Eternal boot up

[Ruaridh]

Hi everybody

Some time back I had problems with my old computer doing unexpected new starts. You folks helped me (with Simmtester) pin the problem down to faulty RAM sticks. Yesterday I finally got the kids out of the house and put new RAM sticks in. The problem seems to be solved. The memory test at boot runs perfectly and everything seems to go according to plan ...

... the boot process for Win98SE takes about half an hour. The Win98 logo screen appears, the light wave at the bottom runs across the screen as it should, but for a very long time indeed, and then the computer hangs for quite some time, and then Win98 boots up very, very slowly and once it's booted doing anything at all takes an age. Even selecting an item in the start menu can take several minutes.

Could this be a BIOS settings problem? I suspect so, since I did fiddle with the BIOS at the time when the RAM chips were failing. What settings should I check (Award 4.51pg)? If it's not a BIOS problem, what else should I look at?

Thanks for your help

Rory

Comp details
Mother: Soyo 5T F0/F2/F5 (AT, ca. 1997) with onboard S3 Trio 2MB graphics
RAM: 64MB (4 x 16)
CPU: Intel 133 MHz (with little fan cooler)
Sound: Media Vision Jazz 16
HDD: 20G (partitioned to C and D, each 3.5G, the rest is ignored by the BIOS (8.4G max allowed)
CD-ROM: Vuego (Acer) 8x
BIOS: Award v4.51pg
OS: Win98SE

[degsy]

Make sure L2 or External Cache is Enabled in the BIOS

Check the RAM or BANK Timing settings.

[Ruaridh]

Thanks for that, Degsy. Will do.

The RAM chips are 60ns, but the BIOS setting is 70ns. Maybe that's part of the problem. I will fiddle and see what happens.

Rory

[Ruaridh]

Well, I enabled the external cache and set the DRAM timing at 60ns ... and it made no difference. Win98 booted up once, after some patient waiting. I uninstalled a lot of pointless software, checked the hardware config and rebooted - this time it didn't get past the Win98 logo. I managed to restart it in safe mode once, but only once.

Any tips before I lob it into the neighbours' yard?

Thanks

Rory :confused:

[degsy]

last resort would be to reset the BIOS to defaults or clear the CMOS.

[Ruaridh]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot and then it's really going for a short flight if it doesn't work.

Cheers

Rory