Bios boot very slow on Inspiron 1564

Hi Samffy,

Please update the BIOS in the system, use the link below.

http://dell.to/RTvbZX

After updating the BIOS and still the BIOS boot is very slow, please remove the HDD from the caddy and test the system only with the SSD

Hi DELL-Senthil S,

Thanks a lot for your answer. I forget to tell you that my Inspiron already have A13 BIOS.

I try to boot only with the SSD, and there is not problem. It's seems that the secondary SATA in caddy make the boot slower.

Thanks a lot for trying help me to resolve my problem.

Regard,

Samffy

Hi,

Is it possible to display BIOS loading detail to know exactly what's the problem ?

Regards,

Samffy

Hi Samffy,

On Dell systems unfortunately it is not possible to view the BIOS loading page.

Ok, thanks a lot for your reply.

I have Linux Ubuntu installed on my laptop. So there is 2 drives with ext4 partitions.

Is it possible that the BIOS check this partitions longer than NTFS or FAT32 ? And so, is there a method to cancel this test (in BIOS or on Ubuntu with a special parameter in fstab) ?

Regards,

Samffy

Hi,

The BIOS booting takes so long because the BIOS has to detect the HDD's and needs to spin them up and then go through an apparantly very long check. beware that a VERY long check can mean your HDD is going out and is difficult to detect. Nothing Dell can't fix!

While they're at it they might aswell fix the disk not being detected at all and hanging the BIOS on 1564's with the AMD HD5450 GPU. I assume you have one with an Intel IGP, correct?

And a wrong VBIOS string in the HD5450's orom02.bin, fix that aswell.

And...

Long story short, I think you'll have to live with your long BIOS times, sorry.

I don't think Dell is going to put time (read: money) in a laptop they don't sell anymore.

Just be happy it works and you're not stuck with a non working one like some of us.

~Aeny

Hi Aeny,

Thanks a lot for your answer. After some research, there seems that i have to live with that long boot problem. Doesn't matter, but i'm a little disappointed about my Dell system.

I have the one with ATI 5450, and i admit i didn't understand the part of your answer about video card.

Regards,

Sammfy

Hi Aeny,

Here is my caddy : www.rueducommerce.fr/.../showdetl.cfm

The lshw command return some info of my motherboard, i hope this is what you need (ask me if you want other informations) :

Product : 0JY92C

Manufacturer : Dell Inc.

BIOS version : A13

I also configure the BIOS to boot on USB first, then HDD in second, and  disable all others boot methods (Shift + 1).

I hope you can resolve your problem.

Regards,

Samffy

Hi Samffy,

I am running the exact same setup as you are, SDD in the primary slot and the Original HDD in the caddy. But my BIOS freezes with this setup instead of just being slow. That means that there's probably a difference between our 2 systems causing mine to crash and yours to work. Could you please be so kind to look up the part number of your motherboard? I assume this is the difference. Sadly I don't know any way to look this up with software. Perhaps it is the caddy, could you let me know what brand of caddy you are running in there?

Sorry for somewhat hijacking your thread.

~Aeny

Hi again Samffy, 

I know from looking what is printed on the motherboard that mine is a F1R94. It works with a 120GB SDD and a 40GB HDD in the caddy. Then I tried a bigger HDD of 160GB and it freezes the BIOS again. I tried a xubuntu live USB but sadly lshw didn't return any 'Product' for me. I'm pretty sure my caddies/hdd's are not to blame because they work in my other 1564.
The only other question I can think of to ask you is what kind of SSD do you have in there?

I guess I'll start a fresh thread for my problem on here, and if that doesn't catches Dells' attention then I'll have to complain somewhere else.
~Aeny 

Hi again,

Also, I think I forgot the most important thing: Define 'very slow'. How long does it take?

I've got someone on another forum to look at our BIOS, it may lead to fixing the slowness you speak of.

When is Dell going to stop sleeping and look at this topic again? It would be more productive for me to talk to a wall it seems. The least they could do is ONE reply to acknowledge they've read this =/

I'm getting very dissapointed.

A big thanks for answering my questions though Samffy, Dell could learn from you.

~Aeny

Hi Aeny and Merry Christmas,

Thanks a lot, i hope too that Dell will answer ours questions and resolve this problem, we can dream ;o)

A slow boot for me is between 20 and 40 secondes (it depends) only for BIOS, then system start extremely fast. It happen that BIOS freeze and i have too restart my laptop.

I use a SSD Samsung 830 128 Gb and 500 Gb HDD in caddy. For the motherboard, i'm sorry, but i don't know how you find a printed numbre. If you explain me, i will search and give you mine.

After lot of time spending to search a solution, it seems that the problem can only be solved by buying a new laptop perhaps not a Dell, i like their laptops, but i'm a little disappointed by this problem).

Regards,

Samffy

Hi Samffy,

The problem you describe is exactly the same as mine. However, Linux is able to start the HDD's on it's own once it's booted. Windows doesn't seem to have this ability.

It apears that the HD5450 and the ODD bay with anything over 120GB of HDD in it are fighting for the same address space and therefore slowing down and sometimes freezing the BIOS. atleast that's what the person looking into the BIOS for me said. It seems to be something that only DELL can fix (hello?)

I may try working around my specific Windows problem by using Linux as my bootloader (grub).
Finding the number I was talking about requires opening the laptop so I suggest you don't do that. the number seems irrelevant anyways.

Happy Holidays,

~Aeny

Hi. Just to put my two cents on the problem because I am an owner of two Dell 1564 laptops with the AMD 5450 card.
I wanted to upgrade my laptops by increasing the ram to 8gb, by replacing the HDD with an SSD and also replacing the ODD with the HDD in the caddy.

The same as all of you, I had problem as the laptop was freezing at BIOS DELL screen.

In the end I managed to solve the problem, after making a lot of try-outs.

My opinion is that you need to find an old HDD that has 8mb cache (NOT MORE than that).
And also it probably needs to be SATA 1, but I managed to make it work with SATA 2 as well, but the cache of the HDD has to be 8mb, and the protocol up to SATA 2.

This is my opinion.
See the screenshots.

i19.photobucket.com/.../DSC_0134.jpg

i19.photobucket.com/.../DSC_0132.jpg

i19.photobucket.com/.../DSC_0133.jpg

In one of the laptops I installed in the caddy a fujitsu 300gb HDD (sata1, 8mb cache, 4800rpm), and on the other laptop I installed in the caddy a 400gb toshiba HDD (Sata2, 8mb cache, 5400 rpm). Both HDDs are in addition to a 240gb Kingston SSD).
It is working just fine on both laptops and have been recognized by the BIOS 100%. The HDDs even show up on the boot options as you will see!
I have not tried to boot from the HDD in the caddy (there is no OS installed in there - I just use it for storage) but I believe it will work as it can be selected in the boot menu.

I did not even have to upgrade the BIOS to the latest one. As you will see in the screenshots, the BIOS is A04.

Also the caddy I bought was not a DELL dedicated caddy. It is just a cheap bulk caddy from a local store.

Worst case scenario, try to find and buy the exact same HDD models that I used. In the screenshots you will see their model IDs. :)

Hope that assists owners of the same laptop.

That's very interesting. I'd test this theory more but unfortunately I don't have any SATA disks left that have 8mb of cache or less. Currently I'm running a 2TB disk in my caddy. Yes it freezes sometimes at BIOS or take very long to boot but after a few tries it works. Then the solution is to put the laptop in sleep mode and not turn it off unless you have 30 minutes each time to boot it.

Also, I see in your screenshots that you have BIOS version A04. Dell has removed this version from their website and it is nowhere to be found on the internet anymore. Since I work a lot on these BIOSes to see if anything can be fixed it would be handy if I could add A04 to my collection; Could you make a backup of your BIOS and send it to me somehow? Dropbox comes to mind. If you search around for me on the internet you may stumble upon a thread of mine on bios-mods.com with a lot of information about the 1564 and it's BIOS. Not sure if I can link the thread here. Dell seems very childish concering their support of this laptop and they might get upset if someone does it better than them.

I hope that you enjoy your 1564. It's still my main machine even today while it's 5 years old.

EDIT: To answer one of the questions in OP. You can view messages from the BIOS by pressing escape while it's displaying the Dell BIOS logo.

Thanks for the detailed post with images.
Regards,
Aeny