Dev Mgr takes forever to open, also long bootup time.

[nork]

I'm not quite yet a geek, but i can put a system together, lol.

I am building a computer with:

MSI NEO2 mobo - intel865 chipset.
Right now i only have 256 mb ram in it
win xp pro
P4 2.4 cpu
Maxtor 40 gig C drive plus Maxtor 80 gig drive
dvdrom
floppy
enermax power supply.


I dont have a lot of progs or even a lot of hardware installed yet.

One thing i noticed is that it takes a long time to boot up and it also takes a long time, like over a minute after i have clicked on it, for Dev Mgr to open up. Once opened, there are no issues, just that it takes forever to open.

I am guessing that once i connect the machine to the net that it wont take so long to boot as i have networking enabled on this machine and i believe on bootup its looking for a network and i'm guessing thats the reason for the long bootup. Would that be correct thinking on that?

But what about Dev Mgr? Why is it taking so long to open?

thanks

[ski]

The long boot up time is probably due to the NIC, as you mentioned.

WRT the Device Manager problem, if it worked ok before any programs and additional hardware were installed, then do a system restore to when the O/S was initially installed.
If that works, then reinstall each program and hardware device one at a time and check for the problem after doing each installation. If the problem happens after installing a specific program or hardware device, then that program or hardware driver is the cause.

If no luck or if the problem happened before any programs and additional hardware devices were installed, then see if a system repair helps.

If still no good, then reformat and reinstall Windows.

[nork]

I went into windows network and disabled it. This had the effect of disabling the onboard nic in device mgr.
However, bootup still takes forever. It boots quickly to the black windows screen, then takes forever there, then takes forever once again at the next screen after the black one, which is the blue one, then finally boots to windows desktop.
I dont think i can even do the system restore you mentioned as i have been messing with this on my bench for nearly 2 months. I leave it for a week at a time without having time to work on it.

[ski]

How long does it take to boot up?

Which programs load during startup, and then run in the background?

[CuratoR]

And what about safe mode? Does it take long time to boot into safe mode as well?
Plzz note that the booting time for safe mode and normal mode can be different. But I'm sure you'll be able to notice if safe mode takes unusually long time.

If its not the device driver, a hardware component might be causing it. You may want to try with minimal hardware setup and go adding each component one by one. I mean try to boot, with only CPU,RAM,Mobo and your HDD containing windows. Often "going to be bad" hdds can cause such delay.

And another thing, check the event viewer, any system events giving warning/errors? Post it here if you think its relevant.

[Mick_D]

How are your jumpers configured on your hard drives? If they are configured as master/slave try setting the jumpers to cable select or if set to cable select jumper them as master/slave. I've seen a few motherboards that were initially very slow to boot and this solved the problem. Although CuratoR's suggestion of adding one componant at a time is also an excellant idea.