Long startup - white dashed bars

[slck0]

About a week ago, with no major software or hardware changes that I can think of, my WinXP system started booting up very slowly. After the initial logo and the page with info about drives and IRQs, it pauses for about 20 seconds before going to a black screen with inch-high white or grey bars that mark the progress of its slow march. The progress bar goes slowly for several minutes and then finally moves on to loading Windows. From there on, everything seems to work fine. It shuts down fine, too.

Does anyone know if that progress bar is from Windows or something that goes on pre-Windows? Any ideas on what else I can try to zero in on the issue? It's not life-threatening or anything -- I just have to leave the room when it boots up so I don't think about it.

I've unsuccessfully tried the following:
* Unplugged everything except the primary hard drive in case some piece of hardware was causing the problem
* Ran Scandisk on the primary hard drive
* Ran all the Norton Systemworks junk (registry repair, etc.)
* Did selective startup with MSCONFIG (the issue seems to be before any of the Windows apps load)
* Uninstalled and reinstalled video drivers (NVidia GEForce MX 400)
* Unplugged and replugged all the cables inside
* Thought about a System Restore, but it would only take me back a couple of days

Thanks in advance.

[satis]

You know how to get to the boot menu? Easiest way is to reboot windows in the middle of a startup.

Anyway, one of the options is something like Step by Step safe mode. What this does is prompt you to load every single driver individually. If you do that, you could see which modules take longest to load...then google it to see what it is, and go from there.

There's also a utility called BootVis that basically times everything during bootup and gives you a neat graph. You can then figure out what's taking so long and try to figure out how to get rid of it.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664

[BCB]

Are you hearing any strange noices coming from your PC, specifically loud clicking noises? That could indicate a failing hard drive. Make sure you have all important files backed up.

[YvetteKuhns]

I would consider backing up the hard drive in case you need to reinstall Windows. Check to see what programs are running when you startup. For example, Norton antivirus, firewall or other backup or scanning programs. Try disabling one at a time, then rebooting, to see which is slowing things down. Some programs share applications, so this could be tricky.

Did selective startup with MSCONFIG (the issue seems to be before any of the Windows apps load)


Are you sure? If this is true, you may have a problem with Windows. I still suspect Norton Systemworks. If you install updates for Norton or Windows, that can make things funny.

[tpoynton]

I had a computer become afflicted with the white bars. mine did not also lead to a slowdown, however. to answer that question, I am pretty sure it is a "windows thing". focusing your efforts on finding the windows problem is probably productive. Try what satis and Yvette have suggested, as it sounds like something is causing it to hang there at startup. I personally hate all of the Norton systemworks stuff because for me it has caused more problems than it solves.

doing a thorough backup of everything is never a bad idea when tinkering with things like the registry (via Norton), but my "its a bad hard drive" alarm isnt going off given your description.

[slck0]

Thanks -- you've given me some good ideas. Now I just need to find some time tonight to try them out.

Are you hearing any strange noices coming from your PC, specifically loud clicking noises?
With the case off and my ear close to the hard drive I can hear little rhythmic noises -- not really clicks, maybe faint buzzes two seconds apart -- while the progress bar is struggling up. Once it makes it past that point, I hear the normal hard drive activity as it loads WinXP.

[slck0]

Okay, I completely uninstalled Norton. No change. Actually, it's a bit quicker once it gets past the black screen / progress bar part. I also ran Bootvis, but it looks like it's only monitoring after the point where I'm getting the delay. It said my boot was complete in 24 seconds when it actually took several minutes. I also got to the boot menu (which was available by hitting F8 during the progress bar, which tells me the issue is probably with Windows) but I didn't see a "Step by Step safe mode" - closest thing was "Enable Boot Logging".

I'm not sure what the log is supposed to look like, but the one suspicious thing is the vast majority of the entries are "Did not load driver. . ." and they repeat over and over:
Did not load driver Audio Codecs
Did not load driver Legacy Audio Drivers
Did not load driver Media Control Devices
Did not load driver Legacy Video Capture Devices
Did not load driver Video Codecs
Did not load driver Audio Codecs
(and on and on)
The log is 848 lines long and 645 of the lines are "Did not load driver [something]". Anyone know if that's normal?

Thanks again for all your help.

[tpoynton]

OK - in their wisdom, MS appears to have done away with the step by step confirmation mode in windows xp...however, if i recall, booting into safemode will list all of the drivers as they load; from there, you should be able to see which driver it is getting stuck on, then google the filename as satis suggested.

from reading your posts, it does not appear as though you have tried to go into safe mode. if the problem is with a required driver, you should experience the same lag time when booting and be able to identify it; if the problem is with a non-essential driver, you should boot into safe mode quickly. you'll probably want to disconnect from the internet when booting into safe mode...

[slck0]

I did get rid of Norton and loaded AVG instead (after trying it once with no anti-virus at all -- no change). I tried safe mode last night, too -- no change.

I figured out how to get the driver names to display while it's booting -- msconfig / Boot.ini / check /SOS. Sadly, it doesn't look like there's any one driver that takes a long time -- it's just that each one takes a few seconds before moving on to the next. I assume on a healthy computer I'd see them zip by. In my case, I have 2-5 seconds between each driver. I wrote down a few from the top of the list: mtoskrnl, hal.dll, KDCOM.dll, BOOTVID.dll, c_1252.nls, l_intl.nls. I was hoping to see it get stuck on one of them, but they just kind of plodded along.

Once I'm in WinXP, everything works fine. My processor is an AMD Athlon 1.67GHz, 896MB RAM (I also ran MS's memory test to see if that were the problem -- it passed.)

I've probably worn out my welcome, but if anyone else has any ideas please send them my way.

[YvetteKuhns]

Did not load driver Audio Codecs
Did not load driver Legacy Audio Drivers
Did not load driver Media Control Devices
Did not load driver Legacy Video Capture Devices
Did not load driver Video Codecs
Did not load driver Audio Codecs

These are all audio and video drivers. Did you install any software or hardware that requires these? You may want to look for updated drivers. You said you reinstalled NVidia GEForce MX 400 drivers. Do you have your manual? Read that for more info. I remember having conflicts with onboard and separately installed video or audio cards on some systems.