Sudden slow boot

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My Windows 8.1, 64 bit PC is suddenly taking 7 minutes to boot. It was fine (taking abut 30 seconds) until yesterday. The only significant change I have made recently was to disable Wake up on Magic Packet from power off state for the network card in the device manager, but re-enabling it makes no difference. The system seems to be running normally after it finally starts and the Processes and Performance tabs of Task Manager don’t show anything unusual. I have tried:

[*]Enabling Fast Boot – makes no difference.
[*]Safe mode also takes 7 minutes to boot.
[*]I have unplugged all external peripherals except keyboard, mouse, network and speakers.
[*]Checking memory with MDSCHED shows no errors.
[*]Disabling everything in the Windows tab of the Startup section of CCCleaner makes no difference (but I wouldn’t expect it to because all the wait time is before I sign on to my user account).
[*]CHKDSK reports no errors in any disk partitions.

I’m running out of ideas of what to do. Can anyone help?

Thanks,
Ivan

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Many potential options to look at;

Perform a chkdsk first.

How To Fix Slow Windows Startup Using Windows Boot Performance Diagnostics

Tools for Troubleshooting Slow Boots and Slow Logons (sbsl)

Trace why Windows 8 boots, shutsdown or hibernates slowly

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Thanks for the suggestions. It turns out it might not be a Windows problem. I restored an image backup of the OS from before the problem started and it did not help. I’m now looking at the motherboard as the problem. I may ask for help in the hardware forum if I can’t solve it myself.

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You might want to try this also (DPC delays): http://www.sysnative.com/forums/windows-7-|-windows-vista-tutorials/5721-how-to-diagnose-and-fix-high-dpc-latency-issues-with-wpa-windows-windows-vista-7-8-a.html

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Thanks usasma,

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the DPC delays tools are to be run while Windows is running. The delay I am seeing happens on the Windows LOGO screen BEFORE the user sign-on screen. Will these tools detect a problem at that point?

Ivan

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Frankly, I posted the link because I’ve had similar problems and have used the techniques to fix things.
In my case it was a faulty installation of Kaspersky Internet Security (although I’ve seen similar symptoms from a faulty installation of Trend Micro Internet Security).
I removed the Kaspersky and the problem went away.

Now for the caveats. I’m not an expert with this tool, only having used it once or twice.
I do recall an issue where the command line tool wasn’t available – but I was able to use the GUI in order to work my way through the problems.
It seems to me that I wasn’t able to identify specific times that the problem occurred – but I was still able to fix my problem
My suspicion/assumption here is that the problem that occurs during boot may also be occurring afterwards – so the symptoms may show up in the DPC Latency tools.

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About a week ago my PC suddenly started taking 7 minutes to boot. The PC is a few months old and booted quickly before then. I am using Windows 8.1, 64 bit and the hang is on the Windows LOGO screen before the user sign-on screen comes up. It appears to run fine after entering Windows. I’m posting this in the hardware section because I restored a disk image of the OS (System Reserved and C: partitions) from before the problem started and it did not resolve the problem, so I assume this must be hardware related.

I have a Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H motherboard and Intel I5 Haswell processor. I have unplugged all external periferals except keyboard, mouse and speakers, run Windows memory checker and flashed the BIOS and none of those have made any difference. Can anyone suggest what the problem could be? I’m getting desperate.

Thanks,
Ivan

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Does it hang in a clean boot?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135/en-us

For boot logging, hit windows key and type msconfig.exe and click on it in the search results.
Click on the boot log check box and click OK.

You can use Process Monitor to create a boot log file:
Process Monitor> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

Instructions for creating a boot Log:
http://www.msigeek.com/6231/how-to-enable-system-boot-time-logging-using-process-monitor-tool

Jerry

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Yes, it hangs on a clean boot, and also in safe mode. I am tying the msconfig boot log and will try Process Monitor if msconfig doesn’t give enough information.

Thanks,
Ivan

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Found it!

Thanks to everyone for the help. I activated boot logging using MSCONFIG and then looked at the log using the Event Viewer. In the log were a series of disk errors about the time the system was booting. I have two hard drives and use the second one to restore image backups of the primary drive. Including the System Reserved partition, there are 4 partitions on each drive and all pass muster with CHKDSK except the two System Reserved partitions which I couldn’t check because they don’t have drive letters. On a hunch I unplugged the second drive and the system booted normally!;) I then plugged it in (back to a 7 minute boot) and deleted all partitions, which resulted in a normal boot time. I restored all the partitions and the system is still fine. I don’t know the details of what the problem was, but at least was finally able to identify and fix it.

Again, thanks for the support.

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Glad to hear it! Good troubleshooting. Thanks for reporting back with your solution.

Jerry

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