Solved 25 second boot up delay after post/AHCI screens

[TanyaC]

Hi,

I've been offline for the last few days upgrading my system. I did this because of temp problems with my system, and it was time to get new hardware... Mine was two years old

I bought a GA-P67A-UD3-B3 mobo, an i5-2500 and 2 x 4g CL9 XMP memory modules running at 1600mhz

My temp on the old i7-920 was 15C above room temp. The i5 is about 5C with the Noctua cooler.

But after installing the nvidia video drivers and rebooting, having reinstalled Windows 7 Ult x64 from scratch something strange started happening..

After the post screen is shown, and the AHCI screen is shown the UD3 mobo displays "Loading Operating system..."

Then after 5 seconds is displays 20 dots on the screen one at a time, 1 second apart before it starts loading windows.

I was on the F2 BIOS revision, so I upgraded to the latest BIOS which is F4 but that didn't stop the delay.

Anyone seen this before (on this or other boards), and know why it happens and how to get rid of it?

thanks
Tanya

 

[TVeblen]

I've not seen that on one of the newer boards/BIOS, so I can't be sure, but I can suggest some tests to try and isolate the problem.

If this issue started immediately after the installation of the graphics driver then you could have a bad driver install (happens) or a faulty video card. If you remove the driver and run the card on the generic Windows driver and the issue goes away then you can focus on the driver. You would want to try a "clean install" of the video driver next. Also check the connection on the video card, reseat the card and check that the contacts are clean and unobstructed.

Alternately, that delay can be caused by issues with drives detection. Some SATA CD/DVD drives can be problematic. Test this by changing the boot order in BIOS to boot the hard drive first. Normally the boot order should not affect the boot time significantly.

If you can't isolate the problem with those two tests, then, I would suspect that one of the motherboard drivers or components are suspect. Check to be sure you have all your drivers installed and up to date. These normally should be the drivers from the downloads section of the motherboard manufacturer's website. You can test to see if a component/driver is causing the issue by disabling them (temporarily) in the BIOS. (This would be the LAN and Sound components, or a secondary SATA controller.)

 

[TanyaC]

I've not seen that on one of the newer boards/BIOS, so I can't be sure, but I can suggest some tests to try and isolate the problem.

If this issue started immediately after the installation of the graphics driver then you could have a bad driver install (happens) or a faulty video card. If you remove the driver and run the card on the generic Windows driver and the issue goes away then you can focus on the driver.
...
QUOTE]

Well, after extensive testing over the last few weeks I found that it occurs after installing the Intel 6-series chipset drivers. I've done complete windows re-isntalls, graphics drivers and installs and I have isolated it to occuring immediately after the chipset (INF), drivers are installed.

I tried it on the following motherboards;

Z68X-UD3R
P67A-UD3
P67A-UD3R
P67A-UD3P

I also tried a EX58_UD3R which uses the 5-series driver and it does not occur on that.

All of the motherboards are Gigabyte.

Of course, Gigabyte say that they have never heard or seen this.

I tested all the CPUs here; It occurs on I5-2500 and I5-2500K CPUs, but not on the I7-920

I also tried the following BIOS settings to see if that made any difference

IDE/AHCI comninations
Virtualization off and on
Stock voltages and overclocked voltages.

They made no difference.

Anyway, I'm just going to have to live with it.

 

[loquacious]

Do not know if it is the same problem but I had an issue with long delay after display of "loading operating system" I spent a couple of hours trying to figure it out and found that somehow my boot drive was no longer the 1st priority drive in the boot sequence and it was looking for a floppy drive before finding my boot drive. This happened after upgrading my bios.

 

[Sardonicus]

Are these the drivers that you used?
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...ipsets&ProductProduct=Intel®+6+Series+Chipset

 

[A Guy]

You might look for a Quick Boot option in BIOS. This will disable the memory and POST tests. Even if just temporarily to see if this is involved. Also, your MB supports EFI

How to access EFI in the new GA P67A-UD3-B3!

A Guy

 

[TVeblen]

Well, you could live with it but it is not right.

If the issue occurs because of the chipset driver installation, that immediately brings to mind a defect in one of the components of the chipset, or an incompatibility of the chipset and the driver.

One thing you could try is to reset the BIOS defaults or try a complete "clear CMOS" procedure after installing the chipset driver.
Can't hurt, might help.

 

[TanyaC]

You might look for a Quick Boot option in BIOS. This will disable the memory and POST tests. Even if just temporarily to see if this is involved. Also, your MB supports EFI

How to access EFI in the new GA P67A-UD3-B3!

A Guy

Quick boot is already enabled.

My Mobo supports Electronic Fuel Injection.. That's neat

Seriously, thanks for the link

 

[TanyaC]

Do not know if it is the same problem but I had an issue with long delay after display of "loading operating system" I spent a couple of hours trying to figure it out and found that somehow my boot drive was no longer the 1st priority drive in the boot sequence and it was looking for a floppy drive before finding my boot drive. This happened after upgrading my bios.

Well, I've now isolated the problem. I reinstalled Windows and left it completely stock. No motherboard drivers, and no applications, no tweaks, nothing.

I then reset BIOS on Z68X-UD3R to fail-safe defaults.

I then changed things one setting at a time.

Finally found it... Whenever I enable AHCI the problem starts.

If I leave AHCI off then it says "Loading Operating System" then "Boot from CD/DVD:" and then starts to load windows straight away. No 20+ seconds delay.

So, the question then ... Is AHCI really worth it? This problem aside, am I really getting any performance advantage, or any monitoring/diagnostic or functionality advantage by having AHCI enabled?

IIRC, the two main features of AHCI are hot plugging and NCQ. I have no need of Hot-plugging, but NCQ seems to make sense, especially since I often run multiple applications which perform simultaneous read/writes on the HDD. Such as media encoding, downloading, burning images and using word/excel all at the same time.

NCQ is also stated to reduce noise and power consumption. If this is true, and considering the loads I place on the HDD, is it advisable to keep AHCI enabled and live with the extra 20+ seconds boot time?

thoughts anyone?

Thanks
Tanya

 

[Sub Styler]

Ahci

The problem may be enabling AHCI for your CD/DVD Drive which almost never support AHCI and then having your system try to boot from that first. If your BIOS permits it I would have AHCI enabled for hard disks and disabled for optical disks. If your OS is installed you may change the boot device priority to hard disk first. Then even if AHCI is enabled for you optical drive it shouldn't affect booting as your bios doesnt check the optical disk and just goes straight for the hard disk. although this still may cause issues when using the optical drive within the OS environment.

 

[TVeblen]

Well, I've now isolated the problem. I reinstalled Windows and left it completely stock. No motherboard drivers, and no applications, no tweaks, nothing.

I then reset BIOS on Z68X-UD3R to fail-safe defaults.

I then changed things one setting at a time.

Finally found it... Whenever I enable AHCI the problem starts.

If I leave AHCI off then it says "Loading Operating System" then "Boot from CD/DVD:" and then starts to load windows straight away. No 20+ seconds delay.

So, the question then ... Is AHCI really worth it? This problem aside, am I really getting any performance advantage, or any monitoring/diagnostic or functionality advantage by having AHCI enabled?

IIRC, the two main features of AHCI are hot plugging and NCQ. I have no need of Hot-plugging, but NCQ seems to make sense, especially since I often run multiple applications which perform simultaneous read/writes on the HDD. Such as media encoding, downloading, burning images and using word/excel all at the same time.

NCQ is also stated to reduce noise and power consumption. If this is true, and considering the loads I place on the HDD, is it advisable to keep AHCI enabled and live with the extra 20+ seconds boot time?

thoughts anyone?

Thanks
Tanya

The average computer user would not perceive any performance difference between Legacy IDE mode and AHCI mode.

However my personal opinion is that if you have a modern SATA hard disk why would you not want to run it at it's full potential? There is no good reason why your computer (nice rig by BTW) should not be able to run the disks in AHCI mode, and running in ancient IDE mode is just geek-wrong!

But here is what occurred to me: If you are going to run your computer in AHCI mode it is important to make that BIOS setting change BEFORE you install W7. If you did not that may explain the symptoms.

While clean installing W7 in AHCI mode is best, you can try and change over afterwards. See here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

 

[TanyaC]

The problem may be enabling AHCI for your CD/DVD Drive which almost never support AHCI and then having your system try to boot from that first. If your BIOS permits it I would have AHCI enabled for hard disks and disabled for optical disks. If your OS is installed you may change the boot device priority to hard disk first. Then even if AHCI is enabled for you optical drive it shouldn't affect booting as your bios doesnt check the optical disk and just goes straight for the hard disk. although this still may cause issues when using the optical drive within the OS environment.

Damn it! You're right! Changing the first boot device to HDD got rid of the delay. What is interesting, I've had CD as first boot device since the day BIOSs supported boot sequences. A long time. And it has never caused this problem, only on the Gigabyte 6-series boards. It uses an Award BIOS.

Does anyone else have an Award BIOS that will do this if you boot from CD first.

I thought for a few seconds I might have a workaround. I have two sata controllers. I move the CD drives to the GSATA controller, run them in IDE mode and leave the harddisk in AHCI mode.

Problem is I have three optical drives, and the GSATA controller only support two devices, and it appears I cannot boot from the GSATA controller.

Well, fortunately, I don't need to boot from cd very often.

 

[TanyaC]

But here is what occurred to me: If you are going to run your computer in AHCI mode it is important to make that BIOS setting change BEFORE you install W7. If you did not that may explain the symptoms.

While clean installing W7 in AHCI mode is best, you can try and change over afterwards. See here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista.html

Yep, on top of that one. I always clean install.

thanks for the tip.

Tanya

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Does anyone else have an Award BIOS that will do this if you boot from CD first.

I do.

On a Gigabyte 6 series motherboard, no less.

My solution was to set the SSD as first in the boot sequence and to then use F12 when booting to bring up a screen to choose the DVD drive as the first boot device whenever necessary---without having to go into the BIOS and make a change. Like you, I rarely boot first from the DVD drive, but have historically always left it as first in the boot sequence as controlled in the BIOS. Can't do that anymore.

 

[TanyaC]

Does anyone else have an Award BIOS that will do this if you boot from CD first.

I do.

On a Gigabyte 6 series motherboard, no less.

My solution was to set the SSD as first in the boot sequence and to then use F12 when booting to bring up a screen to choose the DVD drive as the first boot device whenever necessary---without having to go into the BIOS and make a change. Like you, I rarely boot first from the DVD drive, but have historically always left it as first in the boot sequence as controlled in the BIOS. Can't do that anymore.

Well, I think we'll have to consider this matter resolved. Looks like the Award BIOS has taken a backward step and that's just how it is. I will do the same as you, use F12 when I need to...

Now that's solved, it's time to look at SSD...

 

[ArchaicWarrior]

THANK YOU!! Tanyam, I've been racking my brain on this problem for months but you did the hard yards and found the flaw!

I'll set my SSD as my 1st boot drive but will keep AHCI as my DF case has a hot-plug drive that I use for backing up. Hoping this change will work .. otherwise I'll just live with it.

Only on this forum and only Tanyam was able to give an answer to this verryy frustrating problem, thanks all.

======

Post script - Works beautifully!

AW.

 

[TanyaC]

THANK YOU!! Tanyam, I've been racking my brain on this problem for months but you did the hard yards and found the flaw!

I'll set my SSD as my 1st boot drive but will keep AHCI as my DF case has a hot-plug drive that I use for backing up. Hoping this change will work .. otherwise I'll just live with it.

Only on this forum and only Tanyam was able to give an answer to this verryy frustrating problem, thanks all.

======

Post script - Works beautifully!

AW.

Glad that it works for you. Always good to hear about happy endings.

I think credit is due to others as well for the solution, such as ignatzatsonic.

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Always rep people that help you