[Fineus]

I've got a bit of a problem, for various reasons I've installed a network card in my PC and it seems to have added at least 30 seconds to the startup time.. restarting is the same thing.

I'm not sure why this is but it's pissing me off since my computer usually starts in under 20 seconds without the card... any thoughts on why this lengthy addition to the startup might be? The computer isn't on a network or ADSL connection so the network card isn't interfacing with anything else at this point.. it's just sitting idle, which I'd have thought would not add at all to the startup.

[Tiara]

It could be trying to connect to a network (and it isn't connected) but after several times it gives up thus adding time to the start up.

[Fineus]

Correct, I posted this on another forum and someone gave me this slightly more in detail answer and a (working) solution:

Yep, what you describe is perfectly normal for a 98 and up machine with a LAN card thats been set to obtain a lease from a DHCP server (which is basically the Windows default for all new network cards).
What happens is that when Windows starts up it tries to obtain an IP address from a DHCP server. When it can't find one it'll automatically assign itself a random adress from the space 169.254.x.x. The delays imposed by this process are whats causing your startup slowdowns.

The solution is to go into the cards TCP/IP property sheet and assign the card a static IP address and subnet mask, 192.168.0.1 and 255.255.255.0 would be a good starting point.

Thanks for the help though