T41 Very slow windows startup

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sfara · #1 Post by **sfara** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:01 am

I recently bought a sh T41 and have a strange problem with the windows startup process. I reinstalled windows and everything from scratch and at first everything worked fine but after a while when windows starts it takes about 5-6 minutes to enter windows and the hdd led stays up but i can't hear the hdd working. If i use hibernation everything works fine so my best guess is that i may have a driver problem or the antishock utility has a fault. Ofcourse everything is virus free and spyware free. I use windows home edition and the drivers are downloaded from the ibm support website.

Waiting for advice.

Thank you guys.

#2 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:48 am

Often the problem with slow boot up times is caused by your wireless WiFi trying unsuccessfully to make an internet connection. This is often caused by a wireless driver problem, or a problem with Access Connections. Try uninstalling Access Connections and see if your boot up time improves substantially.

Another thing that can cause slow boot up times is if your hard drive is operating in PIO mode. Go to Device Manager and check under IDE/ATA Atapi controllers > Primary IDE Channel. Make sure you are using Ultra DMA and not PIO.

If your hard drive is beginning to fail, this can cause slow boot up times.

You can check in Event Manager for clues. Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Manager. SMART or Atapi errors are hard drive related.

sfara · #3 Post by **sfara** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:01 am

I don't have any wifi card, so the wifi problem can't be. The interesting thing is that this slow startup takes place randomly...i'm thinking a mainboard controller problem (hope not)

agarza · #4 Post by **agarza** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:37 pm

Check the HDD with PC Doctor

sfara · #5 Post by **sfara** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:19 pm

I scaned the hdd for trouble but everything looks fine. I feel there is a hdd or mainboard controller problem. This usually happends when i play movies...the hdd just starts working and after a while the movie runs on frames. At this point everything i do in windows moves verrrrry slow, even restarting the OS. If i restart it then it takes about 5-6 minutes to enter windows and the hdd led stays up all that time even if i can't hear the hdd working. While in this situation in windows i started adm. tools / performance program...and Avg. Disk Queue Lenght was almost 100% even if there was no job. The interesting thing is that this happends randomly...2 days everything is ok and after a while this happends again.
I wonder if my hdd is failing...at least i hope so because if there is a problem with the mainboard controller.....i'm finished.
If u guys have any advice...please feel free...

anthax · #6 Post by **anthax** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 4:35 pm

Even if you don't have WiFi card, hang-up can be caused by network. Try to disable network controller and then boot. Google helps with tweaking your xp, try to google words xp tweaking or something like that, you should find something to try out in case of hang-up at start.

#7 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:36 pm

GomJabbar wrote:Another thing that can cause slow boot up times is if your hard drive is operating in PIO mode. Go to Device Manager and check under IDE/ATA Atapi controllers > Primary IDE Channel. Make sure you are using Ultra DMA and not PIO.

Did you check the above?

sfara · #8 Post by **sfara** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:31 am

Yes, i did that when u first mentiond it.
I will try windows2000 and linux to see if the behavior is the same...i'm still hoping it's a software problem...

sfara · #9 Post by **sfara** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:37 am

New update. After many experiments...installing and reinstalling windows over and over again...i decided to install linux/freebsd besides windows...and guess what : everything worked fine for a week until i decided to erase the freebsd partition and have only windows. Exactly that day my problem reapeared so i'm completely confused...i wonder if the linux boot loader did the job. Now i'll try to run both os for a month to see if the problem reapears. I also disabled the security chip in bios.

_erazor_ · #10 Post by **_erazor_** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:48 am

GomJabbar wrote:Often the problem with slow boot up times is caused by your wireless WiFi trying unsuccessfully to make an internet connection. This is often caused by a wireless driver problem, or a problem with Access Connections. Try uninstalling Access Connections and see if your boot up time improves substantially.

Another thing that can cause slow boot up times is if your hard drive is operating in PIO mode. Go to Device Manager and check under IDE/ATA Atapi controllers > Primary IDE Channel. Make sure you are using Ultra DMA and not PIO.

If your hard drive is beginning to fail, this can cause slow boot up times.

You can check in Event Manager for clues. Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Manager. SMART or Atapi errors are hard drive related.

i have exactly the same problem as the original threadstarter. for me uninstalling access connections fixed it. but as soon as I reinstall it, it`s all slow at startup again. I tried reinstalling the wifi drivers too.

any idea what I can do? I want to use AC, so keeping it uninstalled is a bad option.

when it`s installed, I dont notice any problems with AC. it`s working fine. it just slows down booting time by 3 minutes or so in which the machine does nothing

sfara · #11 Post by **sfara** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:25 am

I wish i had u're problem...mine is deeper i think. I don't have wifi on my T41 so it must be something else...

#12 Post by **GomJabbar** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:34 am

I read recently in another thread of a user having his hard drive operating slowly. His cure turned out to be chkdsk. Chkdsk scanned the hard drive and fixed errors on it, then his laptop was responsive again.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=37842

sfara · #13 Post by **sfara** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:50 am

Well, got some updates guys. I reinstalled 2 weeks ago both windows and Linux on my T41 with the GRUB bootloader. After 3 days of normal operation...i decided to erase again the linux partition and the bootloader and leave WindowsXP alone. Guess what...after a few hours the problem repeted. Then i reinstalled linux and the grub bootloader again and since then (allmost 2weeks) with both OS and the linux bootloader everything runs perfect. Watta hell is happening here??? Does the bootloader do the trick??? I bet that if i erase the linux partition again and the bootloader...the problem will show up again.

tom101 · #14 Post by **tom101** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 1:37 pm

Have you tried bootvis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootVis

sfara · #15 Post by **sfara** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:42 am

Yes, i did. There is an "unknown" driver that sleeps...don't know what that is. Started in safe mode too and there is this agp440 driver that waits alot. That driver starts up ok now...since i have both OS and the linux bootloader on the sistem. I bet this isn't a hardware problem as i suspected...

PhilS · #16 Post by **PhilS** » Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:34 pm

The linux bootloader will not stop this problem from happening. When you boot Win from grub, it chains to the Win bootloader which runs "normally".

I'd get a SMART disk utility program and check your disk drive. IBM Thinkpad disk drives are all SMART enabled and keep records of problems that have been encountered. You may have the software already installed with linux. You'll probably need to research the SMART hdd technology on the web to interpret the output from the utility program. The BIOS utilities also has an hdd diagnostic program.

Phil Sherman

normanm · #17 Post by **normanm** » Tue May 22, 2007 8:02 pm

On a T41 in add/remove programs, I don't see an entry to remove *Access Connections.* How do I uninstall it? Thanks.

T41 Very slow windows startup

T41 Very slow windows startup

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