Windows taking too much time to boot (or not even booting) - POST slow as well

[lucassilva9237]

Hi everyone.

I have a computer with the following specs:
- Core i5 4460
- 8GB RAM 1866 Dual Channel (runs at 1600MHz due to motherboard limitation)
- ASUS B85M-E motherboard
- 240GB SanDisk SSD
- 500GB Seagate HDD
- ZOTAC GTX 960 AMP!
- LG DVD-RW/CD writer/reader
- 600W Cooler Master PSU

My computer was working just fine until Monday. I've turned off the system correctly on Sunday night and everything seemed just fine at this point. As my computer stays in my bedroom, I'd see if the system stayed up too long after the shutdown request.

Everything started to go wrong on Monday morning. As always, I tried to power on my computer. As my display was off, I didn't watch the POST tests or if how much time it took to run all the tests. After turning on my display, Windows appears to be booting as normal. Problem: it stayed like this in a bootloop kind of situation. After more than 30 minutes, I was stuck at the boot sequence.

Forced reboot by pressing the reboot button. Even worse: it just stayed in the ASUS logo in another infinite loop, like POST tests were actually infinite. Ok. Fully turned off the system and tried to power on again. Returning to the same situation as above, Windows pretends to boot and stays in the loading screen forever.

I've been trying these steps since Monday morning and the results were negligible (to my mind, of course). I've tried to use SeaTools Bootable but, for some reason that I don't know, it just doesn't work on any machine I try. However, I tried to run Kali Linux light as a Live Linux distro and it actually worked.

Everything seems to run just fine while on the live distribution, network is OK, graphics (although kinda laggy and buggy) are fine and processing power is on par to what I expect to a 4th generation i5 processor. Still, it doesn't boot Windows, so I've decided to create a Windows 10 USB installation media and reinstall the OS from scratch.

It actually "worked": although it took more than 40 MINUTES to read the contents from my flash drive (40 minutes just on the boot screen, to be more precise), I was able to install the OS (actually pretty quickly, just like I'd expect when I'm installing modern Windows to a SSD) and actually "activate the devices" (while on the boot screen). After the first reboot, got stuck on the bootloop of Windows again and here I am right now.

Good reminder: in all of the situations described above, POST is taking too much time to go past the ASUS logo and, when the reboot button is used, the POST takes even more time.

This is what I've tried so far:

- Reinstall Windows. Result: actually *kinda* worked, but no real progress was made to solve the problem;
- Use a Linux Live USB drive: it worked successfully and no problems were detected during the usage;
- Remove my RAM modules and seat them again: no results;
- Remove my RAM modules and seat them in different slots, while maintaining : no results;
- Reapply thermal paste to the processor: no result (I actually knew this wouldn't create any results, but it was time to change anyway);
- Change secure boot options to "Other OS" and try to boot Windows 10: no result;
- Revert the secure boot options to Windows UEFI and try to boot Windows 10: no result;
- Boot directly to the SSD, not to the Windows Boot Manager: no result;
- Boot directly to the Windows Boot Manager, ignoring any tries on other devices: no result;
- Inspect both HDD and SSD about bad blocks or sectors: no bad blocks or bad sectors detected.

This is what I didn't try so far:

- Install a Linux Build to the SSD and see if the computer actually boots it;
- Test the system with only one of the modules;
- Re-seat the CMOS battery;
- Load the default settings of the BIOS;
- Try a different HDD/SSD life checker;
- Try another Windows version that actually doesn't use UEFI as default option (such as Windows 7).

While I have some more work to do on this machine, I'd like to ask for suggestions about what to do next. Had little to no time to work on my personal machine due to my job and house duty, so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jamesanyoung]

It sounds like it could be an OS drive issue. Can you boot in SAFE mode? Can you get in to the BIOS menu?
Have you tried checking your Boot sequence priority in the BIOS?
Have you tried disconnecting and reconnecting your OS drive?

Do you have the option to try your boot drive in another PC? It could be that your MOBO is starting to fade, and not speaking to everything correctly - it is about 5 years old I think?