Optilplex 790 takes 5 minutes to boot to XP PRO

Hi dboehler,

Did you check the BIOS for any problems since the hardware change? Did this happen after you added the two network cards?

I've checked the BIOS, but nothing looks wrong. It takes 5 minutes to boot with or w/o the additional NIC cards. Unfortunately, this pc has been left on for several weeks during development, so I don't know exactly when the problem started. Dell Tech Support wants me to re-image the HD, but I'm hoping to find a fix before starting over. The odd thing about this is that the screen goes completely black for ~ 3minutes and then continues to boot and after that runs ok.

Reimaging would be the first thing to try. I assume this is not someone's personal computer.

Correct, this pc will be an HMI for an industrial app. Re-imaging is Dell's first recomendation, but they don't have to re-load and license all the software apps again. And if re-imaging "fixes" the problem, how confident are you that it won't come back? I'd rather get to the root cause if possible.

Did you try loading BIOS defaults?

At what point does the screen go blank?  Does it go blank when entering BIOS too, or just when booting into your OS?  Before the Dell splash screen, when it completes POST and starts to boot the OS, or in the middle when loading various devices?

Very shortly after the Windows XP PRO "splash screen" comes up. The blue squares make it across the screen once and then it goes black and stays that way for 3 minutes.

This is all a moot point now as we've decided to re-image the HD and this "fixed" the problem. Never feel good about these kind of fixes.

With the screen going blank where it does, I believe reimaging was the correct path to correct this, as it was much more likely Windows or driver corruption than a hardware issue.  Had it blanked out before the system turns over the boot process to Windows, that would definitely be hardware.  I work in an environment where we have very specific - and painful - software for our various processes, so I feel your pain.

Thanks for the support.

Glad that worked.

You are a lucky guy, in my case the computer does not start until 50 minutes!!

The issue is the same as you, exactly the same and the application is industrial like yours.

I executed a BIOS update (from 105 to 106 and after from 106 to 111), and nothing happens.

I executed disk tools and nothing were found.

I will not recover from HD image until i discover the real problem because this is NOT the first time... we are having this issue with many other computers in different customers...

if i found the solution or the problem, i will go back to here to say.

Att,

 If you are "having this issue with many other computers", then hardware is not the common element and is unlikely the root cause.

I forgot to write that those other pc's are the same model Optiplex 790. At this customer, we have 3 optplex 790 and this issue is happening with all of them.

I have here, at my office, one of these pc with the issue. I am trying all things without success.

I noticed that inside BIOS, there are no options to completely disable onboard lan and audio. So i can't execute tests with this.

I will do more tests today, but I will open a ticket on DELL support to help me about this.

Att,

If you don't want to recover/restore from backup, then use a different drive - reinstall Windows from scratch to see if it resolves the issue; if so, then I would consider the hardware or even look at your application and/or usage (manual shutdown procedure, power issues, settings/"optimizations", etc.) for a possible cause.  If you are "having this issue with many other computers", then hardware is not the common element and is unlikely the root cause.

One of the first things Support will likely do is have you restore then do a fresh install ... just be ready.  

One thought ... if there was some issue with their factory-installed image, that might also explain why restoring/reinstalling fixes the issue.

Good luck.