Windows 10: terrible slow boot

Thank you!
I will try Vmware again, as I never rebooted it except for updates (used the suspend feature) I didn't noticed it! and check the event 100 if it's slow

The sure thing is that the HD was active (light steadily on) and usual HD noises during that 10 minute black screen after logo. After that, the desktop loaded, the HD light continued to be on/flashing for a minute or two then off. I defragged with the Windows built in app, and remove junk files with the disk cleanup (20GB) and nothing improved. The HD is OK

If I shutdown and turn on again, then Windows boots in a couple of seconds (like W8/8.1) but as I need to reboot a lot and shutting down a PC too often is bad for hardware, I need it to boot fast during reboots.

W7 takes here "only" 2 minutes (I didn't defraged yet) but way less than 10 minutes *Sad

 

2 minutes to boot Windows 7? That's crazy? Even that should only take at most a minute...

Make sure to check your Device Manager... Slow boot is often a symptom of not having a working disk driver, thus it's running in "legacy" disk mode.

 

Thank you. I have the SATA driver provided from Gigabyte and device manager is OK. After defrag, update and such now it's down to 1.5 min.

My hard drive is an old laptop one salvaged from a dead laptop. I hope I can upgrade to a new faster one and keep this for music & data

 

If you upgrade, I would look for a SSHD. Those are faster than HDDs but not as fast as SSDs.

500gb sshd - Newegg.com

 

You might want to do a chkdsk and scan for bad sectors... that might be part of the problem... sector retries...

 

Windows slows down soon as you add certain software (e.g. Adobe, MS Office) even if you disable all of the Startup items. *Sad

Windows Updates are probably even worse.
After installing the Windows Updates this time last year, my boot time nearly doubled.

Intel Celeron G530 CPUs aren't very powerful either.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...30+%40+2.40GHz

 

The stupid editor wouldn't let me add anything to my last post without combining it with the link. *Confused

I'd also check that all of the power and data cables for all of the components (e.g. HDDs, Optical drives, etc.) are properly connected.

If possible try new cables, as the standard SATA cables wear out and slip off of the drive connectors.
I had to replace my HDD SATA cables with ones that had clips to stop that occurring.

 

In short, there are 2 different reasons for a system slowing down:
- hardware
- software

So, start with the hardware stuff first (IMO) in order to rule it out. I'd start with these free diagnostics: Hardware Diagnostics
CHKDDK checks the file system on the hard drive - so it's possible to pass CHKDSK even with a problem hard drive (not often, but it's still possible). Running the Long/Extended hard drive diagnostics will help to sort this out.

As for the software problems, try looking at Resource Monitor and Task Manager (along with Event Viewer and MSINFO32) in order to see if there is a particular program/set of programs messing things up.

Beyond that are the different Windows tools for fixing Windows problems (SFC.EXE, DISM, System Restore, Refresh, Reset, or just doing a complete wipe of the hard drive before installing Windows).

 

Thank you!

there seems to be good deals for disks (even regular HDs) way better than mine. I will look at!

Yeah, but as the HD light is steadily on during boots, I suppose it's the bootleneck there.
In my case seems to be on the other way, it has improved after updates *Biggrin

My cable has a metal hook that locks it in place, like this:

 

Thank you.
As for hardware:

I used memtest overnight some time ago to test my new RAM module and came clear.
Same as Prime95 and IntelBurntest.
I run furmark in burn mode and no artifacts, hangs, or bsods.
I wll try CHKDSK and come back with the results.

As for software.
No virus/malware I didn't installed anything yet except the drivers (from Gigabyte) and updates (from Windows update), browsers (Chrome/Opera/Firefox, from their websites)

Nothing unusual in task manager,resource monitor nor event viewer. Windows is clean installed

I will run SFC and DISM now and comment out

 

That type shouldn't work loose. *Smile

Have you checked the HDD SMART data (using something like Speccy)?

How old is the HDD?
How old is the motherboard?

It's possible the drive is going bad.
You might need to run Check Disk with the "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" option selected.

It's also posssible that the HDD and/or motherboard controller has developed a fault.
One of the SATA sockets on my motherboard behaves erratically (HDDs perform poorly when they are connected to it).

You could also try uninstalling your devices and drivers and then reinstalling them, in case there was a problem when they were last installed.

 

Thank you

The HD is about 5 years old.
The MB is 3 years old

Check disk came clean.
SMART data is OK



I will try another SATA port (after the chkdsk) and post!
I reinstalled chipset driver and SATA driver but no improved *Sad

 

Not sure if this will work for Windows 10, but you can give it a shot...

https://helgeklein.com/blog/2013/07/...rder-analyzer/

 

Your SMART data looks good.

Have you tried using the built-in W7 SATA driver (instead of the motherboard one)?

When I installed a 3TB HDD (a few months ago) I had a number of wacky issues, including:

• Long boot times
• Long shut down times

It turned out that the motherboard SATA driver didn't support 3TB HDDs.
When I uninstalled it and used the built-in W7 SATA driver, my problems went away.

 

Done all tests
Memory is OK.
CPU is OK.
Windows files are OK.
Hard disk seems to be OK (not defective)
Motherboard SATA ports are OK.
Maybe I should assume my hard disk is slow and life with that


Hope I can buy a new faster (and bigger) one.

Using the stock driver makes boot time worse (longer time in the Windows 7 logo) lol

Thank you!