excessive boot time

[row]

under normal circumstances takes between 15 and 20 seconds to post, from turning on to desktop.

last 3 or 4 times i've booted up the same process has taken close to 5 minutes, hangs on boot device led.

once boot is complete pc seems to run fine.

the os drive (crucial 256g m4) and storage drives (2x wd 600g raptors) are ok according to wd's data lifeguard diagnostic tool.

the bios retains changes to it's default values.

so the ssd is connected thru the sata6g_e1 (or e2) port, don't know which, neither of which shows up in the bios menu under "sata configuration" under the "advanced" menu tab. the other 6 ports sata6g_1 & 2, sata3g_1 thru 4 are prresent and show the drives (2 hd's, 1 disc drv) in the appropriate places.

not much info to go on, but anyone have any ideas? system is about 6 months old, never oc'd and is the pc is in the sig below.

thanks for any help!

 

[Smoove910]

have you used the 'msconfig' utility and ensured nothing is starting up that shouldn't be? (Startup tab)

Outside of that, I would run an instance of Malwarebytes to see if you have any malware/spyware on your system.

 

[row]

thanks for the response smoove910.

i have norton 360 installed and had it run it's full system security scan and nothing showed up. i'll try msconfig, thanks.

 

[Ketchup]

Can you post the model number of your motherboard?

 

[row]

z77 sabertooth

 

[daveybrat]

Is your boot order set to boot to the SSD drive first?

Make sure that is the only thing and turn off any boot to lan or usb devices.

 

[Ketchup]

z77 sabertooth

Thanks, I took a look and I am thinking you may not be using the best sata port placement, or the drivers you are using for the Asmedia controller is having issues.

As a test, put the SSD in the brown connectors, everything else in the black connectors, and leave the gray unoccupied.

Are the Raptors in RAID?

 

[Charlie98]

i have norton 360 installed...

 

[Ketchup]

The last build I did had an SSD and ran fine with norton 360 (what the customer had). I did find that I needed to disable some of it's built-in features, like defragmenting, to name one.

 

[row]

thanks each and everyone for your help, it is truly appreciated!

ran msconfig with no effect on excessive boot time.

the ssd is set as #1 in bios

i'll try reconfiguring drive connections per your suggestions, and yes raptors are raid0.

optimization is turned off in norton

 

[Charlie98]

The last build I did had an SSD and ran fine with norton 360 (what the customer had). I did find that I needed to disable some of it's built-in features, like defragmenting, to name one.

optimization is turned off in norton

My last ordeal with McAfee pretty much had my computer locked up at boot, I consider Norton pretty much it's equal.

OP, dumb question... did you check your drive and power cables? ...maybe swap them temporarily out with some other SATA cables?

 

[row]

tried all configurations for sata cables with no effect.

no charlie98 i haven't tried that yet but will today, thanks.

 

[row]

replaced all sata cables, no change.

 

[denis280]

Did you try with just the ssd.unplug all other hdd

 

[corkyg]

Look for ntbtlog.txt in the Windows folder. Iy may shed light on what is causing the delay.

 

[Virgorising]

I deplore Norton bigots (ALL bigots, of course.). That is in no way justified....tho I use Norton IS, current build.....lite as a feather and rated among the top three for every element....including use of system resources.

Calling someone a bigot in a technical forum is a bit harsh, don't you think?
-ViRGE

 

[Virgorising]

The last build I did had an SSD and ran fine with norton 360 (what the customer had). I did find that I needed to disable some of it's built-in features, like defragmenting, to name one.

:thumbsup:
LITE AS A FEATHER:

 

[row]

yea denis280 i unplugged the raptors, it had no effect.

i've disabled all startup apps, no change.

no such animal in windows that i can find corkyg.

 

[hurrakan]

I had slow boot times but was able to diagnose the problem by creating a "boot time" custom view in Windows Event Viewer as described here:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/wi...ack-down-issues-that-cause-slower-boot-times/

In my instance, by looking at the details of some of my slow boots, I was able to work out that my blu-ray drive was not being detected and was causing a 60 second timeout on every boot. The "BootPNPInitDuration" was 65387ms! As soon as I disconnected the drive, my boots are back to within 30 seconds (and BootPNPInitDuration is down to 5387ms).

 

[row]

thanks hurrakan i'll give it a try.

as an aside, finally found out how to create a ntbtlog and discovered that dxgkrnl.sys is attempting to load 8 times per boot. all problems i find on net are related to bsods and not slow start times with this driver?

i'm utilizing event viewer to make a custom boot log which will give me a more detailed pic. would have done this step long ago but didn't know it was possible.

 

[hurrakan]

Make sure your Crucial M4 has the latest firmware - a previous firmware had a problem that occurred after 5000 hours use. You said your system was about 6 months old. 6 months = almost 5000 hours.

Does your blu-ray drive show up in Windows still?

I know you said you disconnected the other HDDs but you should try disconnecting all SATA connections except the boot disk. You have the same blu-ray drive that I have - that recently stopped being detected for me as I mentioned above. Apparently it's quite common with these drives, so you should try disconnecting the blu-ray drive.

I guess if you have been using your SSD fine, then you probably know all this, but I'll mention it incase it's related...

sata6g_e1 and e2 are Asmedia SATA ports. You would get better performance if you connect your SSD to one of the Intel SATA ports (SATA6_G1, SATA6_G2).

If using the Asmedia ports make sure to set in BIOS > Advanced > Onboard Devices Configuration > PCI Express X16_3 Slot bandwidth to "Auto".

That makes the Asmedia Storage Controller show up in BIOS (needs to be set to "Enabled" to use the SATA ports). Then you also need to install the Asmedia SATA Controller Driver (from motherboard CD or web).