Thinkpads Forum

When I press power on my Ideapad S10e I get the BIOS splash screen as normal, but then I get a a black screen for several minutes before it reaches the Win XP splash screen appears and the OS loads. The PC runs at normal temps and speeds for an Atom N270 system once booted, it just takes a while to get there. And this is not just a case of a netbook being slow, I own several netbooks and this one is the only one that takes a several minutes long break between startup and OS boot.

What is causing this? And are your S10es this slow as well?

In case anyone has the same problem as me and finds my question in a search some time in the future, I think I found the problem.

The SSD I was using was a SATA III type, and it apparently had some compatibility issues with the the SATA I controller on the board. Once I swapped the SSD for an old SATA I 5400 RPM SATA I HDD the system sped up significantly, and especially the startup process is now significantly shorter. So yeah, don't use a fancy SSD in this 12 year old netbook.

Thank you for coming back to update. Users with similar issues may appreciate it.

Such stalls during POST are frequently caused by issues with peripherals on the USB or IDE/SATA ports. The exact cause may differ and it is hard to know in advance without trial and error, which is what you did here.

Compatibility problems across SATA generations are not common, but they do happen. They may affect specific controller/drive combos. There is a chance that a different SSD model, even if SATA3, will work well in that PC. Some drives also receive firmware updates that solve compatibility issues such as this.

P.S. I will edit the title of this thread to point out to future viewers that a solution has been found.