Media Portal Frontend on Compact flash - Tutorial/Howto (1 Viewer)

[BennieBoy]

Iwen,

I can imagin that initialization of the hardware is happening during this delay.
Do you have much hardware other than the basic needed in the system?
In the BIOS, I disabled everything which is not used for the purpose of HTPC.
So, I disabled:
Unused IDE
Unused LPTR
Unused Serial ports
etc

You can try this.
After you have started up completely, commit the (possible) changes in the OS to the CF by committing EWF and Reboot
(Are you using EWF?)

If this made a difference, I will add it to the tutorial, so please give some feedback.

Greetz,
Ben

 

[Iwen]

Yes of course I use EWF and I also disabled not needed things like the S-Ata ports and so on.
I actually saw that my CF only supports PIO 4 and not UDMA. How is it with your CF? Can that be my bottleneck?

 

[BennieBoy]

Nope, My CF is PIO4 too.

Try this.
Boot your PC and Press F8 so you get into the XP preboot screen.
Enable logging during startup.
After booting, goto c:\windows and open the file ntbtlog.txt.
See if there are errors during boot and if they can cause the delay.

Or even better, download this tool
bootlog xp download page
It gives you all the info, incuding duration, of the startup of XP.
Don't forget to Commit
Make an Ghost image of your current situation (just in case).

Greetz,
Ben

 

[blacklist]

Hey

I.m getting ready to try this out on a machine and doing a bit of research - has anyone tried this using minlogon? It seems that it would improve the boot time even more,but not sure if it would cause problems with MP

Thanks

 

[Ernyssysen]

Hi

i have a little question according the ewf :/
my setup:
4450e
abit 780g mobo
1GB RAM
4GB CF card 266x

installed windows and mp so far no problem.
after deactivating the swapfile it got a little "slow".
then i installed the ewf step by step like described in this thread.

and now its horrible :/
beside the fact that booting didnt get any faster, now the system always stops for a few minutes when i try to use for example START->Programs->......
pressing start pops up the menu as usual, i can open close it as often as i want. but as soon as i just hover over a menu item like "Programs" or "Documents" ... the system just stops for a few minutes :/

i attached a screen with the outputs of
ewfmgr and ewfmgr c:

 

[BennieBoy]

Hi

The only difference I can see with my system is that you have HORM enabled and I have it disabled.
Everything else seems to be the same.

Can you see any disk access when you go to START->Programs->...... ??

Greetz,
Ben

 

[blacklist]

Success

Not sure what would cause this- I've got my system running off a CF card and been extremely happy with it. Acouple of notes:

1. Boot times to seem to be about the same, even if a bit slower for me. Doesn't bother me a bit, since my machine runs 24/7.

2. The start menu is for sure slower, as is launching most programs. My CF card is a 266x as well, but still seems to perform a bit slower than an actual HD, THE FIRST TIME. The power here is that because you are using the ram to hold everything the swap file would normally do, repetitive actions are MUCH faster for me.

My machine starts up, boots MP and then just runs. I've got a central server that does all of my timeshifting, storage, etc. and 3 head units running Atom microATX boards with DVI out that serve my content. Works AMAZINGLY well.

 

[Ernyssysen]

tried to deactivate HORM ... no change :/
it also takes ages to boot to desktop .... so you can read "loading user settings" on this std. blue windows screen .... and the the screen turns black (default desktop color in my settings) .... and you still have to wait ~5 min bevor you can see icons or the task bar.
i checked the steps, and everything is fine, files where copied, reg was updated ....but after a reboot the system is wracked :/

 

[BennieBoy]

To be honest, I really do have a different feeling about my setup.
It doesn't feel slower than when using an harddisk (just the other way around)
The CF card used is not the fastest (it says 120 speed, but It really is slower).
On the other hand, only the basic software is installed
VNC for remote
ffdshow for decoding
Pure video for MPG2

When it takes so much time to open the programs menu, I expect a faulty card as the only thing the system does is getting some softlinks from the "All users settings" and the settings of your own acount.

 

[Ernyssysen]

i tried to stik to your tutorial, so nothing extra is installed, except the fact that i use windows remote desktop instead of vnc.

i looks like there is a problem with the explorer itself :/
every time i try to start one (windowsbutton+e, because starting i via the start menu doesn't wake due to the system hangups when using it) the explorer hangs ... i can give focus to the window, but the window just contains nothing :/ ... and when i close it it restarts the complete explorer, so even the tray is gone for a few minutes :/

after installing ewf my system has gone completely unusable

thx for the fast response, i think ill reinstall the system and hope i just did something wrong that i cant remember