Hi,
my computer has some weird idle time ( > 30 seconds) before booting the operating system.
I just completly reinstalled the system as I thought it was some kind of driver issue but again it happens.
Fresh install, only the necessary drivers (mainboard, display, monitor).

System:
Mainboard: Asus K8N-E Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon64 3000+
Ram: 2 GB
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 160 GB
OS: Windows XP Professional

The boot configuration is first CD/DVD and second HDD.
The mainboard startup runs fine, but after that a black screen apears for more than 30 seconds, sometimes the windows start up screen is visible in the background but inactiv.
After that the system boots up pretty quick.

Does anyone know where the problem is?

thanks in advance for any hints

Xarthor

Have you tried to run Windows in safe mode? The Windows boot screen is replaced with some sort of log then that "should" show you what's wrong. My guess is that it waits for some device to be ready (most likely a HDD, CD drive, usb mass storage device, etc.).

Most likely so. If Michaels advice should not help, try downloading a LINUX live cd, which distribution doesn't really matter here, though i would recommend openSUSE. While the Kernel is booting it gives very detailed information about the system. So there you should find the reason for all you troubles

if a fresh installation causes same thing, i dont think it is about os. more likely a bios or a hardware problem. Try setting hdd as first boot device, try resetting/optimizing bios settings.

QFT. But an operating system will check through all the hardware devices and print out which one could cause a problem

i suspect some bios trouble or unwanted settings, like "check for network boot".

try other boot sequence 1. HD 2. CD/DVD

unplug all your usb devices. my scanner once made my computer wait for some minutes before letting it boot. i don't know how that could have happened.

This could also be caused by your network card searching for a DHCP-server. Does the computer sleep before or after the point where the OS starts loading (The point where you could press F8 to select windows boot-options) ?

First of all: Thanks for all the responses!

I think thats its an BIOS related problem aswell, my father with a different hardware has the same problem but only sometimes.

I'll check out the boot options and make HDD first before CD/DVD.
But: There are no USB drives connected, no LAN cable connect (drivers are installed for that, but no cable connected), WLAN card (PCI) is not installed yet.

@Christian_A:
The computer sleeps before the OS starts loading.

1. BIOS/Mainboard boots
2. idle (sometimes with visible boot screen of Windows)
3. OS boots


edit #1:
Just changed some boot configuration to display the messages of the motherboard and deactivated the fast booting for testing purposes. There seems to be no trouble.
After that the computer still idles.
I'll change the boot priorities next.


edit #2:
After switching fast boot and silent boot back on I deactivated the CD/DVD drives to be used for booting.
However the computer still seems to try to read from the cd-burner driver (which is deactivated for boot-up aswell).
Now I think that might make all the trouble and will unplug it and try booting again.
Thanks again for your help!


edit #3:
Damn it. That was not the source of the problem.
Will look through the BIOS settings again and throw a look at the bios message screen etc.