Extremely long Startup

[kevin4174]

Hello All My name is Kevin. I am new to your forum as I have stumpled across your forum while trying to figure out my problem. so I figured some of you gurus out there will have a possible solution. My knowledge of computers is between familiar and experienced.I hope all is well with everyone.Now for my problem, I had a harddrive failure a couple of weeks back, so I replaced my harddrive. I was loading windows xp pro sp2 and when the installation was complete I turned off the computer for the night. when I turned on the computer the next day, my computer will take an extremely long time to boot up, meaning it will take a extremely long time to even get to the bios. the time frame will vary from about 30 to 60 mins if I am lucky sometime it takes even longer. I am not sure what is wrong.  I tried to search the forum for a possible fix but to no avail unless it is somewhere else
eventually my computer will boot up where the operating systems starts up.

below is a list of things I have tried and hope have covered all possibilities. I have tried

1. using a spare working harddrive from another computer
2. unplugged and reconnected the ide cables
3. reseated the ram.
4 checked and reconnected any pci devices.
5. checked the battery on the motherboard as this computer is over 5 years old.
6. tried new cables
7. disconnected all devices to see if the computer will boot up quicker. I was doing this to see if any of my current hardware is the problem. ( I know not have any devices will give me an error. I was hoping to see that error to let me know it is something other the motherboard). this was in effective.

I am thinking that one possibility is my mother board is gone like the wind.

Can anyone help me with this?

all suggestions/comments welcome.

thanks in advance

Kevin

[patio]

Did you remember to re-install the MBoard drivers when you re-installed XP ? ?
If so i would check Device Manager for problem devices first and install any other missing drivers.

Was this a brand new HDD or just new to this machine ? ?
Any error messages involved here ? ?

[kevin4174]

I didn't get a chance to install any Mboard drivers. It takes an extremely long time just to get to the operating system. basically the computer would just a black screen. will not give an option to get to the bios to check set up.

no error messages of any type was displayed.

the harddrive I used was new. was able to load winxp from the cd by selecting the cd rom to boot first. I don't believe this is the problem as I have done this many many times before with no problems.

what about the possibility of bad ram.

still stumped.

[patio]

You need to start with installing the MBoard drivers...
Re-boot after every prompt.
Report back after that...

[kevin4174]

Normally I would not disagree by installing the Mboard drivers would help but I think I am not explaining the situation clearly. so i will try this.

If I was even able to get into windows such as tonight. I would have installed the mboard drivers anyway.

I have taken my hard drive to work and attached it to another computer. the computer booted up quickly. it displayed the standared "press del key for the setup" then quickly started up windows.

I brought my harddrive back home and connected up. this is where my problem occurs.

after turning on the computer, it takes an extremely long time for it to display or get to the point if you will and show the following "press del key for the setup"

after I connected the harddrive, i turn it on at 5:30pm and still nothing showed at 9:30pm.  (black screen, no text no display) so hopefully this will help you understand my problem. unless there is possible solution. I am almost at a point where i am going to throw it over my balcony and then run it over with my truck.

so the only thing i can think of is that something is either loose on the mboard, I will check my ram and cables again, or the mboard as i mentioned before is gone like the wind.

[Eg0Death]

How many devices do you have connected to your computer when you start it?  I recommend removing anything that is not essential.  Start with one hard drive, no CD drives, one stick of RAM, a PS/2 keyboard (if available) and no mouse.  The simpler the setup, the easier it is to troubleshoot.

[patio]

You need to understand that XP does not like being swapped from one machine to the next...this is by design.
Matter of fact any Windows OS after WinME will have issues if this is done...

[kevin4174]

Egodeath

in response to your question. I have tried starting up with nothing connected looking for the error message saying cannot find boot device. nothing happened immediately but did pop up after a while. I have tried just starting with one harddrive, again nothing popped up right but as mentioned previously the system would start.

currently I do not have any thing connected other than the replacement harddrive. both my ram chips which I still have to test to see if one of them has gone south. a ps/2 keyboard.  but I do have a question why do not connect a mouse? (i guess it is really not needed at this point but curious)

Patio

Understood of what you are telling regarding the different OS. I didn't know this. I have swapped many computers before and knowing I had to install the mboard drivers i didn't think of this being a problem.

Here is a question for all of you though. I have attached a jpeg of part of my mboard. the picture is what i think is a resister near the ram chip sockets. if you look closely, you can see some sort of brown substance on the top of it. but if you look at the one to the left in the picture beside the ram chip itself you can see it is clean. I am thinking this is my problem.

don't know if you need to know, but there are 16 of these resistors and 4 of them are like the one in the picture (brown substance on top)

am I correct to say even though the computer will boot up eventually, my mboard is gone and i guess it is not really worth replacing. it is probably cheaper to buy a new computer.

your thoughts

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[ChrisXPPro]

I have zoomed in to that pic but must confess I cannot pick out what you mention.  It is tho an interesting observation so, wonder if you can get in any closer and add an arrow to show what you describe. .. may not help but be good to see closer.

[kevin4174]

I tried to get in closer for the picture but I couldn't get it clear enough. so I have reattached a new picture. I have drawn a circle around my observation and drew in 2 crudly messy arrows. hope this helps

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[patio]

You have bulging/leaking capacitors...that MBoard needs to be replaced.

[ChrisXPPro]

Well - zoomed in again but danged if I can see any difference from previous version of the pic!

The elctrolytics don't appear to me to be leaky/bulged - but anyways - it does seem possible the mobo is failing by symptom picture.  Ok maybe the bottom right two may be showing some top bulge but not sure the brownish marks are typical of leakage.  From my experience most degredation seems to occur at base, around contact wires, apart from actual exploding examples!.

[patio]

Note the 2 Green ones in the lower right...

[ChrisXPPro]

Yep - those were the two I did notice ... but as I said it is (in my experience anyways) unusual to have any crud emerge from tops - it's more often I've found, a degredation in the bottom insulation cap where wires emerge.

Does seem some bulge tho - indicative of internal pressure.

[patio]

This is the most common type of failure of Capacitors...they are designed to do this before taking out the whole board.
Some shops still replace them but it's getting harder and harder to find them...

[kevin4174]

silly question

so as Patio has indicated earlier, the mboard is pretty much gone. now i have to see what i am going to do.

so as i have never seen this before and don't know why/how this happenes,  I am curious, what would cause the capacitor to bulge and leak? Power supply? power surge, insufficient cooling?

[ChrisXPPro]

Kevin .... quite a few factors can affect caps .......

It is always possible the chosen components are not rated high enough for op voltage - and so over time they can suffer.  Electrolytics are polarized and function in DC circuits and so if a voltage on one is nominally 5V let's say - the cap should be rated a bit over that - maybe by 100% to play safe.

Many if not most electrolytics act as ''smoothing'' - a buffer if you will to let them either smooth a DC waveform and/or also, serve as if you will - a mini battery.  Thus helping maintain a steady supply to a board section.

Temperature is another factor as well - and while most electrolytics should run quite cool, if they suffer over voltage then degredation can occur over time.  Small surges are usually OK but again assuming rating is adequate.

Finally I guess too - is quality control.  These things are churned out by the thousands and so not so sure that on occasions they are as robust as intended.  Electrolytics also tend to display an inevitable ''leakage'' and if construction not good enough can suffer thermal effects.