XP slowdowns and freezing

[lewisp]

I have just installed a new HDD on a PC and reinstalled XP from scratch. Since the installation, XP slows down and/or freezes completely for a few minutes on initial boot. Once its back to normal I can reboot all day and it behaves perfectly.

Before the upgrade I would occasionally get the mouse pointer becoming very slow and unresponsive, but the total freeze-ups are new.

The new HDD is a 250GB Seagate and the BIOS is an Award dated sometime in 2002. I assume this can handle large disks.

What would XP be doing on a cold boot to cause this, or what issues should I be directing my attentions at?

 

[linney]

Is there any literature that came with the drive that might offer a reason. Something like checking the status of the drive at first boot? Any drive activity during the freeze?

Have you tried setting your Bios to the Safe Default settings?

See if Seagate can offer any reason.

 

[M8KWR]

I have just had a new pc, 2.8ghz P4, with 1gb memory and a 80gb sata hdd.

I seemed to have major issues with XP freezing while it was booting in for no reason.

I had to recover to o/s twice - at first i thought it was a program i had installed, so tried to do a system restore which did not seem to work.

Then i thought it was the windows updates etc... a GDI detection...

What i believe it to be now is a cd-rom drive/ide cable....

I have installed my dvd/writer from my old pc, and changed the ide cable and this has seemed to of fixed the freezing when xp logs in.

Not saying tht your problem is the same, but thought i would let you know how i solved mine, you never now it could be the same.

Good luck.

 

[gbaughma]

There are a few things that will slow down XP when first booted. Here's a list off the top of my head:

o Is there a CD in the drive?
o Is there an anti-virus running, that scans on first boot?
o Is the system set to get an IP address automatically? (DHCP stalling)
o If it's connecting to a domain, do you have your first DNS entry pointing at the domain controller?
o Are there lots of unnecessary services loading?

Personally, I'd start by looking at the DHCP stuff.... if you're using DHCP, and it's set to expire every 24 hours, the first time could take a while to get an IP address, where subsequent boots already have an address, so it's not an issue.



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg