windows xp boot up

[LakersNumba1]

i just built a athlon xp 2600+ with a 120gb hd, 512 pc3200 ram and when i boot up it takes a while to load windows. in my roommates athlon xp 2000+ with 256 mb pc2100 ram, his computer boots up in a second and goes straight to the log in screen. anyone know wats goin on? i did all the updates and defragged

[PCC]

Do you have a network card installed on your computer? Is it plugged into a network? Usually, the network card searches for a DHCP server to obtain an IP address and will sit there and wait and wait and wait until it finally gives up if there isn't one available.

[LakersNumba1]

the network card is built on the motherboard which is a abit nfs-7. this motherboard came with a serial convertor to convert my harddrive to SATA. could it be that making it serial made it slower??? my friend has the same mobo and didnt convert it and its fast as heck.

[PCC]

First, make sure that you disable the network card if you are not using it. This will make a difference. Then I would try taking out the Serial ATA adapter and see how it goes (this may cause your computer to not boot, depending on the OS, though).

[LakersNumba1]

after i switched the harddrive from serial to regular it runs very fast and smoothly. i dunno why that is kind defeats the purpose of having a serial converter

[PCC]

That's good to hear. I think that the speed of the drive (Ultra DMA100 or UDMA66) being a slower drive could be the issue. Why have adapters when it will only slow your machine down? Marketing...

[bachviet]

Why used adapter? I won't use SATA hard drive unless the motherboard supports it.

[PCC]

The motherboard supports it. What he was using was one of those adapters that allows you to use a standard ATA hard drive on the SATA channel. I was looking at those and was wondering what the performance would be like. I guess I know, now.

[Apex]

Bootvis. Seriously. Google, download, and run.