98se to XP

[anitelite]

So I downloaded the demo and it requires 2000 or better. Up to now I've done only 98.. So I buy a copy of XP Pro and after several 2+ hour load attempts I have an XP operating system.. I keep hearing how quick it loads and good it is, etc. Mine's a dog... takes forever to load and I had to install the demo 3 times before it would work... So I figure my XP install is bad...wipe the drive, start clean NTFS file system....same deal...takes forever to install and 4+ minutes to load on startup...whats the deal P4 2.8, 512M ram via motherboard, geforce video, on board sound...no netcards, soundcards, modems, etc.

By the way, if this is the wrong forum to ask, suggest a better spot and I'll move this there.

Thanks.

[loki]

Do you have all of the XP drivers for your hardware? Did you install anything else? 4+ minutes is far too long for a normal boot time.

loki

[anitelite]

I loaded no drivers at all....XP found and located drivers for everything. Device manager shows no flags or conflicts of any kind. It correctly identified all devices such as sound and video and loaded its own drivers for them. Any other ideas? I'm open to all suggestions good or bad.

Thanks

[loki]

You should check out the manufacturer's site for all your hardware to make sure you have the latest motherboard and video at least. Many PCs will work with the Windows default, but may not work correctly.

loki

[baddadnv]

Yep, definetly odd?

Once updated the OS on a rig for Someone, and had slow boots.......Ended up being dirt packed and I mean packed!, in the cooling fins on the processor. One of those single fan cases that funneled all air flow directly to the processor first. - Probably not Your issue, but check ....

My next guess would be ram. - You could install and monitor the program " Ram Idle" to see if there may be an issue with your ram or page file swapping. It has a small icon in the task area, that will show the amount of ram being used. - Program easy to uninstall if if wanted.

Randy Burton

[angels355]

Hi Randy, how're you doing?

4+ minutes to boot is too long, and those computer hardware specs look good too, at least for XP, but not for running FSX, not enough RAM for FSX. Generally at least 1 gb of RAM is best for FS9, let alone FSX.

But the hardware looks good for XP. I've got a pentium II 333 mhz processor and 256 mb's of RAM, it boots fast, really fast, it likes XP a lot. I also have a Celeron 333 mhz processor and 768 mb's of ram running XP, it works very well also (am going to upgrade that Asus P2B to about 1.1 or 1.4 ghz if I can; am going to move the other system to hopefully about a 2.2 ghz Athlon XP Socket A system w/ a max capacity of 3 gb's of ram).

Once I was trying upgrade the RAM on my 486, which originally had 32 mb's of ram. I installed some odd mismatched RAM (mismatched mhz) and boot time went from perhaps 5 to 10 minutes (loading ME, it's a long story), to probably around 20 minutes which was unreal. So I went to the control panel, double clicked System, and took a look at the amount of RAM the computer was recognizing. It was only recognizing 6 mb's! So I took the mismatched RAM out, and tried booting again with only the original 32 mb's of RAM, the boot time was a blazing 5 to 10 minutes once again! And checking the System option again showed that once I again I had a mighty 32 mb's of RAM.

Is your RAM all compatible with each other? How much RAM does the computer say it recognizes from the System menu? Just a thought. Randy's RAM monitoring software suggestion sounds very good.

Edit: When you upgraded from Win 98SE to XP, did you reformat the entire hard drive in NTFS, or did you leave it formatted in FAT32? I believe XP only wants NTFS.