Occasional 15 minute boot

My cousin has a Dell Dimension 4400. When she turns on the computer it varies between taking about a minute to get to the log on screen to sometimes as long as 15 minutes. She brought it to me hoping I could help. I set it up and the first day, it was booting up fine every time. Then the second day, it started happening. The machine would POST fairly quickly. The 3 lights on the keyboard would flash. There is no internal speaker to give a single beep signifying a successful boot. But then it would be at the XP screen where you see a green bar flashing along the bottom. And it would stay there for a few minutes, the screen goes blank and then, if left alone, it will eventually get to the logon screen. I timed this to be anywhere from 10 -15 minutes!

She tells me Dell has had her reload XP on it twice. Each time, it solves the problem temporarily. But then after a week or so the log on process takes longer and longer, with very few times that it will log on in a minute. The second time, she purposely did not load any applications except what she needed to check her mail and Norton so she would be protected.

I spent some time with Dell Support. They seem to feel it is software related so I am posting it here. They had me going into msconfig/startup items and used some of thier diagnostic software. Nothing seemed to help. Strongly enough, the problem went away when I added a Ram module. I did not add it to solve the problem, but more so because she wants to do photo editing. So I recommended adding 512 MB to the existing 256 MB. The Ram was delivered the third day I had the machine, so I popped it in and every boot after that was a minute or less. I realize additional Ram would help the machine load the OS faster, but the problem she was having, and is starting to have again, is not SLOW loading, more like it stops loading for a long time. But since it was loading in under a minute or so every time I booted, I told her to come pick it up. Since then, the problem is creeping back up again.


Dell is convinced it is software related, I am not. Has anyone encountered this on a Dell or any other type of computer? Can it be Hardware related?

I don't have the computer, but I am looking for experience from all of you as to what the problem may be. What does XP do in between the POST and to the point the logon screen appears?

 

I assume you use XP, so if you do, here's my solution to a similar problem that I experienced.

Open the Control Panel, select Network and Internet Connections/ Network Connections, and if you use a network card for an internet connection, make sure you see a Local Area connection listed, if not try creating one to see if that helps.

I had a similar slowdown because of a faulty network card that was causing my Local Area connection to disappear at times, so if your motherboard bios has a built-in network capability, you might try configuring that instead of using a PCI network card to see if the boot process speeds up for you.