Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
Just a follow-up on the problem of a Supermicro P6DGE taking forever to boot up. I tried several versions of the BIOS with pretty much the same result. Since each reset the configuration (CMOS) memory, there was little issue of an overlooked setting contributing to the slow boot. I tested the fast boot in both enabled and disabled settings and found that the POST took almost exactly the same time--the only difference was that the memory check odometer didn't display in the fast boot setting. Could it be that the presence of ECC registered SDRAM requires that every memory location get written before boot-up can proceed? There's 2GB of the stuff, so that could be the difference. --Chuck
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
Supermicros (and to a similar degree Tyan) are mostly in the server class of motherboards. That apparently means they put a *lot* of self-test code in there somewhere. I've had literally thousands of Supermicro machines of a dozen different types at various times, and they all took an inordinate amount of time to decide to think about booting no matter what (all auto-detect turned off, quickboot on, inboard SCSI disabled). I got used to it, because quality-wise it was worth the wait.
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
It probably is not this, but maybe you can try it. For a while HP servers had the extremely annoying property of the boot being rate-limited by the serial console speed if you had been unfortunate enough to enable it by default. You would not notice anything other than the slowness on a video monitor, but if you plugged a serial cable in you could see it struggle. I've never seen this on anything other than HPs and for good reason. mcl
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
On 07/08/15 04:56, Chuck Guzis wrote: On 08/06/2015 08:20 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: You might check whether the BIOS config is set to autodetect drives at startup; in many BIOSes each IDE channel can be set to Auto/None or a specific config. Try setting all installed drives to a specific configuration, and any unused channels to None. Autodetection can sometimes take a long time. I also find that detection of cd/dvd drives is sometimes very slow... (apologies for top-posting, responding on my phone which has a primitive editor...) I already do that. Note that the dead time occurs before getting the message Inspecting IDE configuration, so I don't think it's that. Network boot is turned off, BTW. I don't think I have your exact supermicro board but ones I've used in the past have had on board SCSI that had to be disabled otherwise it would sit there for 30s thinking about why things were so quiet on the bus. Similarly PXE boot takes a while, but you say you've turned that off. I don't think I got the one I was playing with down to much less than 30s ... which felt like an age even though I wasn't booting it very often. Antonio
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
On 08/06/2015 08:20 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: You might check whether the BIOS config is set to autodetect drives at startup; in many BIOSes each IDE channel can be set to Auto/None or a specific config. Try setting all installed drives to a specific configuration, and any unused channels to None. Autodetection can sometimes take a long time. I also find that detection of cd/dvd drives is sometimes very slow... (apologies for top-posting, responding on my phone which has a primitive editor...) I already do that. Note that the dead time occurs before getting the message Inspecting IDE configuration, so I don't think it's that. Network boot is turned off, BTW. --Chuck
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
On 08/06/2015 06:24 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote: Aside from memory tests, in my experience, sometimes slowness can be caused by a disk controller ROM (often on a SCSI controller) that gets invoked during the POST that slows things down - particularly if it also enumerates what is on the SCSI bus. Nope, same-oh, same-oh right down to a configuration with nothing more than a single IDE drive and a video card.The diagnosis of 2GB memory is immediate and then the thing just sits for a minute or more before finally showing the configuration (attached drives, etc.) --Chuck
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
On Thu, 6 Aug 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote: The problem is, that even with the Fast boot BIOS setting, it takes well over a minute to get to the point where it tries to boot. Does anyone have a clue on why it's so slow? Even getting the POST down to 15-20 seconds would be wonderful. Slow boot can be really annoying. Especially when there aren't adequate indications that it IS making progress towards it. I was very pleased in booting MS-DOS when BIOS's starting counting off the memory being tested. (Remember when that change was?) It's usually JUST an annoyance. But what about the cumulative totals? If you were to take the boot time, of all the copies, and all the users, and add it up, then divide by median lifetime, . . . How many LIVES have been wasted by it? That doesn't make it a mass-murderer, does it?
Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System
Aside from memory tests, in my experience, sometimes slowness can be caused by a disk controller ROM (often on a SCSI controller) that gets invoked during the POST that slows things down - particularly if it also enumerates what is on the SCSI bus. On 8/6/2015 7:35 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: On the subject of slow booting, perhaps someone can help me with a very annoying case of the slowboots. I've got a dual slot-1 P3 system here--a Supermicro P6DGE, which uses a 440GX chipset and 2GB of registered SDRAM with two 900MHz CPUs. When it finally get around to s booting, it's a great workhorse, with 2, count'em 2 well-behaved ISA slots. It's frisky enough to run Windows 7 and proudly proclaims that it was made in the USA. The problem is, that even with the Fast boot BIOS setting, it takes well over a minute to get to the point where it tries to boot. Does anyone have a clue on why it's so slow? Even getting the POST down to 15-20 seconds would be wonderful. --Chuck
