[SOLVED] My PC takes forever to boot OS

[LBT1908]

So this might seem like a hardware issue but it has persisted despite a motherboard/CPU/RAM upgrade. This is an issue I have had once every so often very rarely for about a year, but a starting last week it became an issue every single time. And like I mentioned, I replaced my motherboard, CPU and RAM over last summer (same GPU, PSU and drives) and the problem carried over (still just every couple months or so until a couple days ago).

When I power on my PC, it will sit on the motherboard loading screen for sometimes as long as 5+ minutes before finally loading the OS. (Before having this issue I would be able to get from pressing the power button to logging into Windows in under 15 seconds.)
In addition to the egregiously long post time, I can not shut down my PC without pressing and holding the power button. Pressing "shut down" or tapping the power button both do nothing at all. Also, sometimes after finally getting past that state it takes a long time to "settle in", often taking another ~2 minutes for my keyboard and mouse to get power and allow me to log in, then another minute staring at a black screen with a cursor until my desktop loads and is fully functional (interestingly, I can open task manager during this time).

My primary boot drive runs Windows but I also have a hard drive with Ubuntu which I select from BIOS when I want to boot it (meaning I have to sit there hammering F11 for the entire 5+ minutes of staring at the motherboard screen). I can't say conclusively as the Ubuntu installation is on an old and very slow hard drive and always takes much longer than Windows to boot, but it seems that Ubuntu also takes extra long to boot and log in.

Again, this is an issue that I have had show up maybe 8-10 times or so over the past year, but only one instance every couple months whereas now it is every single time I turn on my PC and it has persisted across changing the motherboard and CPU (from an i7-4770 w/ Gigabyte mobo to a Ryzen 2700x on an ASRock mobo). The only thing I did right before it became a consistent issue was move my PC across the house, but I am always very careful in moving my PC and its something I do very frequently and has never been associated with this issue in the past.

I have a feeling I will have to re-install Windows but I am not looking forward to doing so as I have a number of licensed pieces of software that are a massive pain in the neck to uninstall and reinstall. Is there anything I can do to attempt a fix to the problem before going that far?

 

[onespeedbiker]

When you changed the hardware did you do a fresh reinstall of Windows, or did you use the same install as before. If it's the same install, it's likely that is the problem.

 

[LBT1908]

When you changed the hardware did you do a fresh reinstall of Windows, or did you use the same install as before. If it's the same install, it's likely that is the problem.

It is the same Windows install. That was almost a year ago though and the issue has appeared sporadically a dozen times before and since then until last week when it became consistent. Like I said I'm wondering if there's anything I can attempt before doing a clean install of Windows.

 

[onespeedbiker]

Not that I know of. Good luck..

 

[jkflipflop98]

When you do a major upgrade, it's always a good idea to install a fresh copy of Windows. Migrating/upgrading is always a recipe for headaches.

 

[LBT1908]

When you do a major upgrade, it's always a good idea to install a fresh copy of Windows. Migrating/upgrading is always a recipe for headaches.

I am quite aware that migrating can cause issues, however so does uninstalling and reinstalling Solidworks, among a few other pieces of software I use. But I very much doubt this has anything to do with the migration as it was a problem occasionally before then as well.

 

[Sohom]

Use hddsentinnel or hdtune pro... and post the SMART values of ur HDD...

 

[wpgwpg]

I agree with earlier posts. I'd do a clean install without further hesitation. If you'd prefer, you could always create a new partition and do the clean install in that, assuming you have the space. That way you'd have a dual boot where you could compare the two install's performance.