PC Slow To Start

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???

In message , Juan Wei
writes:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???
Can't answer your question, but there may be a setting in the BIOS to
suppress the splash screen, so you can see what's going on "underneath"
it.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Advertising is legalized lying. - H.G. Wells

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 5:54 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:45:10 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???

First thought would be the battery.

CMOS battery? I thought that all it did was to preserve the contents of
NVRAM. How would a low battery cause what I have?

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 6:41 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:18:41 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 5:54 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:45:10 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???

First thought would be the battery.

CMOS battery? I thought that all it did was to preserve the contents of
NVRAM. How would a low battery cause what I have?

The battery can last +/- about 7 years, but it's not written in stone.

This one is just 2 years old.

J. P. Gilliver (John) has written on 11/30/2013 6:12 PM:
In message , Juan Wei
writes:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???
Can't answer your question, but there may be a setting in the BIOS to
suppress the splash screen, so you can see what's going on "underneath"
it.

The BIOS has a setting (quick boot) to suppress the AMI splash screen
but not the Gateway one.

Juan Wei has written on 11/30/2013 5:45 PM:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature"

In the BIOS, there was a setting to disable USB beepcodes.

I did that and all but the first one have disappeared!!

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 7:00 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:57:58 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Juan Wei has written on 11/30/2013 5:45 PM:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature"

In the BIOS, there was a setting to disable USB beepcodes.

I did that and all but the first one have disappeared!!

One beep is normal.

That's what I thought.

I looked for USB beepcodes for my MB and came up empty. All of my USB
stuff seems OK.

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 7:06 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:57:58 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Juan Wei has written on 11/30/2013 5:45 PM:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature"

In the BIOS, there was a setting to disable USB beepcodes.

I did that and all but the first one have disappeared!!

Now stop playing with the bios settings then coming here to find out what
you screwed up.

Really? How is disabling USB beepcodes "screwing up"?

On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 15:58:45 -0700, Ken1943 wrote:

On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:45:10 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???
CR 2032 Battery's are very common and can be purchased just about
anywhere. Radio Shack would be first choice.

KenW

Not if price matters. $6 at the Shack, $2 at Fry's.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 7:58 PM:

At least the bios's today have detection built in. Was a bitch to enter
all the hdd settings. My spare WD drives don't even have the info on the
drives. Heads, cylinders and I forget the rest.

How old was that BIOS? Mine is dated 8/2011. Should I be worried about
HDD settings?

Juan Wei wrote:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???

I would reseat every cable, ram, card, etc., and see
if it starts working again.
If not, then run chkdsk /r on all the volumes.

"Gene E. Bloch" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 15:58:45 -0700, Ken1943 wrote:

On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:45:10 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???
CR 2032 Battery's are very common and can be purchased just about
anywhere. Radio Shack would be first choice.

KenW

Not if price matters. $6 at the Shack, $2 at Fry's.

5 for a dollar on eBay... (Sony)

Chris

Juan Wei wrote:
Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 6:41 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:18:41 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 5:54 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 17:45:10 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???
First thought would be the battery.
CMOS battery? I thought that all it did was to preserve the contents of
NVRAM. How would a low battery cause what I have?
The battery can last +/- about 7 years, but it's not written in stone.

This one is just 2 years old.

The battery won't do that.

The only known oddity with CR2032 batteries, is some
brands of motherboards will not start, if the battery
sits at precisely zero volts. I've never seen an
explanation for what the fault in that case is. The
battery is diode-ORed with 3VSB, and as soon as the
computer starts, the 3VSB should be powering what
the battery used to power.

*******

Slow operation, could be something like a change in
how the BIOS memory test is being done. Or the hard
drive has some bad sectors in the areas the BIOS
reads as part of booting the computer.

I would review the CMOS settings in the BIOS, to
make sure nothing significant has changed.

Paul

Juan Wei wrote:
Ken1943 has written on 11/30/2013 7:00 PM:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 18:57:58 -0500, Juan Wei wrote:

Juan Wei has written on 11/30/2013 5:45 PM:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature"
In the BIOS, there was a setting to disable USB beepcodes.

I did that and all but the first one have disappeared!!
One beep is normal.

That's what I thought.

I looked for USB beepcodes for my MB and came up empty. All of my USB
stuff seems OK.

There was a short generation of motherboards, where
some creative BIOS writer thought it would be
cool if the computer beeped for each
detected USB device.

Said individual, changed the frequency of the beeps,
so the USB beep was a different frequency than the
error beeps.

So you might hear "beep... boop boop boop" and
that meant "successful start" followed by "three
USB devices detected". Sheer nonsense. And something
that was removed in the next generation. Most users
were in no mood to be measuring the frequency of
each beep, as a means to distinguish actual
error code beeps, from friendly USB beeps.

Paul

On 11/30/2013 2:45 PM, Juan Wei wrote:
Suddenly, my desktop is behaving strangely.

On a cold boot, I get a succession of beeps that does not fit any
pattern in the AMI/Gateway "literature" and then the Gateway splash
screen stays on for more than a minute.

It does not respond to DEL (setup) or F12 (boot menu) until after the
60+ seconds.

Eventually, Windows starts normally.

I ran MEMTEST 86+ and it found no errors.

???


Is one of Gateway's utilities set to run at startup? I am not at my
Gateway system at this moment but recall that there is a monitoring
program that starts to run at startup and polls the system between
the time the computer boots to completion of desktop. This program is
installed from the same utilities CD with the chipset files.

GR