[Chubain]

Hi,

I'm new to the forums and looking for some assistance.

My computer started acting up early this week when I was trying to burn some movies to a DVD. I had to manually turn off my machine and reboot. It took about 35 minutes for my computer to reboot. It normally takes 30 seconds. My first thought was that the harddrive was failing. I picked up a new harddrive and reinstall windows. After the reinstall, my computer boots up faster but it still take 5-10 minutes to fully boot. This is clearly still a big problem. At this point I'm guessing it is something to do with my processor, ram, or motherboard. How can I determine the true cause of the problem without randomly buying new components? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chubain

My computer specs:
Case: Lian Li PC-65 PC Case w/ 480W or higher name brand PSU
Power Supply 480W or higher name brand PSU
Processor: Pentium 4-3.4 GHz (800 MHz) -
Cooling: Retail Heatsink/Fan -
Motherboard: ASUS P4C800 Deluxe -
Memory: 4 X 512-MB Corsair TwinX XMS DDR400/PC3200LL -
Hard Drive: Western Digital 250 GB 7200RPM SATA -
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800XT 256MB -
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Retail -
DVD/CD ROM: Pioneer 16X DVD-120S/2 -
CD-RW: Lite-On 52x32x52 CD-RW LTR-52327S -
Communications: None or (optional Intel Pro/1000 T or USR External v.92) -
Mouse: Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse -
Keyboard: Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard -
Operating System: Windows XP Pro -
Floppy: Generic -

[Ste]

I would check the Camewithcasepos Power supply first, using a DMM, checking the rails on it. I would then run memtest for a good 8+ hours on RAM.

[Chubain]

I should have included this in my first post:

Hi, My name is Chubain and I'm a computer NOOB.

Please noob down your responses for me. Thanks.

[Ste]

Ok, a DMM is a Digital Multimeter, and what you do with it is, you attach the red Leed to a red wire, The black Led should be either attached to the case or the black wire on the same connector, while the computer is on. This is how you test voltages, you can then do it for the 4 pin Connector thats near the CPU and the 20/24 Pin Connector. If you don't have a DMM then you can download a program such as motherboard moniter 5 or speedfan to check the voltages, however programs are alot less acurate then DMM's.

google memtest 86 and follow the instructions on the site you downloaded it from to make a bootable floppy, you can then boot off that floppy and run memtest.

[Nitestick]

check the temperatures. common cause for symptoms like this in P4 systems is overheating.

[JA01]

I used to have the same issue, but I sped up my boot up time, by shutting down some start-up items I didn't need using MSCONFIG.....Would this help any?