Windows 10: Windows 10 Home: Extremely Long Boot Times & Sometimes Not At All

I just thought of one more step to add to your list. To the OP, If you get this fixed post back with the solution that worked. This could be very helpful to someone that may encounter the same problem. *Smile

 

I did boot with every drive both internal and external disconnected except the optical drive. Again my system is a Sony All-n-one and I'd have to take it apart to remove it.

It came with a wireless keyboard and mouse and I did try a wired keyboard in attempts to get into the BIOS but at startup but this never worked as Sony requires one to go the rescue mode screen first and then pressing F2 for access to the BIOS.

As for Memory I didn't try booting one-stick at a time but it failed to boot regardless of which one I used. My system came with 6GB installed. It requires DDR3 SODIMM, PC3-12800, 1600MHz, Unbuffered, non-ECC, 1.35v. And incidentally, just prior to my boot issues I did try to upgrade to the max memory allowed for this system and bought some Atech modules (through Amazon), 8GB each. Once installed, the computer just kept re-booting over and over. Atech sent me some replacement modules and the same thing happened again. I even tried installing each new module, in just on slot and then the other and again the same result of re-booting over and over. When I re-installed my old memory no problem, it'd boot right up. Here's what is currently installed.



At this point I would like to know if there is boot monitoring software that I could install to monitor and record all that is happening from the time I push the power button to the Windows login screen. I thought maybe Process Monitor might be the key but it looks like it begins it's monitoring from the point the BIOS finds and hands-off control to the OS. And I need something something to monitor from the power on state all the way through to the login screen. If there no such software, then is there monitoring software that I can install on my lap top and then connect my lap top to main computer, and it monitor the boot process that way?

Anyway, I'm running out of ideas and am afraid I'm going to have to break down and take it to computer repair shop, where I trust they would have the tools to diagnosis what's going on during the boot process.

Thanks again for the assistance.

 

Well rest assured there seems to be a number of hits on Internet with slow Sony. One suggested call Sony.

You've disconnected everything, you've set BIOS to defaults by removing battery, the behavior remains even when you boot to Sony repair.

You likely got an error when you booted with one stick of memory and need to go into setup to tell it things have changed by loading defaults again.

I think we are going to find that somehow the mouse and keyboard are involved. My opinion. I would ask sony how do I reset them and how can I eliminate.

It might be worth trying new batteries in both devices.

If you look over motherboard you might see a small header marked speaker. This is a "Case" speaker and boards will use it to sound POST errors. If you can find header and have a repair shop it might be worth connecting to see if you are getting and beeps from system as it POST. Your board may have an LED. Again you could ask Sony how to monitor POST conditions.

I know its a pain but I would consider disconnecting optical.

 

Well I guess I'll start digging around some more on the inside and try your suggestions this weekend and while I'm at it, get some pics of innards and post them too.

 

Well I got the back off again and below are couple pics:








I couldn't find any header that seemed like an obvious case speaker but will keep looking.

I contacted Sony and unfortunately was told they no loner provide direct support let alone, parts for my computer and directed me instead, to Best Buy Geek Squad. They sold off their VAIO unit in 2014.
It still takes a long time to boot and so at this point I schedule my updates before I go to bed and re-boot it that way. Once booted up and logged on everything works find and I don't have any issues.

I did go on line at Best Buy and purchased a PNY 2x8GB RAM upgrade kit. Once it arrives at the store, I'll have them double check the compatibility and get them to install it ($39) and go from there.

In all I believe now it's probably a hardware issue; most likely with the RAM, and when attempting to change it out the 1st time, triggered some unknown error or worse some unseen damage. But without further diagnosis at a tech repair shop, it's just a guess at this point.


The whole thing is baffling as I got an Asus Flip for Christmas with 4GB soldered to the board and a 2GB RAM slot that was up-gradable to a total of 12GB, which I was able to do without any issue.

Thanks again for your all's help and if this issue is resolve with the new RAM purchase I'll let you know but for now will sign off.

 

Just question when you did (if you did sorry maybe I missed something) clean reinstall of windows 10. Did you deleted all partitions on your disk? Maybe, just maybe recovery or some OEM partition left from Windows 8 install interfering with windows 10? when you changed to SSD you cloned old drive that may be problem too? Not just install on top of old windows, when selecting drive go to advanced delete all partitions (backup if you have any important data on that drive) and install to not partitioned clean disk.

 

I did a clean install following Brink's Windows 10 Clean Install link and doing a Installing Windows 10 with UEFI and starting with a full drive as unallocated space.

 

Well in other news and against my better judgement, I followed Sony's suggestion and took my PC to the Geek Squad to have them try install a DDR3 2x8GB PNY kit and as per my own experience with installing an Atech, Corsair, and Crucial brand memory modules, they too encountered the same results of a boot-loop and never making it to the login screen. And to top it off they called me up to say that even when they installed the old ram, it too would now go into a boot-loop and said the motherboard and/or processor is probably bad. However, when I got the unit home and popped off the cover, I found that the original memory modules were installed into the wrong slots. I switched them around and turned it on and the unit booted up (of course after the usual 30-40 mins of black screen). Anyway, I thought sharing this little experience might be informative.

 

If they charged you I would take it back to them and speak with a supervisor and point out that the modules were not placed in the correct order and they didn't fix anything.

 

My laptop had (yes: HAD *chuckle ) the same problem.

Mostly when coming out of 'sleepstate' but sometimes also at normal start-up. It drove me nuts!

Today I investigated the ways Windows handles those power-up states and I came across the following topic on the forum:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...r%20Management

I first experimented with disabling the 'fast-start' option and to my surprise it seemed to help. A bit.
This made me think.
What if something is wrong with that hiberfil.sys file? scattered all over and/or corrupted and/or using a bad spot on disc?

The next topic I read was:
Hiberfile Type - Specify as Full or Reduced in Windows 10

What I did next was:
1. In powershell: powercfg /h off -> this caused the hiberfil.sys file to be removed (it can be found in the root of C: )
2. In my case hiberfil.sys was 3,3GB big (40% of 8GB memory), so in order to prevent that a new hiberfil.sys file would be created in the same empty spot I copied a large 3G file to c: and after that copy I continued with:
3. In powershell: powercfg /h full followed by
4. In powershell: powercfg /h on.

A new hiberfil.sys was the result and from this point onward I can power-of or enter sleepmode (with lots of running applications) it makes no difference.
start-up is FAST again! *chuckle but I'm keeping my fingers crossed of course.....

Good luck and I hope it helps.
Hans

 

Thanks for the suggestion but this didn't work. And for completing step 3 and 4 I had to reverse them and perform step 4 1st and then step 3 next. I don't know if going out of order makes a difference but the two times I'd try to do step 3, it came back with a message saying my only options were On or Off.

And just for clarification on Step 2 what kind of file did you place in the c root to take up the hiberfile space? A video file? That's what I did, specifically Back to the Future, with a little bit of wishful thinking that it would take my system back in time to a point when it was working.

 

Hi.
That you were forced to do step 4 first and then step 3 might have something to do with the fact that I experimented with using 'the fast-start only' option before I did the steps 1 through 4.

This means of course that I did issue the command 'powercfg /h reduced' and I now realize that this command reduced the hiperfil.sys size from 40 to approx. 20% of the total memory. It is very well possible that you only can do step 3 first when this step causes the size of the hiperfil.sys to change. I now 'know' that that value is stored somewhere because when I did step 3 I got a response telling me that the size of the hiperfil.sys file was set to 3.3(and some) GB.
In my case it changed back from 20% to 40%

One more thing. Not long before I started my hiperfil.sys ' experiment' I did at least 2 intensive defrag runs on drive C so there were no little or big gaps of available space when the large hiperfil.sys was created. Maybe this is also (very?) important?