Acer 5101 - Slow booting of Windows XPMCE

Hello All,

just found this wonderful forum and spent about an hour looking for similiar problems to the one I am having but to no avail so thought I would ask a question(s).

Last week our Acer 5101 suddenly slowed right down when booting to Windows XP MCE. Takes about 5 minutes to get to the desktop fully loaded. So did the usual thing retracing my steps to see if I can figure out if I installed something to cause it and I've hit a wall.

This is what I have done so far and all have failed.

1. Uninstalled everything I could think of that I installed around that time.
2. Used system restore.
3. Checked all the drivers.
4. Ran various spyware detectors.
5. Ran Norton Virus scan several times
6. Defragged hard drive.
7. Defraged page file and boot files
8. Checked the processes and services, checked task manager.

Then I saw the notebook optimise guide so I`ve followed that and still to no avail.

It keeps saying that PQService F: drive is low on disk space every now and again and I had no idea what that was till I did a search on here.

The only other thing I can think of is that I accidentally sent it into Hibernation and I stopped it and came out of it again. There is a hiberfil.sys of about 954mb and I have tried getting rid of it using powercfg /h off from the Run menu but the file keeps coming back.

Its almost as though something else is slowing the system down.

I ran the www.pcpitsop.com tests and these have showed the disk access is abysmal, 1mb/s I think when it should be about 24mb/s. It also mentioned the cluster size was 1k when it should be 4k or greater.

The only thing I can think of doing is restoring to my backup I took after I set the machine up when I got it but I`m loathed to do this as its a bit of a faff.

Anyone had any similiar experience or offer advice ?

 

1. you can't blow away your hibernation file without disabling Hibernation (Start>control panel>display>screensaver>power options>hibernation>)

2. Slow Disk access means that your HD is probably starting to fail - You need to check device manager under "Disks" to see what model HD you have, from there you can download the HD diagnostics and test for problems, if you get an error code then you can send it back or replace with a better HD, persay a seagate or Hitachi 7200 RPM HD - device manager - (Right click 'My computer>properties>hardware>device manager>+ Disk drives)

Post back with Disk model and I will provide link for software download -

 

1. You cant do that with the Acer Epower power options you have to use from the command line powercfg /h off.

2. I did think this but I`m hoping this is not the case. Its a Seagate ST9100824A.

Thanks for the response.

 

uninstall the EPOWER software then you can disable your hibernation like normal - love how manfs. do that -
Seatools

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html

 

Thanks will check it out.

 

Hard Drive checked out okay. So decided to reformat the c: drive and reinstall Windows MCE. The laptop was originally pre-setup so I followed a thread on another forum to create a Windows XP MCE CD from the existing files on the hard drive and I am currently installing it as a fresh install from a Windows XP MCE CD.

 

Hi

My sisters Aspire 1640Z has pretty much the same problem. Booting (XP home edition) takes forever and it can't even play music right when there is any load. She hasn't installed anything, that's for sure. I benchmarked the HD (Hitachi Travelstar 4K120 100GB) with HD Tune and got about 1.5 MB/sec transfer speed. I haven't defragged it completly yet because it takes forever. I also run S.M.A.R.T test and everything were above thresholds.

So does this mean that HD is about to break or what?
And what does hibernation haveto do with this? I think there was hiberfil.sys in her HD too.

 

Any chance you can link to that thread of how you did this? I've heard it can be done and that it can't be done (Create Windows XP boot CD from files on the hard drive on a pre-installed PC).

 

What he is referring to is your hidden D2D recovery option that will boot off and reinstall windows from the hard drive. It is ALT+ F10 prior to booting into windows during the Acer splash screen.

Now if you were referring to taking certain "files" off your hard drive and using those to reinstlal windows then please by all means read below.

If your windows install was installed by Acer then you do have the ability to create a custom windows xp install disk that comes pre-registered. This means you can see your acer logo on the propery windows of My Computer still.

To do this you'll need some background in updating windows, extracting and modifing the cd contents and re-creating the .iso.

Let me clear something up first here before I get any further.

#1. You can not take the "entire contents" of the windows install on your hard drive and install windows with it. You can create a restore cd/dvd with the D2D recovery partition. But this does not mean you can just take the files off the hdd and install windows.

#2. The method I list below requires you to have the origional windows disk(s) not just a recovery CD or DVD. You'll need to get ahold of a window xp oem disk (home / pro / MCE 2k5 ) and modify it with the needed files on the disk for this to work. This involves extracting the entire contents of your windows xp disk to your hard drive, modifying some files, and then repackaging that disk as a new .iso.

#3. You will still need / want to use the recovery cd / dvd to extract the oem vlk keys supplied by acer in the D2D recovery partition that is burnt to a bottable DVD for you. Check the link below for unlocking the 5672wlmi's hidden secrects, it applies to all Acer recovery disks that use a D2D recovery partition.

Now onto the good stuff.

Look here for exact directions and needed oembios.ini files - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=63258 It takes a bit of understanding, and there are links to the pre-extracted files on rapidshare.de if you want to save yourself time. The author of this thread over on msfn also did a multi-oem cd install which scans and installs the needed files at T11 of the windows install process. Check up that other thread for the needed rapidshare.de files a few posts down.

If you understand 1/2 of what I just said above that look here for cd modification and re-creation - http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/

I've done this with the pre-supplied keys in my 5672 hidden secrets - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=76670

You'll then need to edit winnt.sif to accommodate you as well and don't forget to integrate the 2nd disk into the install if you are installing windows media center edition (just strip out the tablet files b/c they are not needed)

To give you a quick overview as well as proof that this is capible on any oem hardware with oem bios's (dell / hp / acer/ etc.) check this screen shot of my PID info for my windows install.



Notice how the PID says OEM but yet I am missing the acer logo? I'm not using my oem key on the bottom of my laptop because my laptop came with XP HOME not XP Pro or MCE 2005. Windows does not care what version of the operating system is installed on my laptop, it simply cares about those file files in reference to the bios (that the hashes line up correctly and pass the verification check).

This is what I mean by OEM VLK The key is universal (and pointless) the real key is the unlocking and passing of the 5 files in the I386 directory of your install disk. If you can get those (as well as other versions) of the vendor specific files on the disks you have the ability to install any version of XP on any (currentl) OEM hardware and have it pass verification.

Just make sure you use apples with apples and install the correct operating system with what came for your pc (or what license you bought).

--ssx--

 

A bit more info and an updated version of oemscan can be found here - http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82638

The needed repositories are also linked in that forum so is saves you time.

have at it!

--ssx--

 

Do you think reinstalling Windows would help in my situation or is it HW problem? I did burn the reinstall CDs after Windows was installed first time.

 

In the end it was because the hard drive was for some reason using piomode 4 and not udma mode 5. I reinstalled the laptop using the recovery cd's I had made and its working fine now.

 

What could cause it to change the mode on it's own? And can it be changed back in BIOS or windows?

 

There is a place to change these settings in the Device Manager. Usually the hard drives are found without any problem and set to the correct UDMA. Maybe someone fooled around in this section and changed them. Most of the time the only things that you have to check for is that your CD/DVD player is using the correct setting. But if your HDD are set to PIO mode they will be extremely slow and lethargic. It's like putting your car in first gear on the highway.
I am glad that you figured out what was going on. Too bad that you had to reinstall everything to find it. If your HDD was failing it would more likely give you BSODs than slow performance. However a fragmented drive could slow down performance due to the extra work the drive would have to perform.

 

Well I called my sister and asked her to check what mode the HD is on. Transfer mode option is on "DMA if available" but the current transfer mode is indeed PIO. Any idea how to fix this without reinstalling windows?

I guess this would work for hard drives also.
http://sniptools.com/tipstricks/getting-back-to-dma-mode-in-windows-xp

 

In the Device Manager- IDE ATA/ATAPI settings- You have to figure out which controller the drive is on (usually the first one as a master). Then Primary Channel. You should be able to move the setting yourself. You may have to uncheck the box below it that says Let the BIOS select transfer mode. And then try setting it manually to UDMA5. There is usually a Speed Test button next to it that you can try also.