Long "Driver delay" during WinXP boot.

R

Rosik

Member
Here is an interesting problem for all you experts out there...

A while ago I discovered that my WinXP takes a bit to long to boot. The first thing I checked was all of the autostarts, without any results.

It's a 30-40s long pause just before the desktop loads where there's no activity at all. I googeled a bit and found a nice little program called Bootvis from, yours truly, MS. This program does an analysis of the boot process and displays what happens each second. Se the screen dump here.

The info window "Driver:unknown" is about the long green section ranging from 39 to 69s.

So it looks like there is someting wrong with a driver. I have searched for "LanmanDatagramReceiver" everywhere. There is no reference on the HD or in the registry.

"Lanman" seems to be an old authentication protocol for network trafic from before the WinNT-time. But I don't understand why I'm having trouble with it now?

I don't have any malfunctioning devices in the device manager except one: "Parport" under "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" (if you show hidden devices). From what I understand this has to do with the parallel port.

My question is: How do I get rid of my 30s delay during boot, it's really annoying!

I hope that someone here has som useful tips, I woulden't whant to reinstall Windows just because of this.
 
Hi Rosik, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Give this a try: press F8 at startup, and either...

1) Use boot-logging mode to generate a txt file with all drivers and files that were loaded.

2) Use safe mode - if a driver takes too long to load Windows XP *sometimes* asks you to press "spacebar" to cancel while also showing the filename of the driver in question.
 
Windows will come with some of it's own generic drivers as well as a few older types since XP came out back in 2001. Some additional information on Network Sockets what this is for is seen at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/bug/Be%20Book/The%20Network%20Kit/Sockets.html

As for the Parport item you can simply right click on that to choose the disable option since that allows muitiple devices to have access to a parallel port. Some information on this can be looked over at http://www.tldp.org/LDP/khg/HyperNews/get/devices/parport.html

But that wouldn't necessary cause a boot delay in Windows. You may want to look over what you have listed for items in the startup group found in the msconfig utility. If an item seen there doesn't need to load up along with Windows that can be unchecked.

Another cause for boot delays is often video or sound drivers becoming corrupted and a need for an updated set. Do you have SP3 on? That now sees some 1,000+ fixes included in the latest service pack which may help.
 
Computer Guru said:
Hi Rosik, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Give this a try: press F8 at startup, and either...

1) Use boot-logging mode to generate a txt file with all drivers and files that were loaded.

2) Use safe mode - if a driver takes too long to load Windows XP *sometimes* asks you to press "spacebar" to cancel while also showing the filename of the driver in question.
Click to expand...

Tried both of your tips, to start with #2:

It didn't really work. It asked me about one file but not the right one/not at the right time. Although I tried booting in safe mode with and witout networking, I didn't get any delay without networking. I also tried normal boot with a disabled and uninstalled network card, no delay then either.

This is definatly related to the network card and it doesn't help to reinstall the network card drivers.

Back to tip #1:

This could have been a great tip if it wasn't for my, it seems, crappy PC/Windows install :frowning: It generated a text file containing 3238 lines! Most of them starting with "Did not load driver ...".

Here are just some examples:

100 x "Did not load driver Atheros AR8121/AR8113 PCI-E Ethernet Controller" (this is my network card)
69 x "Did not load driver ATI Function Driver for High Definition Audio - ATI AA01"
159 x "Did not load driver ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series"
183 x "Did not load driver Audio Codecs"
150 x "Did not load driver Communications Port"
122 x "Did not load driver Direct Parallel"
348 x "Did not load driver Intel Processor"

...the list goes on!

Is this really normal or is my installation totaly f***ed up!? I don't even know what to look for. Tried to pinpoint the faulty file by looking at the Bootvis relults and finding the flanking drivers that load. Unfortunately it doesn't seem the entrys in the boot log are in the right order and some are even missing, if I compare it with Bootvis, strange?

Anyway...regarding the tips from "PC eye". I took a look at the link about Network Sockets. From what I can understand it looks like there might be a program that's opening a socket and waiting for a connection, the connection doesn't come and it times out. But how do I find the program? This is really frustrating!

Also I have SP3 and I've looked through all the autostarts using "Autoruns", nothing that stands out, but of course there's tons of info, dll's, drivers among others.

So, back to square one...
 
69 x "Did not load driver ATI Function Driver for High Definition Audio - ATI AA01"
159 x "Did not load driver ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series"

Do you have Net Framework 2.0 and above on? Since the 4800s are the latest ATI driven cards out and Vista ready for DX10 the requirement on that goes up. On older models the MOM Implementation error would come up when 2.0 was needed.
 
*sigh* You would think they'd be smart enough to bundle .net with SP3 for XP so this wouldn't even be an issue. (Unless of course that isn't what you are using and i'm wrong :|)
 
Well the 2.0 version should be seen since that was separately downloaded from SP2. Then 3.0, 3.1, and 3.5 now seen. Before SP3 you had to see 1.1 go on first then the 2.0 version otherwise it wouldn't work.

After reinstalling XP some months back and before I could get SP3 on the MOM error came up right after just getting the Catalyst on for the card here. That was the 2xxx series card however not a newer model.

Most delays in boot time with XP always seem to end being video or sound card related especially video due to loading the desktop and already set resolution plus loading the catalyst up. You could try temporary diskabling that from loading up along with Windows in the msconfig utility to see that's where the problem is or simply rule it out.
 
Maybe they'll roll out 3.5 with Windows update. I know 2.0 can go on without 1.1. Machines that have 2.0/3.x already installed will see the updates for 1.1 but they will fail to install (just like SPs where you can install XP SP3 out of a fresh re-install with a SP1 CD without having to upgrade to SP2 first). I would think that any software (especially in regard to drivers at this time) would use 2.0 if it required .net. Just get 3.5 and if this is the problem that should fix it.
 
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I've seen times when 3.0 was on first just following a clean install of XP here having stored updates and drivers on more then one drive and the MOM errror came right up due to not having 2.0 on! One doesn't cover the other there like you expect an updated version to do.

The same goes for some older pc games when going to install onto XP or Vista where the installer want DX8 while you are running 9 on XP or 10 in Vista. The original software needs something seen with the older DX version there in order to run.
 
I'm back...

OK it looks like my problems are gone! :happy:

I tried reinstalling a bunch of drivers, chipset, audio, video, nothing helped. I was starting to give up. Today I installed the latest video driver Catalyst 8.12 for my HD4870. I don't think this was the issue, but I can't say fore sure.

Then I decided to uninstall my firewall app, Online-Armor 3.0, because my trial period just ran out. I also noticed that my Windows firewall had been turned on for some strange reason. So I've had two firewall progs running at the same time. Don't know which problem it was, or if it was a combination, but now the huge deley is gone!

I still have a delay from "\Device\LanmanDatagramReceiver", but now it's only 6s long, think I can live with that. I still suspect Online-Armor. I've now installed the free version of the same prog. I think that the delay was totaly gone when I didn't have any firewall installed. Have to check that.

Anyway looks like I'm on to something. THX all for all the help! It really helps discussing things with ppl who know their stuff :wink:

Addendum:

OK, tried uninstallin Online-Armor. The delay changed from 6 to 10s and the prosess ID changed from "Idle (0)" to "svchost.exe". And I think that the Windws firewall automatically gets turned on when I uninstall Online-Armor.

So now I'm gonna stick to with the free version of Online-Armor 3.0.
 
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Having both firewalls running simultaneously was obviously seeing a conflict of some type. I generally never use any firewall as a rule even having the UAC disabled on the Vista side of things here. But at least you found what the problem was.
 
Rosik, sounds like Online Armor isn't being removed properly from the startup sequence, so it's hurting your boot times.. Check if they have a "complete removal tool" available for download from their site - that might take care of your problem. I know most other firewall vendors (including the terrible ones) have such a tool available....
 
Agreed! That would be one step to look into as well as disabling that item in the msconfig if that is the source of the problem. The tool a software company provides will clean the system registry of any remaining entries left behind by the uninstall option as well as removing files/folders the installer originally places on the drive itself.
 
You could try a free copy of Revo uninstaller if Armor can't or won't clean up after itself. It's pretty good at finding and removing unwanted residual clutter.
 
I haven't used an uninstaller since the days of Windows 95... I had this one really good program that came in a yellow box with soap bubbles drawn all over it (more like a detergent than software), though I cannot for the life of my recall its name... Uninstaller 3.0? I know the version, but the name not so much..

Is Revo any good, Terry?
 
I used it to successfully remove a hung up AVG 7.x on one of my three systems and it found and removed loads of stuff, and allowed the (previously failing) upgrade to AVG 8 to complete successfully.
So yes, in my limited experience, it's 100% successful.

(AVG 8 upgraded fine on 2 systems but left the 3rd with a half and half which the AVG installer couldn't complete or remove)
 
Besides any uninstaller which mainly picks up registry keys for one program automatically when selected one old freeware soon to be extinct is called RegCleaner. http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/LFWV/RegCleaner.html

When it first opens you will see a window containing the main registry keys for all non MS programs installed. You can check off and remove the main key for any one program there. That saves a trip into the "HKey_LocalMachine>Software>" hive to do the same thing.

The automatic registry cleanup option for that is menu bar>tools>registry cleanup>"do them all". An updated version of that is now shareware while a newer more thorough registry cleaner goes by the name Eusing found at http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm
 
Revo is great. They got a portable version I always have with me on my utility ufd. I hate having to install a program that uninstalls stuff plus I need it to be portable because I'm always tuning up others pcs. It'll even try to remove traces of programs that havent been fully uninstalled, it can help you manage auto-run programs, and it can clean-out junk/temp files, browser and office history, and securely get rid of deleted files on a drive so they cant be recovered. It usually doesn't delete any files/folders/registry entries that are needed by other programs, but it'll show you the list of what it well delete so you know before you ok it.
 
CCleaner has an uninstaller in that as well. But it's not a registry tool but simply a temp folder and IE history cleaner. The RegCleaner tool mentioned before doesn't see any new entries created when that goes on. The installer for that simply creates a desktop shortcut making that portable as well for all versions of Windows.
 
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