OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System

[Chuck Guzis]

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