What can cause slow boot??

mattyg · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:33

Hiya Folks oh and happy new year

What can cause slow boot?? I dont mean the wondows loading screen stays on for ages. I mean 3040 secs to get through Bios.

Then the windows screen fades on over 5-6 mins its like its gone into slow motion.

When fully booted its works kinda ok.
bit slow but i have a i7 win7 on ssd so everything seemss slower nowadays.

Its an important PC as it has all my business accounts etc.(they are backed up) But i have to have an xp machine with microsofts office accounting as win 7 doesnt support it (well done microsoft)

Its getting on a bit it wont reboot(just hangs) but will turn off pretty quick.

Any Ideas
Or am i putting in a new order for some shiney new bits.

Matt

timmymeuk1 · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:36

Sorry I cant say im on windowx xp on i5 and mine boots within 30 seconds so think you have something wrong with your windows!

bigjimmyauk · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:38

What point does it seem to hang in bios like when it's taking all there time is there a sp-ecific spot that it does it.

If u go into bios and turn off quick boot and enable full boot mode( not sure what it will be called on your mobo) but it will show progress through bios it might let you see whats slowing it down if any of it scrolls to fast just hit the pause break button on your keyboard to stop it. then take a look

bigjimmyauk · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:39

Could also be a failing hard drive

mattyg · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:43

Its the whole thing from switch on seems to be going in slow motion.

If anyone remembers the action replay cartridge for the Amiga that had a knob to slow everthing down its just like that.

The windows loading screen starts off very dim then 10 secs later gets a little brighter and then again and again.

I cant get into bios I have a bluetooth keyboard and it doesnt work until booted up.(another great idea should have switched that on in bios before bin'ng last keyboard)

bigjimmyauk · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:46

i always keep a spare keyboard that uses both the purple plug and usb just incase thing with these wireless keyboards if something messes up it's hard to get working without a cabled key board.

Dom_UK · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:47

bigjimmyauk said:
Could also be a failing hard drive

I use HD Tune. You can do through tests of your hard drives to check for bad health. You can also Benchmark them too, if you want.

http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

Also, you could De-frag and optimise your HD using Auslogics Disk Defrag.

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download

Takes ages to optimise on a big or full disk, but can perfectly defrag to 0%.

bigjimmyauk · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:49

Could be a virus

Mr-White · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:55

Flash latest bios
Run memtest
Run harddisk diag
Re-install Windows

MW

bJN · 3 Jan 2010 at 12:59

Sounds like a corrupted windows install to me, but check the hard disks for errors as suggested above first; if that turns out fine it may have to be a re-install of windows or format...

mattyg · 3 Jan 2010 at 13:10

I have o&o defrag on it and that runs auto and hasnt shown any errors but will run HDtach and see what that says.

I will start a new thread over my next question but how hard is dual booting XP and win7 and will it cause any probs. JUst thinking ahead in case i have to buy some new bits.

Cheers so far folks

reygjabla · 3 Jan 2010 at 14:13

I had this problem once which made me crazy for days. The solution is simple. Reset the CMOS and take out the battery for 30 minutes. After that, re-insert the CMOS battery and start. You may need to re-enter your OC figures. It is best to have a separate drive for your XP.

mattyg · 3 Jan 2010 at 15:15

Hd tach shows no errors full green blobs.

Going to try reset ans remove batt.

Fingers crossed

mattyg · 3 Jan 2010 at 17:12

Well that didnt work POST screen takes 5 secs to come on then sits for maybe 8-9 secs then it loaded defaults.... Rebooted itself and repeated all the same apart from the loading defaults. Loading windows screen slow to fade in.

Its as if the MB has been slowed down.

Strange.

Dom_UK · 3 Jan 2010 at 17:49

Mem test?

zovirax · 3 Jan 2010 at 18:09

what are the cpu temps like maybe its overheating the the BIOS is throttling the CPU back to stop it overheating more?

happy_2008 · 4 Jan 2010 at 14:12

Sounds like a definately problem with your windows install! My rig is a E6600 an it boots up quicker than your machine using an ancient HDD :lol:

mattyg · 4 Jan 2010 at 17:41

Oops hang on its not the rig in my sig. its another rig incidently with a E6600 also.

Can it still be a windows prob when it takes an age to get through BIOS

CPU temp ok.

wannabedamned · 4 Jan 2010 at 17:45

I cant see it being hard drive or a windows install problem. I'm suprised its been suggested so often considering its BIOS slowness you're experiencing first of all.

have you done any BIOS tweaking atall? Is it all just standard.

I would suggest first and foremost a Memtest, Burn the program to CD and boot the computer and let it do a few run throughs. See if it coughs up any problems.

What wattage is your power supply, are you sure it's adequate for the system?

PhoenixUK · 4 Jan 2010 at 18:42

Take out keyboard, mice, and any other USB or other external devices that you have ( everything , including modem etc ), take out your sound card/network card if you have one, just boot up pc with ram , cpu, gpu and hdd and see how that works.

Sometimes it's just a dodgy device causing a lot of problems.
I remember I've had some time ago a router that will prevent my pc from booting..