Help! Bizarrely slow bootup?

[Aono]

Can anyone explain this? Shutdown my computer last night like normal, no problems. Today when I turned it on it took about 10 seconds to hear the beep startup noise. Uh oh... then it proceeded to bootup extremely slowly.

On the first screen where it does memory tests, detects ide drives, gives you the option to enter the bios etc, every line takes 10-20 seconds to appear. It all looks normal, it just takes ages. The same on the next page which would usually flash by, every line takes a second or two.

Finally after about 10-15 mins it gets to the Starting Windows screen, which takes another 10-15 minutes to get to the login screen. Obviously the mouse is completely unresponsive, so I'm guessing the CPU or Motherboard is fried.

Now the story gets stranger...

Last thing I try is hitting enter on the keyboard and it worked! I could enter the password and in fact Windows is running fine. I can even launch games and they run completely normally! So I plugged the mouse into a different USB and now that's working again too.

So what the hell? It struggles with bootup like it was built in the 1980s but can handle games at 60fps+?

Any ideas? I can't turn this computer off now until I work out what's causing it or it's another 30 minute bootup.

Specs:
Gigabyte P35C-DS3R
Intel Core2Duo E6850 3.0Ghz
4GB DDR2
Radeon HD 5770

 

[Lemin]

Reboot in safe mode, & try a system restore to a earlier day.

 

[dunn2010]

I would power down, then open case up. reseat ram and clean memory sockets. do same with gfx card for good measure then try again.

has this just happened once?

 

[Aono]

Reboot in safe mode, & try a system restore to a earlier day.

Wouldn't that be for a Windows installation problem? This starts right from bootup before Windows gets involved, and once it does bootup it runs perfectly.

I would power down, then open case up. reseat ram and clean memory sockets. do same with gfx card for good measure then try again.

has this just happened once?

Just started happening today. I powered on-off a few times and it happened every time. I've only managed to get Windows loaded once by leaving it alone for half an hour.

Had a quick look in the case while it's still on and I can't see anything loose. The memory looks seated properly.

Problem is I don't want to turn off because I think there's a good chance I won't get back into Windows next time. But next time I do powerdown I will try reseating everything.

 

[dunn2010]

Wouldn't that be for a Windows installation problem? This starts right from bootup before Windows gets involved, and once it does bootup it runs perfectly.



Just started happening today. I powered on-off a few times and it happened every time. I've only managed to get Windows loaded once by leaving it alone for half an hour.

Had a quick look in the case while it's still on and I can't see anything loose. The memory looks seated properly.

Problem is I don't want to turn off because I think there's a good chance I won't get back into Windows next time. But next time I do powerdown I will try reseating everything.

Everything will look seated fine, but its amazing how many things are solved with a reseat of parts. i recently fixed my mams uncles laptop as it was no longer powering on. my lil sis advised him to buy a new power supply for £30 . i reseated battery. all was well :/

also i thought same as you, it seems to be at the POST it is having issues which led me to believe it could be a hardware issue.


P.S I would Bite the bullet and shut it down now. if any parts are faulty. keeping them running could cause them to get worse.

 

[V4NT0M]

You're saying it's slow to go through all the screens before windows too? How long does it take for the screen to go blank ready for windows?

If it is slow before windows starts I'd be pretty sure there is some kind of hardware fault.

I would always try using a livecd at this point to see what happens with that.

Everything will look seated fine, but its amazing how many things are solved with a reseat of parts. i recently fixed my mams uncles laptop as it was no longer powering on. my lil sis advised him to buy a new power supply for £30 . i reseated battery. all was well :/

Agree. If it wont post I take everything out and put it back in again.

 

[Aono]

You're saying it's slow to go through all the screens before windows too? How long does it take for the screen to go blank ready for windows?

Yeah the very first two screens you see. These two screens: One, Two (Not my pictures, just some random ones I found on the net that look close)

It takes about 15 mins to get to the "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." line. Windows Loading screen then appears maybe 15 seconds later. Windows itself then takes another 15 mins to get to the login screen. It's fine after that.

I will try your suggestions later today but I think I will use this as an excuse to order a new computer while this one is still functioning. I needed an upgrade anyway.

 

[BuToNz]

Had a similar problem before now and it turns out to be a faulty hard drive controller causing the boot to hang while it was trying to be detected. Try unplugging any non-OS hard drives and boot up then.

 

[MiTz]

I have a similar problem myself ranging from slow boot to no boot, unplugged the secondary drive and voila. If it is that, try the drive in different ports and different cables to rule that out, i'm still trying to diagnose mine.