T400 incredibly slow startup Windows 7

Question

Hello,
i ran into a problem that I am unable to solve myself as its cause is a mystery to me:
I had OEM Vista Ultimate installed on my T400, which worked fine, but ever since I installed Windows 7 today, the windows startup takes unusally long time, get stuck the "starting Windows" screen for about 10 minutes every time. Once it starts it runs OK without any hiccups or lags whatsoever.
I have no clue where the root of this problem can be, maybe this will give you an idea.
I had two T400 lying around, one had faulty headphone jack (stuck somehow, so the computer assumed the headphones are always connected, therefore I couldn't get any sound from the speakers. As the headphone jack is soldered to the motherboard, I needed to replace the whole mobo) and the other one had bad LCD. So I decided to use the functional components to build one fully functional T400 and sell the other one for parts.
So what I did was:
-swapped LCDs (good LCD+good mobo, bad LCD+bad mobo)
-swapped CPUs (because the one with faulty jack had 2,53Ghz - everything except the sound was alright! - whereas the other one had only 2,4Ghz)
-swapped HDDs (as the one with faulty jack was the computer I usually used, it had W7 installed, whereas the other had Vista)
I put them back together, and while the one with Vista booted up quicky as usual (although before, its mobo was used with a faster CPU and Windows 7), the one now with W7 took ages to start up, which has never happened before. I thought it might be because of the CPU (neither reseting BIOS, nor disconnecting CMOS battery helped), so I swapped the CPUs once again (-> back to their original mobos). The faulty machine with Vista still had no problem starting up, but it didn't help the machine running W7.
Here comes the mystery:
I swapped the HDDs too, so the only change to their orginal configuration was the display (swapped faulty 1280x800 TFT for good 1440x900 LED) and after that both of them were able to start up normally.
But once I erased the HDD with Vista on it, which was running fine in the machine where the W7 HDD took ages to start, and reloaded Windows 7 onto that HDD, the problems returned!!!
Now I have two T400s with Windows 7, but one of takes ages to start up.
For better image:
T400 No1, original config:
T400 No2, original config:
Faulty Mobo
Good Mobo
Good 1440x900 screen
Faulty 1280x800 screen
P8700 CPU
P8600 CPU
4+2GB RAM
1+1GB RAM
Intel Graphics
Intel Graphics
160GB HDD w/ Windows 7
160GB HDD w/ Windows Vista
works
works
T400 No1, current config:
T400 No2, current config:
Faulty Mobo
Good Mobo
Faulty 1280x800 screen
Good 1440x900 screen
P8700 CPU
P8600 CPU
1+1GB RAM
4+2GB RAM
Intel Graphics
Intel Graphics
160GB HDD w/ Windows 7
160GB HDD w/ Windows 7, previously Vista
boots quickly
takes forever to boot, was OK with Vista
PLEASE, do you have any ideas how to make make the slow one usable again without going back to vista?
Any help will be much appreciated, thank you for your patience.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

Hi everybody! Could you check the usb ports for bent pins? It seems odd, I know, but it might be that simple...
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