Tech Support Guy banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

ibm P4 desktop takes 15 mins to boot

1K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  KingCody 
#1 ·
hi,
I have an IBM P4 desktop pc, and everything seems fine with it, except that at one point it started "pausing" for 15 miutes in the boot process, right between the "press F1 for boot device selection" and the windows startup screen.

after the 15 minutes the systems resumes normally.

the other funny part is that if after it does its 15 minute thing and boots up, if i restart right after it will not do it again! but if i unplug the power and wait 2 minutes then plug it back in it will.

it seems to me like it is running an extended boot test or something but i could not figure what option would be causing that in the bios if that is the case... i tried many things.

any ideas appreciated.
Joe.
 
#2 ·
yzman said:
right between the "press F1 for boot device selection" and the windows startup screen.
The computer should only goto the boot selection screen if you press F8 during bootup, shut down inproperly, clear CMOS, or change the motherboard. You should not see that screen during normal bootup.

yzman said:
if i restart right after it will not do it again! but if i unplug the power and wait 2 minutes then plug it back in it will
Why are you unplugging power to a desktop computer?

It sounds like the CMOS battery on your motherboard is dead, when you unplug AC power, your BIOS still needs power to retain it's settings (it gets power from it's battery (usually CR2032 button cell). Try replacing your battery
 
#3 ·
thanks for your reply, let me clarify:

"The computer should only goto the boot selection screen if you press F8 during bootup, shut down inproperly, clear CMOS, or change the motherboard. You should not see that screen during normal bootup."

i wasn't talking about the windows F8 screen... the IBM bios, after the splash screen, loads a screen that only has:

press F1 for boot device selection
press F2 to enter Bios setup

that is where the computer hangs for 15 minutes...

"Why are you unplugging power to a desktop computer?

It sounds like the CMOS battery on your motherboard is dead, when you unplug AC power, your BIOS still needs power to retain it's settings (it gets power from it's battery (usually CR2032 button cell). Try replacing your battery"

i don't think that is the problem either.. again let me explain:

i was only unplugging as a test.
"i restart right after it will not do it again!" if i restart the next day it will!... (pc never unplugged)
the unplugg thing was just to illustrate that if i restart right after it is fine, but if i unplugg for 2 minutes after it booted up, then turn back on, it will take 15 minutes again.

thanks
 
#4 ·
Enter the BIOS setup and check the boot settings. Some IBM systems have multiple boot sequences depending on the startp; ie. cold start, diagnostic startup, and so on. Change all the boot orders to start off the hard disk first.

You may also want to disable the floppy drive seek option in the bios.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top