Why is my PC taking so long to boot? pls help

[Woag]

So my Samsung 970 Evo 500gb used to only take a few seconds to boot but a few days ago it started talking 10 minutes or more to boot into windows and when I start my pc it used to make a buzzing noise so I did a factory reset to see if it would fix the problem but all it did was stop the buzzing but it still makes noises from time to time however when I am finally in windows everything runs fine.

 

Also I do have two other HDDs in my system but I don't know if that has anything to do with the problem

[RAS_3885]

Any recent updates? How full is the drive? Is it getting hung up on the BIOS or Windows? If you go to the "Startup" tab of the Task Manager what does it list as the last BIOS time?

[Woag]

1 minute ago, RAS_3885 said:

Any recent updates? How full is the drive? Is it getting hung up on the BIOS or Windows? If you go to the "Startup" tab of the Task Manager what does it list as the last BIOS time?

My PC is fully up to date and last time it was updated was maybe 1 to 2 weeks ago and when its booting up it gets stuck on a purely black screen for 5 minutes then goes to a page where it tells me how to open the bios for about 2 minutes then goes into the windows loading screen for about 1 minute  

[RAS_3885]

1 minute ago, Woag said:

My PC is fully up to date and last time it was updated was maybe 1 to 2 weeks ago and when its booting up it gets stuck on a purely black screen for 5 minutes then goes to a page where it tells me how to open the bios for about 2 minutes then goes into the windows loading screen for about 1 minute  

Sounds like it's hanging at POST. Does your motherboard have any debug LED or readout for POST codes? If so, during that first 5 minute black screen period, what do those codes/debug LEDs show. I'm wondering if you have something starting to go bad, causing it to hang on POST.

[Woag]

1 minute ago, RAS_3885 said:

Sounds like it's hanging at POST. Does your motherboard have any debug LED or readout for POST codes? If so, during that first 5 minute black screen period, what do those codes/debug LEDs show. I'm wondering if you have something starting to go bad, causing it to hang on POST.

There is no text on my screen however there have been a red led and a white led on the top right of my mother board on ever since the problem started and the leds don't turn off when I'm in windows they stay on till the pc is shut down

[RAS_3885]

1 minute ago, Woag said:

There is no text on my screen however there have been a red led and a white led on the top right of my mother board on ever since the problem started and the leds don't turn off when I'm in windows they stay on till the pc is shut down

Okay... what are those LEDs? They will either have writing on the board next to them or your user manual will have information.

 

Those are debug LEDs and will point you to the problem.

 

EDIT: Also, at this point, it would be helpful if you listed out all the other hardware in your system, such as CPU, motherboard, RAM, GPU, PSU, etc.

Edited March 4, 2021 by RAS_3885

[Woag]

4 minutes ago, RAS_3885 said:

Okay... what are those LEDs? They will either have writing on the board next to them or your user manual will have information.

 

Those are debug LEDs and will point you to the problem.

I looked at the user manual and the two leds that are an are called the DIMM LED and the XMP LED so I think I might have bad ram what do you think?

[RAS_3885]

5 minutes ago, Woag said:

I looked at the user manual and the two leds that are an are called the DIMM LED and the XMP LED so I think I might have bad ram what do you think?

Start by removing and re-seating your RAM, turning off XMP in the BIOS and see what happens.

 

If that works and it boots normally then run something like memtest.

 

If it doesn't boot normally, keep XMP off, but drop down to just one stick of RAM and see if it boots normally with that. if not, switch to the other stick and see what happens.

 

Try those and report back. Fully spec list would still be helpful, but you clearly have a RAM issue.

[Archer42]

IMO.

Slow boot, noises...

Try unplugging HDD-s and see if something changes. One of them may be dead/dying.

[Woag]

1 hour ago, RAS_3885 said:

Start by removing and re-seating your RAM, turning off XMP in the BIOS and see what happens.

 

If that works and it boots normally then run something like memtest.

 

If it doesn't boot normally, keep XMP off, but drop down to just one stick of RAM and see if it boots normally with that. if not, switch to the other stick and see what happens.

 

Try those and report back. Fully spec list would still be helpful, but you clearly have a RAM issue.

Hey so I just finished working with the RAM and nothing really changed but I found out the buzzing was coming from one of my HDD so that might also be where the problem lies

[RAS_3885]

1 minute ago, Woag said:

Hey so I just finished working with the RAM and nothing really changed but I found out the buzzing was coming from one of my HDD so that might also be where the problem lies

A buzzing HDD is certainly not good and might be causing the issues. Not sure why your motherboard would have the RAM debug lights on, but if playing around with the RAM didn't help then certainly try unplugging the suspect HDD.

[Woag]

18 hours ago, RAS_3885 said:

A buzzing HDD is certainly not good and might be causing the issues. Not sure why your motherboard would have the RAM debug lights on, but if playing around with the RAM didn't help then certainly try unplugging the suspect HDD.

I just took out the HDD and its working like a charm now I have no clue why the HDD would be the problem cause everything except the buzzing pointed to the ram as you said but if it works it works thanks for the help

[Woag]

19 hours ago, Archer42 said:

IMO.

Slow boot, noises...

Try unplugging HDD-s and see if something changes. One of them may be dead/dying.

I took out the HDD and every thing is working as normal now thanks for the help

 

[artisuke]

26 minutes ago, Woag said:

I took out the HDD and every thing is working as normal now thanks for the help

 

Don't use that HDD again, it sounds like a bad motor or head. You can get a sata to usb adapter to copy any files you want off of it, but it sounds like the hard drive is breaking.

[RAS_3885]

2 hours ago, Woag said:

I just took out the HDD and its working like a charm now I have no clue why the HDD would be the problem cause everything except the buzzing pointed to the ram as you said but if it works it works thanks for the help

Glad you got it sorted!

[Archer42]

2 hours ago, Woag said:

I have no clue why the HDD would be the problem

It is pretty common issue.

Any sufficiently broken storage attached to PC will cause slow boot and some other problems.

Slow boot + unusual noise will almost certainly mean dead hdd, because there are not many other reasons which can cause slow boot.

 

Also "boots slowly but works fine" does not really point to RAM. RAM issues usually cause random crashes with random errors, data corruption and such, not slow boot.

 

[Woag]

2 hours ago, davidjcoble said:

Don't use that HDD again, it sounds like a bad motor or head. You can get a sata to usb adapter to copy any files you want off of it, but it sounds like the hard drive is breaking.

luckily I already have a faster HDD and apps so I don't have to reinstall anything