970 Extreme 3 SLOW Boot

[harleyman]

this is only my third build with this company..First two were great...

The boot seems to be really slow... At times it won't.. So a hard reset is what it takes to get it up and running..

First thing i noticed at first start up, is that their is no real POST beep ...I know the speaker works, cause at times I have heard it...

Once its to windows(Vista 64) everything is really slow to load.. I mean, LAN takes maybe 50 seconds to go, and ATI CCC takes maybe 60 seconds to start..

I think its a REV2 board.. The BIOS is the latest @ 1.7

The Hard drive the OS is on was a GPT ( Is that right?) and Windows refused to install to it, so i slaved it to another comp and formatted it in NTFS and that seemed to work.

Often on boot, I get the black screen , saying that it has failed to start several times, and I have options then to select how it should boot.

BIOS: This one is very new to me... Is their a way to set the boot order to default? I am clueless as to the boot order, or how this needs to be set up..

I am used to Gigabyte boards, and setting their boot order was easy. DVD HDD DVD This Extreme3 shows a top order to be my MBR.. I never set that..I tried to set as I do normally, but I have no clue how to properly set that all up.

Perhaps that is some of the boot problems ???

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

I am using a Freezer Pro7 Cooler... Temps Idle @ 11- 18 and game at 30 - 35.. All In Celcius... North and South run cool.. I have NO heating issues..


Addition: When i first tried to install Vista to this (GPT) partition, I was told it could not install to that... so..I popped in my Win 7 disk and that had no problem installing... I then reformated that drive and changed it to a NTFS and Vista installed to it ..

Plus..As stated..I really don't know how to set up this boot order in the bios on this board.. It never booted the OS off my DVD drive, unless I selected F11 at post and selected it...so it appears I don't have this set correctly..

Last night the comp went to sleep, and refused to restart .. I did have the power options set in windows to NEVER sleep or kill the HDDs, but something changed it...I am aware its also a Vista problem..

Question? WHY does my wife think Vista is so great? Personally i hate it...haha

[- wardog -]

I think its a REV2 board.. The BIOS is the latest @ 1.7

Be sure of the revision. If it has BIOS r1.70 on it it had better _NOT_ be the 970 EXtreme3 R2.0!

Judging by the pics on the ASRock site, you should be able to tell what revision of this board you have by looking at the two chipset heatsinks.

ASRock > 970 Extreme3 R2.0 <- Only offered original BIOS, 1.00

ASRock > 970 Extreme3 <- Latest BIOS offered is 1.70

[harleyman]

You are correct.....

I do not have Rev 2.. My heatsink has the fastLan cover , and the BIOS is 1.7

Is their a way with this bios to screenshoot my boot page to post here by chance ?

Thanks

[- wardog -]

Use a FAT32 formatted USB stick in a USB 2.0 slot on the MB rear I/O panel, navigate to what you want shown then press F12 to capture a screen grab to the usb stick.

Then post it here.

[harleyman]

Brilliant...

It may be as late as Monday before I post that shot... Busy ,,Busy..busy..

Thanks For all your help wardog...

go Ravens..... !


Here it is ...i found a minute... And I just had a BSOD..pagefile...Wonders if thats the partition on her 1T drive not being a GPT ( or whatever its called)


Hmmm..is not working...

[- wardog -]

Ahh, a UEFI install ............ Windows Boot Manager

[harleyman]

That happened quite by accident..

I actually have no clue what it means, but I don't think i care for it as its been having issues..

I never set it to show the MBR..it just appeared..

i had it set to boot DVD HDD DVd...And it all chhanged

I have no problems reinstalling Windows again...

How do i go about that next time not having it install that way?

When I booted, or tried to off the OS disk, it never ran, not untill i tapped F11 and selected DVD Drive...I never asked for that set up..

Please tell me what I did wrong...Like I stated...This BIOS is NEW to me completely..Yikes....

The Lil lady is screaming for her comp, and I keep telling her its acting really buggy still..

help..hahahahaha Good grief...i hate learning new stuff...

many thanks

[parsec]

harleyman, I'm a bit confused by your posts, but we'll figure it out.

You clearly booted in UEFI mode at one point, I can tell by all the entries in the boot order. You wrote earlier that you reformatted the disk with Windows 7, but is that the disk that Vista is on? The Vista OS disk might still be in GPT format, but I'm not certain.

For now the main thing you should do is clear the BIOS/UEFI. It looks like your board can do that only with the jumper on the board itself. Some boards have a switch for that now. Check the board's manual for this procedure.

You'll need to load default values after you boot once you clear the BIOS, and reset any settings you use.

The main reason I suggest doing this is, assuming your Vista disk is now not formatted as GPT, all those strange entries in the boot order will be gone. Those entries will only be seen in the boot order if you booted from, or are booting now, from a GPT formatted disk. DO NOT set Secure Boot to enabled in the BIOS!

Try that and let us know what happens. Vista is not the cause of the problems, except that it supports booting from GPT formatted disks. BTW, the slow boot you mentioned is a symptom of a GPT formatted disk with its reserve system partition missing.

[harleyman]

Thank you for that.....

Yes.. I am a bit confused too...

So...I do wish to reinstall Vista...( I did once install win 7, and the wife didn't want it ) That install went flawless..

So.. My jumper needs to be manually reset (no switch)... Can I just pull the battery to do this too?

So..Once I clear it..You suggest then ( before my reinstall of Vista) I go back into the bios and set it up again ? And..

Do I want it to install as a GPT ? or not ? ( Just what settings for Booting do I want ? just NOT as a GPT disk?


I'm sorry.. But this BIOS has me stumped.....

Thanks much for your help..

[- wardog -]

harleyman,

No. What parsec is asking is to just clear the BIOS using the CLRCMOS1 header and jumpering to pins 2-3 for 15secs and then returning the cap to pins 1-2.

Then after booting immediately afterwards "Load UEFI Defaults" in the Exit tab of the BIOS, and then reset any settings you use in other parts of the BIOS.