Windows Pauses for 5 mins on startup

Has anyone an idea as to why my screen goes black and nothing happens just after the windows splash screen loads on startup? I'd been having some driver issues at the weekend and reinstalled a lot as well as flashing my bios. everythings running well now except for this startup problem. grateful for any suggestions.....

 

Highly likely to be a problem loading the graphics/display adapter drivers or the adapter's "Control Panel ".

Have you updated the chipset drivers? Update/reinstall those, then look at updating or reinstalling the graphics drivers.

Matt

 

thanks Matt,

You are right, it is the graphics drivers but i still can't fix the pause....

I uninstalled the chipset drivers and the ati drivers (and the ati 'catalyst control centre') and rebooted. Windows loads no problem, no pauses. However as soon as it boots, Windows recognised my ati card (9600) and installed drivers automatically. i installed the chipset drivers and rebooted but what do you know... same problem. i timed it today, its a 65 second pause just after the splash screen!

Do you or anyone else know what Windows is doing during the pause? I can't think of a solution except maybe deleting the ati drivers that windows has stored and then trying to reboot and install straight from the drivers i've downloaded of the ati website. only thing is i'm not entirely sure how to do this and whether its safe. my method would be:

1. write down graphics drivers installed by windows
2. find all those files in the system32 directory
3. uninstall graphics drivers
4. delete files listed from system32 directory
5. reboot.

I am concerned that this would mean that windows wouldn't be able to use the graphics card and so there would be no picture....

if i do do this do i need to uninstall chipset drivers first? is there a particular order i should be installing drivers?

FYI I have two chipset drivers, one for the agp and another for the ide udma.

sorry for the long drawn out thread but i've wasted so much time trying to get this sorted....I know there must be a simple answer just beyond my reach!!?

thanks for any help

(Would an Everest report help?)

 

You can clean those drivers.

DriverCleaner: http://www.drivercleaner.net/professional.php
See the ATI section: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=752253

 

At that stage Windows will be loading the ATI drivers and changing over from standard drivers. If the pause was during the time the System Tray loads (at the desktop) I would suspect the ATI Control Panel. It would appear to be the drivers.

Could any drivers or software for previous graphics adapters still be installed on the system? Check through Add or Remove Programs and in Device Manager.

You could try the ATI Catalyst Uninstaller and I suggest running it in Safe Mode:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=1447

I have not found the neccessity for using an uninstaller/cleaner. I go to Safe Mode and uninstall there. It sometimes takes a few goes until you can force Windows to stop reinstalling them the old way.

If you happen to boot to a blank screen, just boot back into Safe Mode and uninstall the Display Adapter in Device Manager again.

I had trouble with my 9600XT drivers and kept uninstalling them in Safe Mode. When the New Hardware wizard ran at startup I directed it to the drivers disk that came with the card. It worked 100% after that.

If you are still stuck, look in the System Devices of Device Manager for a device/s related to AGP. They should be labelled with the chipset name (ie, Intel, nVidia, VIA, SIS, etc). Uninstall that/those, they should be reinstalled automatically unless they require updating. The system will work OK on standard chipset drivers until you find updates (at the motherboard manufacturer's website for your model).

Matt

 

Be sure to disable (not uninstall) any unused network adapters. Each unused adapter set to automaticly obtain IP addressing information can add 20 seconds to a minute to startup until they give up on DHCP;

Consider as well the ARC information in boot.ini: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/242518/

Using Multi(), for example, instead of SCSI() or other means of ARC pathing can help.

After booting, do a Start, Run, rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

(This forces the optimization process, as well as any other processes that runs during idle time, to start. This is essentially the core process of the old bootvis.exe program.)

Nothing exciting happens, although you should see your drive light flicker after a few minutes. Give this about 12 minutes to run. This can save 20-40 seconds at boot.

Since there are effective, one-pass, freeware cleaners for ATI drivers, use them. Unless you like rebooting into Safe mode multiple times and running Device Manager. I do not.

 

Well I got rid of all the drivers and ran the driver cleaner software which seemed to do exactly what it says on the tin. Rebooted and prayed but lo and behold the problem was still there, even with all the drivers and software stripped out (SIS chipset and ATI).

I'm now wondering what to do. If this didn't sort it how can I be sure which drivers are confusing windows?

I'm not sure how to check if Windows is using scsi() or signature() syntax in the Boot.ini file instead of multi() syntax. It says multi in the boot.ini but it would anyway wouldn't it?

It would be really satisfying to get to the bottom of this!

Thanks. Tom

 

Your boot.ini is likely fine from your description.

While I do not like this tool, it will give you some clues as to what is happening at boot time:

Bootvis.exe
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

You want to do a Trace.
Then after the reboot do an optomize.