Boot time......sooooooo slow!!!!

[miggetyMike]

I am dual booting win 98 and win xp. Both operating systems work fine. Win xp loads in the usual 20 secs.....but win 98 loads in about 3 minutes.......2 mins of which, the hard drive is not even spinning. But once it loads it runs fine. I disabled all if the startup programs but it still took a year to boot up. Any ideas???Thanks.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Do you have a network card (i.e. ethernet)? Mine did the same exact thin gafter installing my Linksys card drivers under '98. Then on day I though to disable it for some reasone when messing around and bang right back to fast boot speed. I think mine was searching the ethernet for a boot device. XP didnt do it just 98! If you have one it might be your prob.

[miggetyMike]

Hmmmmmmm.....interesting....I'll try it. Cause I noticed that safemode boots in 3 seconds........but how would I permanently solve this problem?

[miggetyMike]

Wow man....dead on!!! Went in safe mode and disabled my ethernet card and restarted......took like 5 seconds!!!!! But what if I want to use the card???

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Glad it helped. But as for the fix
I dont know! I just use it in XP since it works fine there. In 98 I dont know what to do. I'll give BP a shout and send him the link since he's the network guy. Maybe he will know. I have yet to find a fix, but somhow I know you can tell it not to search for ethernet boot devices-just not sure where as its already off in my bios.

[BipolarBill]

Greetings.

All you can do is update drivers and switch PCI slots if you can, Mike. The NIC should be right beneath the AGP card anyway. If it doesn't help, you'll have to either live with it or switch to a nice Linksys LNE100TX or a D-Link DFE 530TX+. Cheap - $15.

Oh...anytime you move a card, clean up Win9x Device Manager in Safe Mode.

[deadkenny]

You need to set an internal IP address under 98 so that the ethernet card doesn't hang on boot, looking for a LAN.

[BipolarBill]

Oh? That makes sense, DK. Set a fixed IP for the card, Mike. Make it 192.168.1.100 with a mask of 255.255.255.0.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Hey nice tip-deadkenny. I guess that way it wont search so much just hit that one IP and if no go continue to boot. That makes sense. Thanks BP and deadkenny for the replys. I knew what was wrong but not how to fix it. I'm gonna give it a try too since I have the same prob. in '98. Wonder why it doesnt do it in XP though. Must have to do with how XP is better at networking eh?

BP- I have my Linksys card in slot 3 nothing in slot 1 as this mobo manual says it is shared with agp-should I move it, it works in XP but not sure about 98, never got that far. Thanx


P.S. deadkenny did you get that name from South Park-just wondering! Oh my God you killed Kenny! Kenny is dead!

[deadkenny]

You're welcome. NP

You are correct, XP handles it, 9x doesn't.

BTW, Southpark? What's that?

[BipolarBill]

Win2K and XP use Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) if there's no connection:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/In...rticleID=7464.

I wouldn't move the card till I tried the IP, Gamer.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

I see,- thanks for the link. Thats was very informative! Its amazing how adavnced networking is getting. Its like it can almost think for itself these days-scary!

Yeah, good advice! I'll just try the IP first. If it aint broke dont fix it!