Replaced PSU, but new problems

Windows 7 Ultimate - Intel P4 - 2G My PC decided to not start at all one day, my husband pulled out the board battery and replaced it, I tested to see if it was the PSU and it was, I installed the new PSU and on boot-up it first went to DOS and was searching for DHCP (something) and had a DOS spinning icon. It could not find it and then said "exiting PXE (something)" Then proceeded to load…. very very slowly. It is now shutting down and starting up very slow and random programs are crashing (ex firefox). I am thinking it may be a bios problem, Windows itself seems to be okay. It seems to be a pre-windows issue but I am really unsure. Any help in much appreciated, thanks. Sorry, saw typos and had to edit :-D

Hi, It could be that your computer is trying to boot from the network……?

and then said "exiting PXE (something)" Then proceeded to load…. very very slowly.

Enter the Bios and set the boot priority to :
1 Hard Drive 0
2 Optical drive (CD/DVD)
3 set to taste (any)
save changes
exit BIOS
computer will reboot
any better?
Regards
paws

I entered BIOS and it was set as follows… Boot Set: Silent boot - enabled Add on ROM display mode - enabled Intel ® Rapid Bios Boot - enabled PXE Boot to LAN - enabled USB Boot - enabled 1st Boot - DVD 2nd Boot - PS-WDC etc. (harddrive) 3rd Boot - B04-D00 Yukon PXE (I think this is and ethernet device) 4th Boot - Floppy (I do not have a floppy installed on this pc) I kept all on the items that are enabled, enabled and I set sequence to 1- hard drive 2- DVD 3- yukon 4- Floppy It still started up very slowly. I tried disabling the floppy and still rebooted slowly I disabled floppy and yukon and still booted slowly. I did not change any of the enabled Boot set items. Thanks

OK 1 Does it now boot into Windows satisfactorily? 2 Does it take a long time to be ready for use? 3 How did you check that the PSU was faulty? 4 Does the computer "remember" the CMOS settings now a new battery has been fitted 5Have you reset bios to "default" or "conservative settings" (removing the CMOS battery may cause settings in the CMOS to be lost…) 6 Please advise the times for 1 and 2 above in seconds? a.) before the trouble started and b.) now Regards paws

It does not do any DOS now when I boot, once windows shows its logo and takes a couple minutes to get to the logging on screen, then another couple minutes to bring up the desktop, then a couple more minutes to load everything. It is now acting more like a virus, so I ran an OTL and posted it in the spyware area and I am waiting for a response. Either way, clean or not I will let you know what they find and if it is clean and I am still having problems I will continue with you. Thanks a ton for your time and help :-)

Okay, I seem to be malware/virus free, so back to startup issues :-) Here are the answers to the questions you had asked me before… 1. No, it still takes a lot of time to boot up, it does not do anything DOS anymore but sits on the "windows" screen a long time. 2. Yes it takes long to be ready to use. 3. I first unplugged and replugged all of the connections on the old PSU in case it was just a bad connection and it did nothing, I took a PSU from another machine here and hooked it to the machine and the MB green light came right on and it started the machine. So I bought a new one and installed it and it worked to start the machine up. 4. I am assuming it remembers the CMOS but not positive, I know the CMOS involves the date and time, it seems to be holding this info correctly. 5. I went in and reset the BIOS using the "F9" feature, it did not change anything on boot. 6. These times are approximate… before the problems it took about 60 to 90 seconds to be ready, now it takes like 180 to 300+ to be ready to use. It hangs on the "windows (pulsing windows emblem)" for a couple minutes then on the blue "loading windows" screen for another 1-2 minutes. Then once the desktop shows it takes another 1-2 minutes for it to load everything. Thanks for the help.

Hi, OK. all understood. Boot up into safe mode (tap F8 once per second immediately after powering on and before Windows starts to load.) Be aware that your protections will not be running whilst in safe mode… try opening a few documents and photos… Does the machine run any quicker in safe mode? Regards paws

I rebooted into safe mode, it took about 4 minutes for the pc to be "ready", not quite as long as in normal mode. I opened a couple folders etc, and they did hesitate at times but not as bad as in normal mode.

If it works better and quicker in safe mode then its a fair bet that something that is loading in normal mode is causing a problem that is not apparent in safe mode (safe mode only loads a minimal set of essential stuff rather than the whole shebang that normal mode loads.
Take a look here:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=118329
follow the directions and see how it goes…. can you identify the culprit?
Regards
paws