Question Computer slow to boot. Stays on the bios screen for close to 30 seconds

[Hans Gruber]

I have tried everything. I cannot figure out why this Asrock B250 Pro 4 board is slow to boot (30-45 seconds). It has a 240GB SSD. It has 16GB of DDR4 ram (4 sticks). A G4630 processor. It runs fine when it finally boots up. I have an identical system with the exception of the 4560 processor vs. 4620. The 4560 system boots in about 7 seconds. Same exact SSD.

I changed the bios, no change. I reinstalled the OS. No change. I cleared the CMOS, no change. What else is there? I ran Crystal Disk Mark bench and the SSD was performing very well.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/B250 Pro4/index.us.asp

 

[Charlie98]

When I've had that problem, the issue was boot order. Go into the BIOS and make sure your OS drive is the 1st boot drive. In fact, I've disabled all the other selections except the OS and CD drives, for obvious reasons.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I will give it a go. Thanks.

 

[Shmee]

Is there a 2nd drive attached? If a system is slow to post, it is often because of a failing HDD in many cases. This isn't necessarily the cause here, but something I have seen a lot. Dead drives cause super slow system, even if they aren't the boot drive.

 

[Mantrid-Drone]

Agrees ^.

I've had something like that with a flash drive that very occasionally throws a spat. It can't be ejected and slows down everything not just startup and login but shutdown too. However once you're logged in the PC behaves normally. The flash drive itself can not be accessed, the PC continually tries to load the content but can not so you have to cancel it.

This does not usually occur on boot but I'm thinking the OP might not be cold booting. I have found that the flash drive will remain in the state, whatever it is that causes the problem, until the PC is fully powered off and the PC unplugged so any residual current dissipates.

I'd try removing all USB devices except mouse and keyboard (which I'd also test with alternatives if available) and disconnect from the internet too and see if that resolves the problem.

If its not an externally attached device affecting the boot then go onto testing the internal devices, like storage HDDs as Shmee suggested.

 

[Hans Gruber]

It boots fast on restarts and slow on cold boots. I was thinking that it was the old Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse. Maybe driver issues. This computer is remote but I think there is a corded keyboard and corded mouse. I will figure this out. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Charlie98]

It boots fast on restarts and slow on cold boots.

Well, it's probably not boot order, then.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I am starting to think it may be some USB device plugged into the computer. This is really throwing me a for a curve. I will check the Microsoft keyboard drivers as well.

 

[yeshua]

Start with disconnecting everything and resetting BIOS settings. Then connect everything one by one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had this problem with my Comfast USB2.0 AC Wifi + BT network adapter from a China-seller. It's a RealTek chipset, and that chipset, has a secondary deice/partition, with the drivers present on it, so when you plug it into a PC without drivers, it shows up as a disk drive instead of a USB wifi, and you double-click to install the drivers, and then the Disk Drive portion disappears, and the USB wifi appears and works.

Well, due to various reasons, sometimes when I rebooted, especially after changing something in the BIOS, I would get these really delayed boot-ups on my Asus B450-F ROG STRIX board, and they went away when I: 1) Unplugged the Comfast / RealTek wifi adapter, and 2) booted into Windows 10, THEN plugged in the adapter, and then shut down / rebooted.

Something about device IDs and the ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data, where they store PnP ID info and settings), and/or the DMI (also does similar things), seems like the device was not detected as the USB wifi device, but instead, as the Disk Drive device, and thus, the system was trying to USB boot from it. Plugging it into Windows, with the drivers loaded, set up the ESCD with the "profile" for the USB wifi portion enabled, and the Disk Drive disabled, and thus, was able to reboot without delay after that.

At least, that's my current theory.

 

[Charlie98]

I am starting to think it may be some USB device plugged into the computer. This is really throwing me a for a curve. I will check the Microsoft keyboard drivers as well.

I kind of went through that with my current build... it would boot fine, then become so slow it was unusable for some programs... anything having to do with the drives. Like yeshua suggests, unplug everything except the OS drive... and add components one by one.

In my case, it was my old USB card reader that was screwing everything up. Larry might also be right... a component or feature that is faking the BIOS out.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I found the problem. After seeing only 1 USB connected to the back of the PC, I said a few 4 letter words. I cracked open the case and found a 3.5" spinner drive connected. Disconnected it and problem solved. What is weird. I had it formatted to GBT. I always thought that GBT wasn't a boot drive or bootable. Thus it shouldn't be on the boot order list. I still have not figured out why it was causing the delay in boot. Or why I have not been able to figure out how to have the drive connected without causing the boot loop issue.

I reformatted it MBT and GBT and both still caused the boot issue.

 

[Charlie98]

It's interesting... when I was having problems with my new parts (the 2700x and the B450) I would go in and set the OS drive as boot #1, and the CD drive as boot #2... and disable everything else. For some reason, it would go in, add every drive in the system, and rearrange the boot order. I have no idea why, and it still does it.

 

[Hans Gruber]

It's interesting... when I was having problems with my new parts (the 2700x and the B450) I would go in and set the OS drive as boot #1, and the CD drive as boot #2... and disable everything else. For some reason, it would go in, add every drive in the system, and rearrange the boot order. I have no idea why, and it still does it.

The spinner drive wasn't even listed in the boot order. The power and SATA 3 connectors were hidden behind the back panel. So you wouldn't even think it was connected because the computer uses an SSD. I was always told to partition any drive that is not a boot drive as a GBT drive to avoid complications.

 

[Charlie98]

Here's a pic of my drive screen in the BIOS... I disconnected the portable HDD yesterday to move some big files to this computer, and the BIOS readded it to the list when I plugged it back in. I've got a thumb drive that I use for small files... it picks it up, too, even formatted as FAT32.