SAGER NP8660 (M860TU) Slow BIOS loading at boot-up

I apologize in advance if this is a duplicate thread but I did do a search and I couldn't find anything exactly like this. Found threads about updating BIOS but don't particularly want to go straight to that just yet.

Issue: After powering on the SAGER BIOS appears and it takes about 10-15 seconds to load (if not more) before going to the Vista loading screen. When I first received the laptop this BIOS screen loaded in like 4 seconds tops. I realize this is only like 15 more seconds of waiting but hopefully anybody actually reading this in this forum will understand what I mean when I say it's annoying. The only thing I can think of that I changed in the BIOS is the boot device order when I was taking an open-box Ghost image of it when I first received it.

Troubleshooting: Because the boot device order is the only thing I've messed with I chose restore to factory defaults in the BIOS to make sure they were all STD settings, saved, and rebooted. This did not change the loading time, it was still slow. I also tried disconnecting any USB cables, peripheral devices, and removing CDs and booting just in case that was slowing it up. Still slow. I can't imagine why it would be fast and now is slow. I have not done any OC'ing or changed any hardware (yet), everything is stock. This occurs on battery and DC power. I am not with my laptop right now or I would give you my BIOS version so I will post an update later tonight when I get home.

Any help at all would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

 

I don't know what the default boot order is, but I wonder if it is set to boot to the network first? Thatwould explain a slow start up as you described.

Do you see a summary screen or a SAGER spash screen?

I don't know what this model's default setting is for that either, but I would start by choosing to see a summary screen or bios boot up screen (where memory and harddrives are enumerated) so you can see where it may be hanging up

 

Checked my BIOS version on my lunch break and its 1.00.11S LS2.

Gerry: I've tried switching the boot order around a few different times. One boot order in particular seemed to have worked but only temporarily. I made the changes, saved and exited BIOS. Then when I rebooted it went through BIOS screen in like 3 seconds so very nice. I thought I had solved it until I powered down for the day and booted it up the next day. Unfortunately, it was back to slowness. I did choose to save changes though and when I went back into BIOS it did save the settings. Dunno what's going on...

Oh and I just see the SAGER splash screen with the loading bar at bottom.

 

it might not be boot order.

it could be:
- the BIOS is not set to Quick POST
- one or more devices is causing the BIOS to detect them.... like external USB devices

 

How do you set it to Quick POST?

 

There is no such option for this notebook it seems.

You best check the other possibilities....
- one or more devices is causing the BIOS to detect them.... like external USB devices (Unplug all USB devices connected, then turn on the system)
- could be a non-secure hardware.
...... so re-seat the memory, HDD, and optical drive (pretty simple to do).

 

I didn't even know there was a 1.00.11 bios... what's your kbc/ec revision?

 

Have you--added memory (robson or other)?


In bios, under advanced, what are the settings for:

Installed O/S: (should be VISTA)
SATA mode (should be whatever mode you originally installed in). If you installed in ACHI and changed to IDE, you will have issues. If you have Robson RAM installed, you should be set up with INSTALLED OS: VISTA, SATA MODE: ACHI, ROBSON enabled.

If Robson not there, set to DISABLED

Set Boot time diagnostic to ENABLED to see the screen I was referring to earlier. I believe this doubles as quick boot if set to disabled, but I want you to see what is happening behind the clevo splash

 

I have tried disconnecting any external devices and the slowness is still there. I have not added any memory, a hard drive, or any other components. I DO have Robson Turbo memory and it is set to enabled. Installed OS shows Vista and SATA MODE is ACHI.

I set the boot time diagnostic to ENABLED, saved and shutdown. Upon bootup this is what it showed:

"M860TU BIOS Revision: 1.00.11S LS2
KBC/EC Firmware Revision: 1.00.08
CPU = 1 Processors Detected, Cores per processor: 2
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53 GHz
4094M System RAM Passed
6144 KB L2 Cache
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
Fixed Disk 0: Hitachi HT**********
ATAPI CD-ROM: Optiarc DVD RW AD-760S
Mouse initialized"

The Advanced BIOS screen shows the following:

"Installed O/S: Vista
SATA Mode Selection AHCI
-DFOROM (Robson) Support: Enabled
Legacy USB Support: Enabled
Boot-time Diagnostic Screen: Enabled
Legacy OS Boot: Enabled
Reset Configuration Data: No
Power on Boot Beep: Disabled
Battery Low Alarm Beep: Enabled
FAN Control: Automatics"

Let me know if anything seems out of the ordinary. Oh and I noticed that it says AHCI for SATA Mode but when I go to the Boot tab of the BIOS menu the HDD and optical drive are listed as IDE. Is that normal?

Kevin Jack2.0: You didn't? Is that a bad thing or a good thing? My KBC/EC revision is 1.00.08.

 

Looks "right"

Reboot. Watch the screen. At what point does the screen pause for 15 seconds?


Does it really say "Fixed Disk 0: Hitachi HT**********" rather than Fixed Disk 0: Hitachi HT********** with some numbers and letters where the ********** is?

If so, it sounds like the drive is being automatically detected, but not completely. Your bios should automatically see the drive and determine the make and model...if it is unable to do so, it continues on but Windows may still load.

Go ahead and set RESET CONFIGURATION DATA to yes and save and reboot again....see if the process changes.

Reboot many times, does it ever give you greater detail on the drive make and model, and if so, does it boot quickly that time?

 

Clevo's official changelog jumps from BIOS 1.01.08 and EC 1.00.08 to BIOS 1.01.12 and EC 1.01.10, and finally BIOS 1.01.13 is the latest.

I've brought myself up to date, as .12 and .13 fix the whining sound. I can help you out, if you're interested.

 

Gerryf19: No it actually shows the numbers and letters after "Fixed Disk 0: Hitachi HT". Will resetting configuration data do anything annoying that I don't necessarily want?

Kevin Jack2.0: Yes, I'm definitely interested. After all, it can't hurt (hopefully it won't brick it...) and what computer geek doesn't like to be on the latest and greatest drivers, firmware, and BIOS. I'd really appreciate it, thanks.

 

Reset configuration data is used to redetect hardware configuration.

Normally, your hardware when it first wakes up, it autodetects the harddrive, CD-rom, memory if it has Robson and then it "remembers" that hardware so it doesn't have to redetect next time it boots.

So, for example, if you add a new harddrive, Robson or Ram, it kind of tells your system board that it should check to see if the hardware has changed. Doing it will not have any adverse impact other than telling your computer to check again--this actually will lead to that 15 second pause you are experiencing in most cases for a one time boot up.

I bring it up because I was wondering if your computer was somehow "stuck" on this setting and always redetecting hardware.

You didn't mention where the pause occured when viewing the diagnostic screen

 

When the diagnostic boot is enabled I believe the pause occurs right AFTER the marked line below. (I will double check when I get home)

M860TU BIOS Revision: 1.00.11S LS2
KBC/EC Firmware Revision: 1.00.08
CPU = 1 Processors Detected, Cores per processor: 2
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53 GHz
4094M System RAM Passed
6144 KB L2 Cache
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed <---------------------
Fixed Disk 0: Hitachi HT
ATAPI CD-ROM: Optiarc DVD RW AD-760S
Mouse initialized

When the diagnostic boot is disabled the pause occurs after powering on during the SAGER splash screen. The loading bar jumps fairly quickly to the ~60% mark. Then loads pretty slowly the rest of the way.

***Sidenote: The laptop was recently serviced for a loose DC power port about two weeks ago. I wonder why they didn't just update the BIOS to the most recent while they had it. And by the way, this slow BIOS thing was happening before it was serviced and still after. Unfortunately it was not such an annoyance at the time that I was dealing with SAGER support or I would have had them kill two birds with one stone.

 

That is exactly where I would expect it to pause if the computer was finding a drive for the first time.

I would reset the configuration data (change to YES), and reboot. Expect the similar long pause and the reset setting will change back to NO after the first reboot. Then reboot a second time and see if that improves things.

This could be -- COULD BE -- a sign of a harddrive or controller issue. If you had a second drive, I would be curious if it would occur with a different drive in place (no need to install windows--just see if it is detected).

It is also possible a bios update could clear this situation

 

Yikes, I hope not. I'll try the rest configuration data and see what happens. If it doesn't change anything I think I can find a spare SATA notebook HDD to swap in there to see if it does the same thing.

Thanks again and I'll update ya later.

 

Hmmm...well this is interesting. I tried what you said about resetting the configuration data and saved changes in BIOS and let it boot up. It booted up to windows and I did a restart on accident instead of shutdown. Well when it rebooted, it went quickly through the BIOS screen instead of slow. I got excited until I did a shutdown and left it off for about 30 seconds. I powered back on only to wait at a slow loading BIOS screen again, hanging in the same area as before.

It's almost like the BIOS doesn't remember the hardware like you were saying something about. Like it forgot so it researches/scans for hardware all over again...

 

OK, do this...unplug the laptop and remove the battery. Press the power button for 10 seconds. Insert battery and plug it back in. Reboot into bios...did it maintain the system time?

Almost sounds like your CMOS battery as gone out.

 

Sighh.... I did what you said above and YES it did retain the system time and date. 'Double u tee eff' could be causing this!? (Sorry just frustrated)

 

Ahh, that would have been the easy thing. I would persue two different avenues at this point

a) a bios update...or, flash back to a previous version and see if the results chance

b) swap out the harddrive as we discussed earlier---you don't need to install windows or anything...just reboot several times and see if it retains the settings between boots. Or, remove the existing harddrive and reboot without the drive in place. Then reinsert the drive and see if the problem continues

 

Yea, good suggestions. I will try the hard drive one first as I've more familiar with that and have another HDD handy. Do you have instructions or links on how to flash the BIOS and the newest BIOS for SAGER NP8660?

 

Oops, I thought I sent that to you too.

Sending now then.

 

Got it and I replied to your PM about it.

For everyone else though: it unfortunately did not do the trick. I am still experiencing slow BIOS loading. And for giggles I timed it. It's about 23 seconds from power on to BIOS completely loaded! That's almost as long as it takes to get to my desktop (29 seconds btw).

 

...and the other drive?

 

Couldn't try it actually. I opened the laptop today at work and couldn't figure out how to easily get the HDD out. Keep in mind, I have frequently been inside of HP and Dell laptops to remove HDDs, memory, etc so it's not like I haven't done it before. However, the inside of the NP8660 boggled my simple mind. I then reassembled it because work got busier. When I came home I looked at the manual and see where I might have gone wrong. It says to remove the two screws and use the pull tab but there is a piece of copper bracket that is blocking it. Does it slide under this?

Anywho, I'll try again tomorrow at work if I get time or just call SAGER support. If you think about it, either way I'm going to need to call them. If I try a different HDD and the BIOS loads fast and normal then its the controller or something on the mainboard and if it doesn't work and the BIOS loads the same then it's still someting like the mainboard, BIOS chip, CMOS, etc. Both of which are out of my control persay and should be covered under support by SAGER.

 

well, if it loads faster with a new drive, it is an indication of failing circuitry on the harddrive. So, a new drive would solve your issue

 

you can do a HDtune test and post the picture.

 

Correct, in which case SAGER should still be responsible since I just got this laptop in November.

 

Would something like this show up in an HDtune test? Everything else about it has worked perfectly. It's not slow or finicky in any way that I can tell.

 

it might.

but if it does not seem slow, then the HDtune test should show that.

 

Under the HEALTH tab you may say an indicator from SMART on spinup failure, or it might show up as approaching a threshhold.

A circuitry failure however may not show at all as HDtune is receiving info from the SMART circuitry. If SMART circuitry is failing, it may not show. Also, seee if you can disable SMART in bios and see if that makes a difference

 

First time using HDtune for me but this is what it showed on the first

page:

HD Tune: Hitachi HTS543232L9A Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 29.8 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 65.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 49.2 MB/sec
Access Time : 17.6 ms
Burst Rate : 79.9 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 3.8%

And on the Info tab:

HD Tune: Hitachi HTS543232L9A Information

Firmware version : FB4O
Serial number :
Capacity : 298.1 GB (~320.1 GB)
Buffer size : n/a
Standard :
Supported mode :
Current mode :

S.M.A.R.T : no
48-bit Address : no
Read Look-Ahead : no
Write Cache : no
Host Protected Area : no
Device Configuration Overlay : no
Automatic Acoustic Management: no
Power Management : no
Advanced Power Management : no
Power-up in Standby : no
Security Mode : no
Firmware Upgradable : no

Partition : 1
Drive letter : C:\
Label :
Capacity : 305242 MB
Usage : 31.88%
Type : NTFS
Bootable : Yes

The Health tab showed nothing at al and Power On Time and Health Status

said "n/a".

I ran the error scan and everything came up green "OK".


BTW, wasn't able to find a setting in BIOS to disable SMART.

 

Okay so I finally got around to putting in a different hard drive and bad news...a completely different hard drive made no difference at all. As it did before, BIOS loaded slowly on initial boot and then I went into BIOS to ensure it did see the new drive. Sure enough it did, a Fujitsu instead of Hitachi. I then saved changes and exited and powered off. From cold boot the BIOS screen came up and hung at the same place as before...sigh.

Thanks for your help guys seriously but I guess it'll be up to SAGER support to figure this one out. Dangit, I just hope they somehow can without me having to send them my laptop although I doubt that.

 

BIOS loading has to do with settings and settings.

reset the BIOS to default.

also do a MemTest86+ as well.

 

Gophn: I hadn't even thought of running a memtest so thanks for the suggestion. I just ran it and no errors came up but it was worth a shot. I have tried resetting the BIOS to default settings and even choosing the "Reset configuration data" to no avail

I've contacted SAGER support via phone and the guy had me send an email explaining the issue. In it I explained my issue and pointed to this forum to see what troubleshooting I've already done. Hopefully they can help me out.

**UPDATE**
I have confirmed that this slow BIOS loading NEVER happened before I had the laptop serviced for its bad DC power port. So is it possible that replacing the DC power port or some component on the mainboard would cause the BIOS to load slowly??

 

did they replace the port, or the motherboard? Did the problems begin immediately after getting it serviced?

I have thought all along it was the harddrive or the harddrive controller (on the motherboard)

 

I do not know if they replaced just the port or the entire motherboard, they didn't say. And yes, I believe the BIOS began to load slowly when I got it back from them in the mail.

*It's not the HDD btw. But yea, like I said before, it really could be the controller.

 

Ok, I'm lazy, but humor me, I don't know if this has been asked and answered already, but have you checked to make sure that the CMOS battery on the motherboard is still in place? It strikes me that a missing or dead CMOS battery might cause the BIOS to go slow since it would have to load the default configuration each time and then go Easter-egg hunting for components to see what all's attached, instead of being able to read off the config from NVRAM and just do a quick nose-count to make sure all components listed are still present and accounted for.

 

Well I didn't physically check for the CMOS battery being in place but I tested it by unplugging DC power and the battery for about 5 minutes. I then checked and the BIOS time was correct. So I'm assuming this means the CMOS is still working to an extent.

 

System time being out of whack is the classic symptom of a dead CMOS battery; however, it may be that the saved configuration got corrupted when they repaired the system, and removing the CMOS battery and discharging the system (by holding down the power button for a 10-second count once the regular battery has been removed as well) may clear the NVRAM and allow the BIOS to rebuild the configuration cleanly. At any rate, I think it's worth a try.

 

Ok, so you're saying to try taking out the CMOS battery and holding down the power button for 10 seconds. Then put it all back together and let it boot all the way up? If you think will work I will definitely give it a shot. However, how do you remove the CMOS battery in te NP8660? Have any of you actually done it and is it hard?

Btw, thank you for the suggestion (a very plausible one at that).

 

Yup, that's what I'm saying. Just make sure that you've disconnected the A/C adapter, and taken out the battery (i.e., the one that powers the system in general) before you hold the power button down (of course, that battery should have come out when you started opening the system up in the first place, but it never hurts to be too careful in these situations).

In terms of actually getting to the CMOS battery, I don't know; however, courtesy of Eurocom's product library, the service manual should show you how - it can be downloaded directly using this link.

 

Well I ended sending the laptop in to Sager support. Just got it back yesterday and its fixed now. It boots in no time like the good ole days.

Of course, me being curious about how they fixed it I look on the paper included in the box sent back and it says the following:

"1) BAD DVR CAUSE SYSTEM POST SLOW. REPLACE DVR OK.
2) REPLACE DDR2-2G-A X 2, (FAIL ON 24H BURNING)
3) RELOAD VIDEO DRIVER" (because they saw that I had the desktop NVIDIA video drivers loaded - DOX)

I have no idea what DVR means (other than digital video recorder) so if you know please tell me. Also, I emailed Sager techsupport and asked what was wrong and they responded with saying the optical drive was causing the issue and that they replaced it. Is DVR another name for optical drive or something?

 

glad its back and good to go.

 

I'm thinking type and it was DVD--if the computer had to re-recognize the DVD each boot, it would add a little bit of time as the hardware is enumerated,

 

same typo twice sounds unlikely...

 

could just mean DVD-R unit

 

Yea thats what I was thinking. Upon looking at the optical drive in device manager I see that it is in fact a different drive. I used to have an Optiarc but now it is something else (I would look but I'm at work now).