Question Slow booting time despite high-end PC

[kanishknishar]

Hello. This is my PC: bit.do/kanishkpc

This is a fairly high-end PC and I would think that such a PC having Windows 10 installed on its SSD would provide super snappy boot up times but instead my booting time from black screen (after restarting logo is done) is 20-23 seconds which seems much slower than what it was a year ago. I asked an engineer to check my PC and he did an SSD test and looked at the voltage/temperature of the motherboard and said that everything was fine.

If everything were fine, why would my booting time be so slow?

I've reinstalled Windows 10 and Task Manager has reported the same last BIOS time of 9.9 seconds. I suspect OS isn't the issue as the problem happens right when the PC starts not when Windows begin to start (the rotating circles) - that is very fast - less than 3 seconds.

What is the next step?

 

[daveybrat]

Have you tried booting the computer without either of your 2 external hard drives plugged in?

If yes, have you also tried booting it with the secondary 1TB mechanical drive disconnected?

Here's his computer specs:

Monitor: Dell U2417H
OS: Windows 10 Home 1809
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z270 Mark II
Processor: Intel i7-7700K
Graphic Card: ASUS Strix GTX 1070
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 3000Mhz 16GB (16x1)
SMPS: Corsair CX650M
SSD: Samsung EVO 850 SATA 3 M.II
HDD: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
ATX Cabinet: Corsair Carbide 400Q Tower

External Hard Disk 1: Seagate Backup Plus 4TB
External Hard Disk 2: Seagate Backup Plus 1TB

 

[kanishknishar]

Have you tried booting the computer without either of your 2 external hard drives plugged in?

If yes, have you also tried booting it with the secondary 1TB mechanical drive disconnected?

Here's his computer specs:

Monitor: Dell U2417H
OS: Windows 10 Home 1809
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z270 Mark II
Processor: Intel i7-7700K
Graphic Card: ASUS Strix GTX 1070
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 3000Mhz 16GB (16x1)
SMPS: Corsair CX650M
SSD: Samsung EVO 850 SATA 3 M.II
HDD: WD 1TB 7200RPM
Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
ATX Cabinet: Corsair Carbide 400Q Tower

External Hard Disk 1: Seagate Backup Plus 4TB
External Hard Disk 2: Seagate Backup Plus 1TB

If I remember correctly then yes the engineer did remove my SSD and the external hard disks. There was still that 10 second black screen loading.

 

[you2]

How much time is it windows starting and how much is it the bios. Most motherboards have a 'delay' before they will start the boot process.Perhaps it was reset (if you had set it)....

 

[Ajay]

Have you done any bios updates recently, or, changed any bios settings? What were the bios boot times in the past?

 

[kanishknishar]

How much time is it windows starting and how much is it the bios. Most motherboards have a 'delay' before they will start the boot process.Perhaps it was reset (if you had set it)....

You're saying that the motherboard deliberately has that 10 second black screen? Windows is very fast. Less than 3 seconds as I said. Very smooth. It's only the black screen that is bothersome right after the restart. There's no motherboard screen incidentally.

Have you done any bios updates recently, or, changed any bios settings? What were the bios boot times in the past?

I have fiddled around with the BIOS settings but I've tried to reset the BIOS settings to default to see if the black screen stops to no avail. Boot times in the past were very famous. No 10 second black screen before Windows booting screen.

 

[Ajay]

I have fiddled around with the BIOS settings but I've tried to reset the BIOS settings to default to see if the black screen stops to no avail. Boot times in the past were very famous. No 10 second black screen before Windows booting screen.

Okay, no freaking idea why you have this extra delay then. If you are not updated to the current BIOS, you could try that to see if it helps.
v1301 (04/17/2018) https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-Z270-MARK-2/HelpDesk_BIOS/
Good luck!

 

[kanishknishar]

Okay, no freaking idea why you have this extra delay then. If you are not updated to the current BIOS, you could try that to see if it helps.
v1301 (04/17/2018) https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-Z270-MARK-2/HelpDesk_BIOS/
Good luck!

Should I get my motherboard tested out? Should I send you screenshots of my BIOS utility screen?

 

[Ajay]

Should I get my motherboard tested out? Should I send you screenshots of my BIOS utility screen?

I don't think it is worth being tested as it appears, from what you've said, to be operating normally under Windows.
Screen shots wouldn't help me, I'm just not familar with Z270 motherboards.
Really, what's 20 extra seconds in your day? I run raid, which slows down my bootup times - I don't care.

 

[kanishknishar]

I don't think it is worth being tested as it appears, from what you've said, to be operating normally under Windows.
Screen shots wouldn't help me, I'm just not familar with Z270 motherboards.
Really, what's 20 extra seconds in your day? I run raid, which slows down my bootup times - I don't care.

There's another problem: I can't run BIOS when I restart Windows 10. Once the black screen appears, when I press F2 to get to BIOS, the system is indefinitely stuck. I restart it usually because I don't want to wait for 10 minutes until it just starts Windows 10 again.

How do I get to BIOS? Currently, I have to shut the PC down and then start it again - that's when the motherboard manufacturer's screen appears.

Also despite my rig are microstutters normal? Like a 2 second lag when you right click on the taskbar for file explorer or just for anything else generally?

 

[you2]

In all honesty it sounds like the bios or operating system is polling devices. What was the last 'thing' you plugged into your system or motherboard? Can you remove it.
--
As for what i said earlier. Yes there is a setting in the bios that tells the mb how long to delay a boot to give you time to enter the bios or display a splash screen (blank can be a splash screen).
-
Also since you are quoting times (10 second delay on boot; 2 second micro stutter; ...) i'd actually time these delay and make sure the times are accurate - your phone should have a stop watch app.

 

[kanishknishar]

In all honesty it sounds like the bios or operating system is polling devices. What was the last 'thing' you plugged into your system or motherboard? Can you remove it.
--
As for what i said earlier. Yes there is a setting in the bios that tells the mb how long to delay a boot to give you time to enter the bios or display a splash screen (blank can be a splash screen).
-
Also since you are quoting times (10 second delay on boot; 2 second micro stutter; ...) i'd actually time these delay and make sure the times are accurate - your phone should have a stop watch app.

I know that setting. It is at 3 seconds but as I said pressing F2 would be pointless after the restart.

Also I have used a stopwatch and gotten booting times of roughly 23 seconds. Multiple times. As for microstutters, I can't stopwatch something as miniscule as 1 second (2 might be too much). The point being instead of being instantaneous there is some sort of lag.

I shall remove my EHDs and see if the booting time is reduced.

 

[kanishknishar]

Turns out from 'scanning for signal' screen of my monitor till Windows booting takes 17 seconds which is certainly problematic.

Secondly, I have fast boot enabled. Is that why I can't enter BIOS when I restart my PC?

I removed my EHDs; the results were mostly the same. Maybe 2 seconds less? That's negligble. Also another curious observation: When I turn the PC on it seems to be snappy as before but its when I restart that the black screen of 15 seconds happens.

Also BIOS' boot manager shows 2 entries for my C drive - 1 is for Windows 10 Boot Manager and the other for just my SSD. Should that be happening?

 

[Ajay]

Also despite my rig are microstutters normal? Like a 2 second lag when you right click on the taskbar for file explorer or just for anything else generally?

So, actually, you are having problems in the BIOS and Win10. That lag isn’t normal and along with the BIOS restart issue looks like you may have a real hardware issue.

Some things to try:
Look in the device manager and make sure everything shows up and that there are no missing drivers (show up in yellow).

Run a stress test. I use OCCT to make sure your CPU isn’t overheating. You can also run a boot up memory test like this one https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

There is always the 'reinstall Windows' option keeping files and settings. It's a pita, and would only solve any win10 problems.

If none of that indicates an issue - I would do is open up the case and reseat the memory modules, GFX card and drive cables - to eliminate hardware problems. Still borked - you may need new drive cables or even need to reseat (reinstall) your CPU.

It's a trial and error process. I haven’t included everything I’d normally try, I kind do other things in the process sort of by 'muscle memory'. So don’t be afraid to search google if unexpected issues pop up (and you can post here). Welcome to computer troubleshooting 101.

 

[you2]

How long is the disk light on ? If you have a bad or non-tight sata cable it could be that there are a lot of disk errors and rereads are constantly taking place. If this was linux it would be easy to check for disk retries (don't know about windows); conversely what mode is the disk - is ahic enabled ? Is this a sata drive or pice drive ?

 

[kanishknishar]

So, actually, you are having problems in the BIOS and Win10. That lag isn’t normal and along with the BIOS restart issue looks like you may have a real hardware issue.

Some things to try:
Look in the device manager and make sure everything shows up and that there are no missing drivers (show up in yellow).

Run a stress test. I use OCCT to make sure your CPU isn’t overheating. You can also run a boot up memory test like this one https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

There is always the 'reinstall Windows' option keeping files and settings. It's a pita, and would only solve any win10 problems.

If none of that indicates an issue - I would do is open up the case and reseat the memory modules, GFX card and drive cables - to eliminate hardware problems. Still borked - you may need new drive cables or even need to reseat (reinstall) your CPU.

It's a trial and error process. I haven’t included everything I’d normally try, I kind do other things in the process sort of by 'muscle memory'. So don’t be afraid to search google if unexpected issues pop up (and you can post here). Welcome to computer troubleshooting 101.

Thank you for your suggestions. We finally have some leads. There were issues with the memtest86. The test took 4 hours. Is that normal?

I also conducted a RAM test while I was at it.

I did the stress test and the results are normal. I only did it for two minutes but the graph showed a straight line.

More details of what was conducted can be found here.

I installed Windows 10 on 10th September. Whatever benefits that a clean install has has already been availed, right?

There are more things I'd like to add:
1) The BIOS version's date shown by Windows 10 does not match the date on ASUS' website.
2) I can't update my clock on Windows 10. Microsoft support told me that it is a motherboard issue and that I should contact the manufacturer.

Whenever I add a hyperlink to a line, the remainder of the post also gets the hyperlink. Is this an AnandTech bug? Also links seems to be showing up directly instead of being hyperlinked.

 

[kanishknishar]

How long is the disk light on ? If you have a bad or non-tight sata cable it could be that there are a lot of disk errors and rereads are constantly taking place. If this was linux it would be easy to check for disk retries (don't know about windows); conversely what mode is the disk - is ahic enabled ? Is this a sata drive or pice drive ?

"Disk light"? My PC is a black box. I can't see through the cover. Also, my SSD is Samsung EVO 850 M.2 SATA III. I don't know what AHIC is.

 

[kanishknishar]

Okay, no freaking idea why you have this extra delay then. If you are not updated to the current BIOS, you could try that to see if it helps.
v1301 (04/17/2018) https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-Z270-MARK-2/HelpDesk_BIOS/
Good luck!

I manually updated BIOS. There doesn't seem to be an update released after that.

 

[Ajay]

Sounds like you either have a bad RAM stick or possibly a bad ram slot. You can retest using one stick at a time to see if one is bad. You also may need to switch up slots if that doesn’t work it out for you.

 

[kanishknishar]

Sounds like you either have a bad RAM stick or possibly a bad ram slot. You can retest using one stick at a time to see if one is bad. You also may need to switch up slots if that doesn’t work it out for you.

Bad RAM stick? I just replaced my RAM a few months ago. I have only 1 RAM stick. I should try to switch their slots then? How does a RAM slot get bad? Frequent power outages?

 

[VirtualLarry]

"Disk light"? My PC is a black box. I can't see through the cover.

There is a front-panel, 2-pin header connection, among the others, labeled "HDD LED", and it is polarized. Normally, you connect the jumper wire that goes to the front case panel with the LEDs and switches, labeled "HDD LED" to that header, observing correct polarity.

Thereafter, while the PC is booted, you should see the "HDD LED" on the front of the case light up during disk accesses. If it lights up solid for a while during boot, and the system seems unresponsive, that's a bad sign. Also, NVMe devices may not make that light, only SATA / AHCI devices, AFAIK.

 

[kanishknishar]

Sounds like you either have a bad RAM stick or possibly a bad ram slot. You can retest using one stick at a time to see if one is bad. You also may need to switch up slots if that doesn’t work it out for you.

Bad RAM stick? I just replaced my RAM a few months ago. I have only 1 RAM stick. I should try to switch their slots then? How does a

I changed the RAM slot from 2nd white to 4th white. Still have slow booting time.

Also since I haven''t changed RAM slot except maybe once in the past - how do I know if I have properly and securely fitted the RAM?

 

[Ajay]

Do you still have errors in memtest after changing slots? Also, you seem to have some sort of pro with the RTC (real time clock) on the motherboard. Maybe you motherboard is failing. If so, that sucks.

 

[kanishknishar]

Do you still have errors in memtest after changing slots? Also, you seem to have some sort of pro with the RTC (real time clock) on the motherboard. Maybe you motherboard is failing. If so, that sucks.

But if my motherboard were failing wouldn't my gaming performance be adversely affected? I can still play games smoothly.

 

[kanishknishar]

I did the test again. Still got errors. Also my RAM can't be faulty right? I did a PC benchmark test: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/20155925

My performance is still optimal, right?