[Grimace00]

I have a Dell Dimension L550r with 128MB RAM (1x128MB PC100 SDRAM) running Win98. I'm about to upgrade to WinXP, so I first wanted to max-out the RAM (system has 2 slots, 512MB max total).

I purchased 2x256MB PC133 SDRAM from 4allmemory.com. This is the correct memory according to many sites (including Dell and 4allmemory)--apparently the PC133 should clock itself back to PC100 automatically.

I removed the 128MB stick and placed the 256MB sticks into the two slots, then booted. It takes a LONG time to POST and boot. Lots of trials since then... I have tried just about every combination of memory in the machine, and it continues to boot very slowly (both old and new memory, unfortunately, so now it's worse than when I started!).

With 128MB, it now takes about 3.5 minutes to boot to a useable state with Windows settled down from all its initialization. With 512MB, it takes over 6 minutes. This is with the POST memory-check set to the default (on). Memory counts up during POST in increments of 4K approx every 1/2 second.

Any ideas? Thanks for your help!

Edited by Grimace00, 04 March 2006 - 03:17 PM.

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Pop into BIOS setup and have a look for something called Quick Boot or similiar. Or turn that POST memory-check option off - it doesn't do a full test anyway, just looks to see what its got to play with.

[Neil Jones]

Pop into BIOS setup and have a look for something called Quick Boot or similiar. Or turn that POST memory-check option off - it doesn't do a full test anyway, just looks to see what its got to play with.

[Grimace00]

I have gone into BIOS and enabled QuickBoot (no memory check). This does save time and makes the variance between booting with 128MB vs. 512MB negligable. Definitely a plus--thank you!

But overall boot time remains about 3 minutes. I don't have hard stats beyond my own recollection, but I'd say it's about twice the boot time from before I ever began my "upgrade".

Any more thoughts on the long boot?

[Neil Jones]

If this is with Windows 98, there's something badly wrong with that configuration as it shouldn't take 3 minutes to get to the desktop. If it spends a lot of time just sitting there with no hard drive activity, its often hard to find out why under 98, although it could be a sign of a hard drive beginning to show signs of being on its last legs.

Since you're going to upgrade to Windows XP anyway, your best bet would be to grab everything you want to keep, stick it on a CD, wipe your machine with the XP CD and do a clean install.

[Rockster2U]

Niel has given you some good advice. You can also download and install This Utility, Boot Log Analyzer (for Win9X), to determine what is having trouble loading under your current configuration.