internet Connection Sharing sets it up that way). When hers boots up, it looks at yours. Yours tells hers "ok, you are going to use 192.168.0.1 as your IP address" in a manly tone of voice, and her computer's all "ok, great" and runs with that IP address from then on. Your computer, however, has no "boss" (technical term being "DHCP server") to get an IP address from, so it tries to get an IP assigned at each bootup, but can't find a DHCP server to give it an IP. Hence the pauses.

I don't recollect whether you can get away with assigning your own NIC a static IP address (10.0.0.1 subnet 255.255.255.0 for instance) and still have Internet Connection Sharing function. Worst-case scenario, you could just re-enable DHPC and run the ICS Wizard again if you still had repurcussions. I assume you're running WindowsXP, which is not something I'm experienced in, but if you want more expert help on the networking aspect, probably a post in the Networking forum would get you plenty

 

[r1013a]

Thanks for the help so far.

If its suppose to do that.. then now my wife going to hold it over me that her computer is twice as fast as mine....

Then I suppose I can turn off Sygate right in the middle of her Ebay bid ...

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: r1013a
Thanks for the help so far.

If its suppose to do that.. then now my wife going to hold it over me that her computer is twice as fast as mine....

Then I suppose I can turn off Sygate right in the middle of her Ebay bid ...

LOL!!!

No way, what you do is make HER system the master system, so it has to do all that stuff!

 

[Insane3D]

One other thing that will cut down on boot time is disabling the Firewire if you aren't using it. The Firewire drivers also add a 1394 network controller to the device manager, so when Windows boots, it looks for an IP on both the LAN port and the firewire. You can shave a few seconds off by disabling the firewire.

 

[klein297]

You can shave a few seconds off by disabling the firewire.

That or having something plugged in took a minute off my bootup time