Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
2 Posts
0
15275
December 4th, 2003 18:00
Small form factor slow booting
Greetings!
I have an Optiplex GX270 small form factor, running BIOS A02, that is doing some strange things. With the case closed, the computer will take about 5 minutes to boot up Windows XP. If we open the case, the computer will boot XP in about 1 minute. Even after Windows comes up, if the case is closed, the computer will be a dog. If we open the case, the response time is greatly improved, if we close the case again, it will continue to run fine. We have tried it verticle and laying on the desktop. This seems to have no effect on the slowness. We also had a 260 in the small form factor doing this too. After about 10 minutes of operation, all problems disappear. Anyone else seen this, or have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Tom
I have an Optiplex GX270 small form factor, running BIOS A02, that is doing some strange things. With the case closed, the computer will take about 5 minutes to boot up Windows XP. If we open the case, the computer will boot XP in about 1 minute. Even after Windows comes up, if the case is closed, the computer will be a dog. If we open the case, the response time is greatly improved, if we close the case again, it will continue to run fine. We have tried it verticle and laying on the desktop. This seems to have no effect on the slowness. We also had a 260 in the small form factor doing this too. After about 10 minutes of operation, all problems disappear. Anyone else seen this, or have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Tom
No Events found!
Bender9
2 Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 03:00
I am using a Dell Optiplex GX150 at work and am having the exact same problem. I was actually running a performance test program (Dacris Benchmarks) as the performace of my PC over the last few weeks has been incredibly bad. The Hard Drive test was going so slow I opened the case to see if it was actually ticking over properly. The progress of the test immediately sped up and also slowed down when the cover was again closed. I got a result of 3.73MB/sec even with the cover open some of the time on this initial test compared to 22.5MB/sec with the cover open the whole way through!
I have also tried changing the IDE cable which changed the results to 8.23MB/sec cover closed and 20.01MB/sec cover open. Have rung Dell support Asia Pacific who got me to run an HDD diagnostic (Ctrl-Alt-d from the Dell startup screen) however no problem was reported. If anyone has any suggestions it would be much appreciated as cover open the PC is much noisier and desk room is significantly reduced, not to mention the difficulty getting a CD in!
Jason
speedstep
11 Legend
•
47K Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 06:00
folk
2 Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 11:00
Thanks!
Tom
Hydralisk00222
2 Intern
•
2.4K Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 19:00
Consider getting the hard drive rails replaced. Some people replaced them with the newer ones (From Dell of course) and the slowdown went away.Bender9
2 Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 21:00
I have replaced the rails on my hard drive with one of the (many) GL150's around our office and voila, the PC hard drive is working at normal speed again. This is the most bazaar thing I have ever seen but seems to work so I am not complaining. I am not sure how long it will last so I will keep you posted if I have any more problems. Thanks for everyones help!
Jason
drmay
1 Message
0
March 18th, 2004 19:00
At my work we got a large number of the sff GX270 computers and I have one with this problem. I searched Dell and ran accross this thread. I tried the opening and closing and verified the subsequent speed-up and speed-down. Very strange! I tried replacing the rails, no luck.
I did notice this particular pc has one of the notoriously aweful Deskstar drives. I could not figure it out until I tried an idea that popped into my head. I noticed the IDE cable is folded underneath the hard drive so it sits between the HD and the motherboard, very physically close to the HD. I also noticed, as I opened the case, that it wasn't until it was about half opened that the speed increased.
So, I removed the IDE cable from underneath the hard drive and folded/rolled it off the left sitting next to the power supply as I closed the case. VOILA! the speed is fixed. The problem is a crummy Deskstar drive causing EMI with the data transfer through the IDE cable.
Message Edited by drmay on 03-18-2004 03:11 PM
ctsnow
1 Message
0
December 20th, 2004 03:00
Unbelievable.
I had a client with a GX270 that was terribly slow, especially rebooting. Finally, I threw them a brand new GX280, as I couldn't take the downtime to try to troubleshoot the GX270. They are pretty high profile and I didn't want them to continue to have to use that PC with that kind of performance.
I found this thread tonight after pulling my hair out. I put a new IDE cable in and curled it up beside the power supply as drmay mentioned...it is now perfect.
The annoying thing is, they are a bar/restaurant so the GX270 that had been in their place for 1 year is to nasty on the inside to do anything with. I guess I have a new office PC. :(
It was a Deskstar drive too...yet another garbage IBM component screwing with me.