MSI 1651 taking a long time to boot.

Hello again all.

I'm in the process of putting together my msi 1651. I got it assembled by AVA Direct and ordered without an OS, seeing as how I can get a discount on vista.

Well, It's taking just under 5 minutes to boot up. The specs are-
2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo
7200.3 320GB HDD
2GB Turbo Robson
4 GBs RAM DDR2 800

I was under the impression it would boot faster than this. I had to fiddle around with the AHCI settings a bit and even did a registry hack to get it enabled, but that didn't speed it up any.

Am I missing a driver or something?

Thanks

 

I wonder if the Turbo Memory is interfering with your system's memory addressing. As far as I know, MSI never stated the 1651 based notebooks supporting the Turbo Memory. I would try removing that module and see if it helps.

 

Yeah, it could be the Robson, as my 1651 (when I had it) booted up XP SP3 & Ubuntu 8.10 VERY quickly with NO Robson memory and the AHCI set to IDE mode (simplified XP installation).

Just for the record mine had:
P8600 (2.4GHz 3M cache)
5400 RPM WD 320GB hdd
4GB Kingston ValuRam, PC6400 CL5 DDR2 800
Intel WiFi link 5300
Super multi DVD
WSXGA+ panel (1680x1050)

 

Can it really be the turbo robson? I guess I'll try it, but I was under the impression that it was just an ssd module that held some of the os to speed up the boot times.

 

It's supposed to, and it only works with Vista, which you have... maybe you got a bum module... I don't know of any way to test it offhand, as it probably doesn't even show up as a drive. Maybe check under Vista's hardware/device info tree for problems.

 

Upon further review, I have found it is not the turbo robson module. In fact, taking it out took longer still to boot.

I ran it in safe mode and see that it is hanging on crcdisk.sys. I've already reinstalled, so that didn't fix it. There are about 80 billion results on google for this problem, and all of them are different. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

 

I'd like to add to the mystery here, and further request help.
After installing XP and Windows 7, I found they both booted very quickly. Vista seems to be the only OS where this crcdisk.sys and AHCI problem shows up.

Right now I'm just running Windows 7, and finding it to be phenomenal for a beta. No substantial problems so far, apart from the loss of Eco. Still, it probably is impractical to use a beta as my main OS, so a return to Vista is preferable. Any thoughts in fixing this would be very much so appreciated.

Thanks

 

When you installed vista do you have an SP1 DVD? If you do not you will have the exact problems you are describing. If you disk is not SP1, download and install the service pack.

 

My disk is not SP1, but I have installed the Service pack. Still having the problem.

 

2 more things, check that you have the very latest drivers. (Check whats installed v. what's on MSI's site, you can use the GX620 drivers mostly although you'll have to get the WiFi drivers from Intel's site.

Seondly, also check you BIOS, the latest IIRC is V1.0I October 08 IIRC, and there's a newer embedded controller firmware that was released 12/18/08 for the GX620 version. For these AFAIK you'll have to ask MSI for a copy of them as I never found them posted on their website, but they sent me a link to download v1.0I BIOS and the EC firmware update prior to the 12/18/08 version. (Technically you can use the GX620 firmware +EC firmware, the main difference is that the GX620 BIOS has the overclocking feature enabled(it's missing in the barebones BIOS, also it may not work with your build anyways), and it has MSI on the BIOS splash screen rather than being blank. Personally I'd just get the barebones version from MSI though.

[EDIT]
I mentioned preferring to get he barebones version as there MAY be some other slight differences between the two, but I seriously doubt it. Also MSI has this very BAD habit of not supplying a changelog with their BIOS updates, so no idea what was changed...
[/EDIT]

 

I checked the BIOS and I'm running 1.0P for the GX260. I did it for the overclock, but I never used it. Would the 1.0I work better? Mine is a barebones.

 

I think that 1.0P must be the newest BIOS then, so I would NOT back down to v1.0I.

Also, the overclocking is truly meant for completely MSI built retail systems, which they control the components, or IOW I'm not entirely sure that it'd work with your build even if you installed the retail BIOS. Best stick with the barebones BIOS and forget about overclocking ATM. You really don't need it anyways, it's really more of a gimmick than anything else, i.e. they had to match ASUS with "features".

 

It really is a gimmick in my book, but I actually had overclocking working in Vista. I'm clocked in at 2.8 Ghz anyways, so there's not much point. Windows 7 is well worth it, it runs faster than the overclocked Vista! Plus there's not this AHCI problem.

 

Windows 7: So I've read. MS apparently fixed everything wrong with Vista and not much else (kind of like win2k -> XP, but in that case all they did was update some shared libs and slap on a new GUI), which is how they're able to release it so quickly.

If I'm lucky, maybe by the time that I get around to buying another new notebook, I'll get an upgrade coupon for Windows 7... (I'd try the beta on one of my desktops, but I'm a bit low on hdd space ATM, need to buy yet another drive as well I guess.)

Overclocking: IIRC all it does is change the FSB speed, but I never really looked as with notebooks, I'd rather just run them stock for the lower running temps as I tend to keep my notebooks around for 5y or so which is why I also tend to go for somewhat higher end notebook models, such that they don't feel obsolete as quickly as compared to my desktops.