Display comes late while powering.

I used to use a 3 years old 80 gb Hitachi hard disk. It was working just fine. One day I took my hard disk to my friends house and had transfered some files. Then when I tried to start my computer, it was taking time. After I pressed the power button, the processor, graphics fans started running and the monitor light kept just flashing; no display. After 1 or 2 minutes, the display comes and everything was fine. I was not experiencing any problem while working on the pc. But when I tried to play games (Mass effect 2, gta 4) I got strangely low frame rate then usual. I turned off the pc and changed the sata port of hard disk. Then it didn't take that 1 or 2 minutes to boot and I was not experiencing any other problem, not the games problem too. Some times it took again long to show display and I changed the sata again. Then it was fine. Few days ago, I bought a Western Digital 320 gb hard disk. Connecting it, it again takes 2/3 minutes to show the display. I changed the port many times but this time it didn't work. It always takes time to show the display. Sometimes it doesn't show the display at all. Fans are running, monitor light is flashing, no display. I deattached the hard disk and tried again. Same, no display at all. I opened the cmos battery and put it again. This time the display came. When the pc is running with the new hard disk, there is not any problem. But when to start the pc, it takes time to show the display and sometimes it doesn't even start (it happened 2 times). It's certainly a hardware problem ? What can it be ? My motherboards sata things have problem ? the battery is down ? I use windows xp sp3. 3 years old msi g31, geforce 9400 gt, 2 gb ram, 2 months old intel pentium dual core e5400, 3 days old western digital 320 gb hard disk.

 

Have you disconnected and reconnected the SATA cable at the motherboard? Could some other cables have been loosened (like optical drive cables), disconnect and reseat those.

Go into the BIOS at startup and make the Defaults setting. You might have to use a restart instead of a cold startup to see the screen or watch for when the LEDs lights up on the keyboard. Check the motherboard manual about how to "Clear the CMOS ", you might want to try that. If there is a setting "Floppy drive seek ", disable it.

In Window's Help and Support, read about running Error Checking (CHKDSK). Do a scan on each of the drives (partitions).

Matt

 

Thanks for your reply and help. I have disconnected and reconnected the SATA port many times, tried differents port too. I disconnected the optical drive cable to see what happend, I booted without the hard disk, I booted without the CMOS battery; but the same problem. It takes unusally longer than before just to show the display. About loose cables, do you want me to check the big port that comes from PSU and is attached to the mainboard ?
I loaded BIOS deafult before, floopy is already disabled. No progress. When I restart the running pc, it's fine; it doesn't take long while rebooting. Just when I press the power button to power it, it takes long. After I press the power button, the CPU fan, Graphics fan and case fan starts running; the keyboard NUM Lock and Laser's mouse's light is not yet lighted, they light when the display comes.
I didn't try checking the disk. I'll let you know when I finish checking.

 

It seems to be having trouble identifying/loading some device or component initially. It is OK after it has already been loaded.

Disconnect any added hardware...USB, Firewire, etc, including any add-in cards (PCI cards).

You can go into the BIOS and disable individual motherboard hardware items.

If a device is failing, you will need to isolate it, then there should be add-in card available to replace it. For example, if the SATA controller fails, you can get a PCI card to replace it.

Hopefully, there is nothing broken, but it seems that the problem is hanging around.

Matt

 

The monitor comes on in time and I can see all the boot up information. After pressing the power button, while the fans are running and monitor light flashes, the HDD LED is kept lighted. I don't think Quick Boot will help. It's Enabled.
@ Mr. Matt, I tried booting the pc by disabling the On Board Sata Controller, On Board IDE Controller, On Board Lan Controller, On Board Audio. But it's same; while powering on it takes the same old long delay. Only things I could not check by disabling are USB Controller, USB Device Legacy Support. I also could not remove the graphics card and use the default graphics. I use a USB keaboard. I don't have any added hardware. Do you want me to try disabling USB and graphics card ? And can BIOS Update be of any help ? I looked into MSI's web site. There are a lot of updates available for my mother board. They say, Don't update the BIOS unless you feel the necessity.

 

Disabling Quick Boot would be a good test. Quick Boot does not scan the hardware, it just loads the previous configuration. You could disable it for several startups and see if there is a difference.

I think you can see that if you disabled the USB, you would probably lose the use of the keyboard and mouse. The only way to re-enable them would be to "Clear the CMOS ", so you should only try that if you are prepared. By what you say about having a graphics adapter as well as onboard graphics, that might be the area I would be a little concerned about. Adapter cards are quite power hungry so you should check that the power supply more than meets the system requirements of the card. I suggest you get the motherboard manual and check that there are no special settings for using a adapter card and get the adapter card's user guide/manual, check the system requirements and any troubleshooting information.

"Generic" power supplies, even though they may have a high wattage, may not supply enough amperage on some of the voltage rails. Graphics card manufacturers are now starting to specify a "quality" PSU in their system requirements and even minimum amperage requirements. If you suspect the PSU and you know someone with a good system you could borrow their PSU for testing.

The BIOS upgrades will have information about what changes/improvements they make. You could check through those, but still hold off until you ruled out any of the basic hardware areas. You should not upgrade the BIOS (flash the CMOS) on a system that is possibly unstable.

That has happened to some of my computers, but only on occasion. Maybe it is just a glitch, but it has lead me to do some testing. I changed the graphics adapter on one and another "settled down" after I reseated all the cables and cards and cleaned the major connectors. Even though the power supplies are adequate, I don't rule out that they could be a factor.

You can try taking the graphics adapter card out and carefully clean the connectors with a pure form of alcohol. (You will probably see it suggested in the user guide/manual).

Matt

 

@ Mr. Steve R Jones, If it's ok for you to come on your display after 2 minutes of pressing the power button, then it's ok for me too.

@ Mr. Matt, I didn't try Quick Boot as well as USB Controller. I removed the graphics card and started with default motherboard's graphics. And fortunately it solved my problem. The PC started just fine. It took the normal 2 seconds to come on the display after pressing the power button. I then cleaned the graphics card and partially cleaned the motherboard with a brush. Then put the graphics card back and then it is fine too. It didn't take long and everything is fine. It seems that it was the graphics card's problem. That's why I got framrate in game lower than usual. Now everything is fine. Unfortunately I lost the graphics card's manual. I checked in nVidia's site as well as Albatron's site (Graphics card is of Albatron brand with nVidia's chipset.) I never found what amperage the Graphics card needs. Do you know where I can get this information ? Any software ? And what could be the problem ? PSU or Graphics Card or Mainboard or it's just the dust that made the problem ? Thanks for your time and valuable information.

 

Swagata, if you click on Matt's Post at the bottom of the page SIW (Everest), this software will show all your comp's Hardware/Brands/web contacts etc. Cheers Neil.