very very slow boot times

[macdawg]

guys my roommates pc will still take 3 minutes or so to boot even with all startup items unticked.

we havent changed any bios settings but it hangs on the bios screen during startup before the xp logo for most of the time.

the motherboard is asus p4pe, 2.4 ghz p4, a gig of ram, I've defragged, unchecked startup items, disabled unneccesary services.

I looked for a quick boot option in the bios but don't see one.

any advice?

 

[jcortes]

have you tried flashing the bios and/or reseting them?

 

[macdawg]

I'm a little scared to do that on a friends computer, flashing bios isn't a 100% safe thing to do right?

 

[jcortes]

sure it is aslong as you dont have a corrupt floppy or a magical power outage at the time of the flash but try resetting the bios first.

There are 2 ways you can reset your bios.

1. On the motherboard there is a small watch battery. Remove this battery along with the power cable from the power supply. Hold down the power button to fully discharge the system. Wait 2-3 minutes then reinstall the battery and plug in your system. Your reset is now complete

2. Some motherboards have a 3 pin jumper by the battery. Lets say that the jumper is on pins 2 and 3. Remove the jumper while the machine is OFF and place onto pins 1 and 2. Power on your machine for a minute. (Note: Your system will not POST). Shutdown your machine and put the jumper back to pins 2 and 3. Your reset is now complete

 

[macdawg]

thx I'll report back