10 mins to start up?

Summerleft · 19-09-2007, 12:26

OK thinking its the DVD drive as there was a bent pin in the back, and the PC is taking 10 mins to boot up.

Installed fresh copy of windows yesterday onto 250GB HD and would it start!?!

It hung on Verifying DMI for age's but eventually it will start now just takes forever, is it just the DVD drive causing it?

BIOS is having difficulty recognising it also another worry is it isnt recognising temperature or speed? hope its not the MB

any ideas welcome

orangepeel · 19-09-2007, 12:37

IDE* takes forever to initialise if you have it plugged into a non-responding drive (be it either faulty or without power).

Unplug it and the problem is solved. You can use this method to find out the drive that's causing the problem. Repeat for each drive until the system is fixed.

If bending the pin back isn't solving the problem then try a new cable - failing that it'll be a new drive.

* I'm only assuming you are using IDE - I've no experience of SATA as I'm still in the dark ages here.

Summerleft · 19-09-2007, 14:00

yep IDE, tried running without the dvd drive but it wasnt having any, tried 2 differnet IDE cables so going to get a new DVD drive now, did bend the pin back so its recognising it but i cant use a disc as it cannot see that .

thanks

_MB_ · 19-09-2007, 14:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Summerleft

yep IDE, tried running without the dvd drive but it wasnt having any

What was it doing? Not starting? Not improving? Something else?

What have you set boot order to? If its trying to boot off the DVD drive first and this is buggered up then that might be an area to look at.

orangepeel · 19-09-2007, 15:17

Make sure you have the master/slave setting correct on the drive.

If the dvd is the only drive on the cable then set the jumpers to master (you will find them on the back of the drive)

If the DVD & another drive is on the same cable, set one to master, the other to slave. Usually easies to use the setting from the drive you removed.

You could also use "Cable Select" but in my experience that can cause incompatibility issues.

Note that the jumper settings tend to use different layouts depending on manufacturer so don't just copy the old jumper layout unless you are sure it's correct.

Summerleft · 19-09-2007, 21:17

Yep got all that sorted, OH is in IT so let him do that lol, the PC wouldnt start at all without the DVD in, at one point we had both DVD and harddrive on two sepearate IDE cables both on master but thankfully managed to get it to recognise it now and back on the one.

Its worknig ok but as said now its still taking 10-20 mins to start and hanging on the DMI date verify bit.

Gotta be the DVD?

silkstone · 19-09-2007, 21:43

You might take a look here.

A bad DVD drive sounds a possibility, but you may need to follow the other steps too if the machine's pantaloons have got twisted.

orangepeel · 19-09-2007, 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Summerleft

at one point we had both DVD and harddrive on two sepearate IDE cables both on master

that's how u should do it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Summerleft

but thankfully managed to get it to recognise it now and back on the one.

bad move. slows down the hdd.

SgtDisturbed · 20-09-2007, 07:09

It is best to keep the optical drive and hard drive on separate channels, as in on separate cables, but this sounds unrelated.

What you should do is go into the BIOS and set detection settings to Auto on the optical drive if it's not set as such already. If this does nothing or it is already set to Auto, then clear the CMOS. First shut off the computer completely and unplug it. There should be a small jumper down on the bottom edge of the motherboard that says CMOS next to or under it. Move the jumper so it covers the middle pin and the one that was previously uncovered. Leave it there for 30 seconds. Move it back to the previous position. Put the panel back on the tower, plug it in, power it on and see if this helps. If not, then disconnect the DVD drive and floppy drive. If you boot up fine and don't hang, then shut back down and plug in the floppy. If you boot fine, then it's the DVD drive. If not and it hangs again, then remove the floppy and plug in the DVD drive. If it hangs as well, you know that both may be interfering. This could be 2 bad products. If it hangs no matter what, then unplug the hard drive and boot (it should try to boot from CD). If it does fine with the DVD plugged in, then it is the hard drive and it may need to be replaced. Try another hard drive and see if it works fine with that.

Summerleft · 22-09-2007, 17:59

Will try that, i think though its deff the dvd, it wont even recognise any discs in the drive, ive ordered a dvd rewwriter any as needed one so will see what happens.
thanks again

Summerleft · 26-09-2007, 19:04

Argh got my lovely new DVD drive and it wasnt that!, unplugged everything but the graphics card and hard drive and it still did it, doing something called flashing thw BIOS whatever! OH said it might work lol

booooo new motherboard please noooooooooooooo

SgtDisturbed · 01-10-2007, 18:50

It likes like you will in fact need a new motherboard if pretty much all troubleshooting tips have not worked. Sorry to hear that.