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36888
July 23rd, 2014 10:00
Dell Precision 390 Desktop Slow boot problem
Hi, I own a Dell Precision 390 Desktop and it seems to take a while to boot. (4 minutes and 20 seconds to be exact). The Hard Drive is pretty clean, hardly any programs are installed on there apart from Anti Virus and the graphics card driver, I have 191GB free. I've looked at the boot order in the BIOS, I wasn't sure whether it was correct so I made the bios return to the factory settings. The boot up time is still slow, however the overall performance of the machine is good-ish.
Another issue is the graphics card, the fan seems to be quite loud. I have cleared almost all of the dust out of the graphics card but it still sounds noisy. What would be the problem? Sorry if this part is in the wrong section of the forum, but if anyone is willing to help me on this issue too, I would be very grateful. The graphics card is an ATI Firegl v7200.
How can I sort out these problems?
Regards,
Edward.
RoHe
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July 23rd, 2014 12:00
When you say 4 min 20 sec to boot, is that the time to start loading Windows or to log in and get to your desktop?
What version of Windows?
Do you have the latest version of BIOS?
Have you updated the drivers?
Have you run chkdsk on the hard drive recently?
The boot hard drive should be first in the boot sequence.
What happens if you only have mouse, monitor and keyboard connected, and nothing else?
What happens if you boot in Safe Mode?
Is antiviral software running a scan at boot?
eddy678
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July 23rd, 2014 16:00
It is the time to start loading windows. To log in, it takes about 15 seconds.
I have Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit installed (I know, not the best OS but it came with it so I stuck with it)
I have the latest version of the BIOS installed, all the drivers are up to date (I can double check).
I haven't ran a hdd check yet, although I ran an AVG Pc performance checker program, it said that I had no errors with the hard drive.
I have tried setting the hdd to boot first but whatever I tried, it made no difference. Unless I enabled floppy drive, that then slowed the boot time down even more.
When the Mouse and kb are connected, the boot time still remains the same. All that's connected is the power supply, VGA cable, kb, mouse and ethernet cable. Nothing else.
If I boot in safe mode....now before, all the services would appear in a flash. Now though, it takes a while. Like this:
Loading services:
Winlogon
...
...
blabla
...
...
blabla.
The antivirus does not run a scan when it's booting, I installed a program called soluto (this monitors the boot time and is able to "chop" the amount of time the pc takes to boot, it says that AVG, the antivirus takes 70 seconds to start which is a long time, this might be a cause to the slow boot?)
-Edward
RoHe
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July 23rd, 2014 18:00
You're not 'stuck' with Vista forever. You can probably upgrade by buying a Win 7 64-bit installation disk with a valid product key. Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, free from Microsoft, to see if your system will support Win 7. My ancient Dimension just got upgraded from XP to 7 and it works fine...
If it's taking a long time to boot in Safe Mode that suggests it's not a software issue. And I doubt AVG is loading in Safe Mode so that shouldn't be the problem either.
Reboot and press F12. Go to Utilities partition and run all the hardware diagnostics, including extended HDD and RAM tests. Copy down any error messages.
If no diagnostics errors reported, reboot and press F2 to open BIOS setup. Does BIOS recognize the full amount of RAM that's physically installed and the hard drive correctly? Copy down all the current settings, exit setup and let it boot to desktop. Shut down normally.
Then reset BIOS:
*If battery is more than ~2-3 years old this might be a good time for a new one. It's a 3-volt CR2032 lithium coin cell battery, ~$2 at discount stores. See page 99, here.
If that doesn't help, you may want to run chkdsk on the hard drive.
When was last time you scanned thoroughly for malware?
eddy678
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July 24th, 2014 08:00
I did the steps that you told me to, I tried the utility partition but an error came up saying "unable to do utility partition on this disk"..after removing the battery and holding the power button down, the BIOS did reset itself, however the boot time is still slow.
Also, another error came up saying "warning, system voltage is low", not sure why that happened....Even after changing the boot order to SATA hard drive first and disabling the floppy drive, no changes were made. After uninstalling AVG (protection system), I did notice a difference, but still the boot time is pretty slow, I scanned for malware today and avg reported that the computer was not infected...so I don't know what to do :(
RoHe
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July 24th, 2014 13:00
Did you replace the motherboard battery with a fresh one?
That error message could be referring to a bad battery or possibly to a failing power supply. Make sure the battery is good, it's clean, and properly installed. If the battery is good and properly installed, then you may have a power supply problem.
If you have the Dell Drivers and Utilities CD for this system, you can run the diagnostics after booting from that disk. See page 35, here about using that CD to run the diagnostics.
If you think it's the power supply, you may want to have a reliable PC shop test it for you and/or test a known good power supply. You can purchase it here, for example and I'm sure you can find other sources (eg, eBay) on the net too, or contact Dell Spare Parts.
Only you can decide whether and how much money to put into the system or to live with the slow booting, at least for now...
EDIT: I give up, it won't let me post a link to the power supply (above) so here it is:
http://www.discountelectronics.com/category?product_model=118&category=2&product_type[16]=16