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Question

Reset BIOS, now computer is very VERY slow, help please

Oct 31, 2012 10:50AM PDT

Trying to fix a friend's computer that kept getting the BSOD. Since he'd already got everything he wanted off of it I wiped the drive with killdisk and installed XP Pro. One of the BSOD mentioned shutting down because a program was trying to write to ROM.
After the clean install it was running very fast but still getting the BSOD with an nvidia driver error from the onboard graphics. I got a new vid card and put it in, then removed the CMOS battery for 5 min to reset the BIOS in case it was corrupted somehow. Ever since then it is BSODless, but takes like 10-15 min. to load windows and is 'throw it out the window' slow with everything else.
I'm thinking perhaps there was something in the BIOS before reset that allowed the computer to make use of something that made it fast, and now it can't use it because of the reset. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I found a website where you can pay 20 bucks to get BIOS updates from Phoenix but would love to find an update for free. System info is:
HP Pavilion Media Center m8200n, Phoenix Award BIOS CMOS, chipset: Athlon 1100 rev0, version: 5.27 06/10/2008, motherboard: mcp61pm-hm (Nettle2), Running Win XP Pro SP3

Discussion is locked

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Answer
HP for the most part is fine with BIOS defaults.
Oct 31, 2012 10:55AM PDT

But I can't tell if you loaded those after the reset.

It's possible you need to change the HDD "mode" but this is something the owner should know.

And a few more things. No to bios updates. Those are free at hp.com and again, unplug USB devices for a test boot.
Bob

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Answer
Fix for this issue
Mar 15, 2013 6:23AM PDT

After the CMOS is reset, you need to cold boot with an ethernet cable plugged in connected to a live connection, like your router. Sounds silly, but it works.