Please Help With Windows 10 Boot/Update Issue

[rich.c.brandon]

Hi everyone. I'm a long time lurker, but now I am at my wit's end at this point. I've Googled and YouTubed the heck out of this issue and nothing seems to be working.

A couple of weeks ago, Windows 10 forced an update on me that ultimately failed. It tried to install, and rolled back and tried to reinstall and rolled back again, and tried to install a third time and rolled back again. And then I thought I was safe, but it did the same thing again a couple of days later. That was a frustration in and of itself. I ran Windows Update Troubleshooter, system troubleshooter, check disk, system restore (unable to restore, restore points corrupted), defrag, checked start ups, windows defender scans, made sure I've got plenty of free space on my drive, basically any sort of troubleshooting/maintenance I could think of. Everything has consistently come back with no issues. Yet there are issues.

Windows quit trying to force the update on me, but now, where it used to take about 15 seconds (I timed it when it was brand new ) to go from powered off to the welcome screen and another 5 - 15 seconds from welcome to desktop, I'm logging anywhere from a minute to 5 minutes from off to welcome, and around the same amount of time from welcome to desktop. In between, I'm seeing the dreaded "black screen of death" with the spinning dots icon and a visible mouse cursor on a black background. This is both between power on and welcome screen and welcome screen to desktop.

Then, once I reach the desktop, looking in task manager, I see my disk usage spike up to 100% consistently for a few minutes. Then the computer runs roughly normally, except for further occasional 100% disk usage spikes. I should mention, just in case, that this laptop originally came with Win 8 factory installed, but Win 10 has been running on it with no issues for over a year.

It's particularly frustrating because I generally do these kinds of fixes for others for a few bucks on the side!

I know it may seem minor, in that I'm only waiting a few minutes (especially compared to the old days, where a 2-5 minute boot time might seem reasonable, or even quick) but at this point my computer is feeling unusable. I'm so frustrated that I just want to smash it.

The only major system change of any kind has been an updated Intel graphics driver in the last few days in the hopes that the driver update might solve the issue, as I've read that sometimes the "black screen" is caused by an out of date, corrupted, or conflicting video driver. I've done some small registry edits, nothing major and all after the issue began. They've seemed to have no effect. I've also disabled a few non-essential services, such as Cortana.

Another oddity that started about the same time is that I commonly use the Windows Run dialog. So for instance I might type C:\Users\My Name\Documents to access my profile's Documents folder. (My username has a space in it). Now if I want to use the Windows Run dialog, I have to type "C:\Users\My Name\Documents". The distinction being that Windows is requiring the path be in quotation marks (similar to the command line) whereas before this update issue, it had never required the quotation marks.

Another interesting tidbit I spotted just now. My computer has always reported the Intel HD 5500 chipset onboard video, but the spec sheet on CNet lists it as the Intel 6000. Hmm.

Let me give some specs:

Toshiba Satellite P55W-C5200 (Upgraded from Win 8 to Win 10 x64 Build 15063)

CPU: Intel i5 5200U 2.2 GHZ
Grahpics: Onboard Intel HD 5500
8 GB RAM
Virtual Memory 7.48 GB
Disk size: 685 GB (410 free)

Please let me know if there's any more system information needed to help. I really, really appreciate any help anyone is kind enough to offer. I'll be happy to run scans, post logs or what-have-you after I get out of classes tomorrow (about 15 hours from time of post). I'd really like to avoid a reinstall of Windows if I can help it, but I suppose if that's my last, best option, I've backed up around 65-70% of my files in the last several days anyway.

 

[Paul NZ]

Get speccy that'll tell you what it is. Do a custom install

I would do a clean install upgrading usually stuffs something up.

And you're 1 build behind

 

[smorizio]

if you installed the tests builds of windows 10 use the windows media creation tool make a windows iso boot tool. boot into windows let it do a upgrad to get you to the windows fall creation point. if it wont upgrade from inside try running it from booting off the usb stick. if your windows was upgraded free still use the new usb iso to update your laptop. also do a few free online virus scan make sure your laptop clean.

 

[rich.c.brandon]

Paul and smorizio, thank you for your input. I did run Speccy, but I went ahead and ran it again. It reported the same chipset I'd always seen before, Intel HD 5500. Probably just a typo on cnet 😉

I'm not on a test build of Win 10-- I did the free upgrade while it was available. I know I'm a build behind... the first time I tried to update was two weeks ago-- I've been doing without the internet lately.

Oh, one more thing. I've generally had Fast Boot turned off, but after this issue started, I supposed perhaps it'd been fixed and it might be worth turning it on and seeing if it made any difference. It hasn't noticeably changed with it either on or off.

I did run Windows Defender, but it found nothing. I'll run a couple of online scans over night and report back. Thanks!

 

[smorizio]

as your a brantch build behind use windows media creation tool to make the newest iso and try updating from it. also try booting into safe mode see if there more then one set of drivers in windows device manager.

 

[rich.c.brandon]

Okay, sorry for a little bit of a longer delay than expected. I ran 3 online virus/malware scanners. FSec, Eset, and Kaspersky. FSec and Kaspersky came back clean. Eset crashed at some point and is currently rerunning. Both completes show a clean bill of health. I haven't had a chance to try safe mode/boot from a usb iso yet due to studying/coursework, but before bed tonight I will attempt to boot into safe mode and report back.

 

[Paul NZ]

Dont install more than 1 AV / firewall program. They'll conflict with each other. And they'll crash your system

 

[rich.c.brandon]

Right, these are web scanners, not AV I'm using as a dedicated solution, just a one and done . The last scanner completed and came back clean as well. Thanks for the heads up. I'm down with the conflicts. As I mentioned before, I'm pretty tech savvy-- it's just this dang unsolvable boot issue. I will give the update from USB image a try this afternoon.

 

[rich.c.brandon]

I did try the usb update. It just sent me into an update/rollback loop. At this point, I've suffered through enough update attempts again that Windows has quit trying to update, failing and rolling me back again, but I'm right back where I started.
However, I do seem to be going from cold to Welcome more quickly than previous, but no where near as quick as before this mess started. The welcome to desktop time is unchanged.
I did have a thought... Before I got wrapped up in this frustration, I had a generic Windows 10 Log-in screen. Now there's some Windows wallpaper that shows when the computer starts and then remains when logging in. Could this be something that is potentially causing lag?