XPS M1530 chillin' during the last part of bios startup

My laptop takes about 20 seconds to get through bios boot.

It flies through most of the boot, and then stops when there is about a centimeter left of the progress bar. There it stays for 15 seconds or more doing presumably nothing. Then I hear the dvd-rom "awakening" before it goes on to boot windows.

Does anybody know what it is doing while waiting? Is there something wrong with the dvd player? Or is there something else going on?

 

Go into the BIOS and change around the boot order [hard drive first, LAN last: mess with the middle]. Make sure Quick Boot is also enabled.

 

quickboot is on. The boot order is hdd, usb. Lan and dvd is disabled in the boot menu.

 

That delay is the laptop doing a full memory check...it shouldnt be doing this every time you boot...not sure why it would.

 

Huh...full memory check: that is wacky. My desktop motherboard, interestingly, also has this option, but I have it set to "quick" memory test.

Reinstall BIOS?

 

If windows crashes it will force this check. No way around it. No Harm in it either.

 

I flashed the bios, but no change.

I was surprised that all settings were kept though.

It certainly is not a show-stopper. However the minor annoyance has grown a fair bit.

I might try pulling out the ram to see if there is something there.

 

Would Windows cause a check, though, pre-boot? This is still in POST: the operating system hasn't been loaded yet.

Or is this not like chkdsk?

@tha_lode

Yeah, actually, updating the BIOS on the 1645 does the same thing: saves the settings. Must be a 'feature'.

Try switching to IDE mode on the hard drive. Does that help?

No attached devices, right?

~Ibrahim~

 

Nope. Nothing attached. Externally that is... I suppose there might be some stuff you could call being "connected" internally. Only change I have done is switching the hdd with an Intel SSD (Highly recomended) but the problem was there before I switched.

This is definitely before windows starts so I assume the computer is still in POST.

 

Some OS's will trigger a BIOS check if there is a memory dump. Happens to me in windows 7.

 

But I would see some indication of this in windows then wouldn't I? If there was a memorydump?

 

Yeah. You've checked Event Viewer?

 

I would have thought that Windows gave some kind of hint if there was a memorydump? I can't see any at least.

 

The problem comes from the DVD drive. If you desactivate it or remove it physically, the bios will load normally. To desactivate it, go in the section module bay device I think. I had the same problem, but I still dont know how to fix it without desactivating the DVD.

 

Hey! That worked! Thanks man.

So I found the culprit I guess... Now what.
Buy a new drive? Maybe get a blueray...nah. I think not.

I remember there was a new bios for the drive.
Maybe the problems arose then?
Did you flash yours?

 

Actually new drives aren't that expensive. Any recommendations?

 

I'm not terribly familiar with notebook optical drives. On my desktop, I usually go with LITE-ON.

I mean, they're usually all pretty decent. Make sure you get the right size/interface for your laptop. You can figure that out by either looking at the optical drive itself or Googling its model number.

You probably don't want Blu-ray, so most any DVD+/-RW should be good. Slot-loading (like on the SXPS 16) is classy.

~Ibrahim~