slow boot and overall performance only when system is cold???

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hustbaer

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hi folks!

i have a strange problem.
some weeks ago i built my own PC.
after some trouble with a defective asus board, and infineon rams that would only run at 380mhz (instead of the promised 400), i now have a gigabyte board, and corsair twinx rams, everything works fine!

with the exception of one strange effect (not really a problem, but it makes me nervous!)

when i boot the computer up for the first time after it was turned of for some hours, the booting takes ages.
when the system is up, performance is bad (slow) too.

after some time, the system will "speed up" again.
and there is nothing that accompanies the speedup.
the system just gets faster and faster, up to the point where the "normal performance" is reached.

when i restart the computer after it has reached it's "final speed", the system boots up in no time.
when i restart the computer immedialtely after the first "slow" boot the system boots up still slow, but not AS slow as the first boot.
the funny thing is, all parts are equally slow/fast - except the BIOS POST (including memory test).

im running win2000 server on the box, and the "grey-bar" in text-mode is slow when cold, fast when warm.
the blue graphical progress bar in the win2k boot-screen: same effect.
the "preparing network connection" and "loading settings" windows (and all similar): same effect.

i've already checked my rams with memtest86, 12 hours @420mhz (just for testing) -> no error.
now running @400mhz, should be fine.

finally some specs on my system:

board: gigabyte, i875P based (must lookup the exact name if it matters)
cpu: P4 2,6C (2,6Ghz, "FSB800")
ram: corsair twinx 2x512Mb at 400Mhz, dual-channel
psu: some 460W enermax thingy

system-disk: stripe-set with 2xWD Raptor (10.000rpm, SATA) - driven by the Intel ICH5 SATA raid-controller, stripe size 16K.
other disks: 1x 80G Seagate Barracuda + 1x 120G Seagate Barracuda

cd/dvd: 1x toshiba cd-rom, 1x NEC 1300 dvd-writer
gfx: saphire radeon 9600, passive cooling (zalman, not the original passive cooled version but self installed).

os: windows 2000 server, SP4 + various hotfixes

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i think it might be some thermal problem, but i just can't figure out what or why...

it the effect is "normal" i can live with it, i just don't like the idea of something strange going on that i dont understand - because as long as i don't know the cause it could be *anything* - including things that could cause some serious damage/data-loss :(

if you need any more information, just ask.

i would be very grateful for anything that could help me understand this :)

bye,
--hustbaer
 
check out the functionality of the heat sinks if they are working fine
although this is a problem usually with AMD processor but it appears that you have a pentium right?
 
well.
uhm.
i did modify the heatsink.
and yes i have a pentium 4, not amd.

and i never reached 50°C in any test, even under full load.

i dont think its a problem with the heatsink, because
a) the pentium 4 throttles down at 70°C which is far from what i have ever reached
b) the system should start fast and get slower if it was a cooling problem, not start slow and get faster.

i really don't understand it :(

but thanks anyway!

bye,
--hustbaer
 
@MicroBell:

Well, I didn't rebuild the RAID, but I reinstalled Win2000.
The RAID controller on the old board was a ICH5 and on the new one there is the same chip.

But if this could help, just rebuilding the RAID would be no problem...
Maybe I'll give it a try.

bye,
--hustbaer
 
Hi
I am having the same problem and was wondering if you found what was the cause of the slow down for you system? I'm running WinXP Pro P4 celeron 2.4 ASrock M266a motherbrd.
My problem is exactly what you described, the system used to be fine and then suddenly it start to take a very long time to boot Window, but only when cold. Once warm and running shutdown and start up is quick.
Already tried the power supply because the fan was noisey, but no difference.

thankx
 
Hi!

I think I just got used to it :) To be honest I can't really tell if it's still there, because I just don't watch my PC boot anymore. If it's of any importance to you I could try again like tomorrow, watch the boot and all that.

But what might be interesting to you is the fact that I wrote an email to Western Digital (the boot RAID is built of 2 WD Raptor drives as I wrote) and they replied that it's perfectly normal that the disks don't perform well as long as they are cold.
Also I haven't had a single problem with my 2 WD Raptor disks so far, so I suppose it might really be just that. When I posted that it was winter, and I tend to keep my room-temperature rather low. Since it's now winter again... :)

You might try to power the disks only for some time (just disconnect everything else from the PSU) and after like 10 minutes switch off the PSU, reconnect everything quickly, and then try a boot. If the system boots fast then, than you likely have no problem at all, but maybe a low room temperature combined with picky disks.

Ah, yes, if the "slow" thing doesn't go away after like 10 minutes or so I think you might have another problem. Also if you had the same problem during the summer it might be something else.

Hope that helps,
Regards,
hustbaer
 
try changing your thermal pad under heatsink.

1 possibility would be, that it is thick enough that as when system is switche ON, the cpu reaches its maximum heat in seconds. whilst the thermal material havent melted down, so not allowing the cpu to transfer heat to the heatsink. resulting in thermal throttling.

as when the material gets warm enough to start transferring the heat to the heatsink. then it might become able to reach its normal clocks.

i wonder what they use on their heatsinks, as when i bought mine, first thing i did was got rid of thermal pad, and used Arctic silver instead.
 
Hi
Thanks everyone for the input. I started getting hard drive read errors when Booting up cold.
I found a utility Active Smart and it reported alot of changes in several of the Hard Drive SMART attributes while the system was running. Hard Drive is a Maxtor 6Y120L0, so I did a low level format (took 10 hours) using the powermax utility and restored the ghost image and installed a cooling fan on the hard drive.
Now system boots up quickly when cold!!
 
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