What are the risks of "killing" my CMOS?

A while ago, I said I had a problem with my laptop taking unusually long to boot up (2-3 mins) even in safe mode and clean boot mode. According to Soluto, it takes 5:23 minutes to completely boot up, including getting the start up programs out. I've tried so much to get rid of it until someone said this happened when they had corrupted their CMOS somehow, and resetting it had fixed it.

I am not sure how my CMOS could have been corrupted, but I'm desperate. I'm not desperate enough to potentially destroy my laptop, however.

So like the title says, what are the risks of doing it? What will it definitely do to my PC? What could it do?

Thanks.

Edit: Well I don't believe CMOS has anything to do with it, now. My boot time before was 5:23, now it has been, somehow, reduced to 1:57, which is a much more reasonable boot time. All of the hefty programs listed have decreased their time by half or more. Note the 1:57 time includes the time it takes for the stuff to load at start up as well.

What I did: I defragmented my registry with Auslogics. It was 93% fragmented. Ouch! I never thought a fragmented registry could have such an impact. At first I did not think the defragmentation reduced my boot time, till I read that it needed to defragment before anything booted. Thank you, gregrocker, for suggesting this small but often overlooked maintenance tip. I'm quite sure this helped as I cannot think of any other explanation.

kisazeky said:

A while ago, I said I had a problem with my laptop taking unusually long to boot up (2-3 mins) even in safe mode and clean boot mode. I've tried so much to get rid of it until someone said this happened when they had corrupted their CMOS somehow, and resetting it had fixed it.

I am not sure how my CMOS could have been corrupted, but I'm desperate. I'm not desperate enough to potentially destroy my laptop, however.

So like the title says, what are the risks of doing it? What will it definitely do to my PC? What could it do?

Thanks.

First of all, you shouldn't mess with resetting or flashing your CMOS/BIOS unless you are 100% certain that doing so will resolve the issue/s you're experiencing.

In this instance, I don't think the BIOS is the cause of slow boot times, as a bad BIOS would usually result in the system not booting at all.

Question: When the system does boot, does the system remain slow, or does it perform normally?

You can check the following to try and resolve boot times:

1. Run a full disk check on your boot drive to correct possible errors.
2. Check available free space on the boot drive. Too little available space has been known to slow overall boot times and performance. If you can, move such items as your Documents, Pictures or Videos folders to other drives.
3. How much memory does you computer have? Anything less than 2GB, and you should look at upgrading the memory...
4. Go to the website of your computer manufacturer and download the latest drivers for your OS. If you built the computer yourself, then go to the motherboard manufacturer website.

The biggest hit I get is my AVG Internet Security - it takes 40 seconds to load according to Soluto.

Time to move to MSE small footprint.

Dzomlija said:

First of all, you shouldn't mess with resetting or flashing your CMOS/BIOS unless you are 100% certain that doing so will resolve the issue/s you're experiencing.

In this instance, I don't think the BIOS is the cause of slow boot times, as a bad BIOS would usually result in the system not booting at all.

Question: When the system does boot, does the system remain slow, or does it perform normally?

You can check the following to try and resolve boot times:

1. Run a full disk check on your boot drive to correct possible errors.
2. Check available free space on the boot drive. Too little available space has been known to slow overall boot times and performance. If you can, move such items as your Documents, Pictures or Videos folders to other drives.
3. How much memory does you computer have? Anything less than 2GB, and you should look at upgrading the memory...
4. Go to the website of your computer manufacturer and download the latest drivers for your OS. If you built the computer yourself, then go to the motherboard manufacturer website.

Thanks for the answer. I won't reset the CMOS then.

1. I've done scandisk and my drive is squeaky clean. I've also done other simple maintenance like defragmenting and registry error cleaning. I do these weekly.

2. There's 296 GB free on my hard drive at this moment. So I doubt that :P

3. I have 4 GB of RAM.

4. I installed a driver for my notebook that was said to improve the performance of it. It didn't seem to make an difference upon a reboot to completely install it, but then again, it said it was configuring windows updates on the welcome screen.

fishnbanjo said:

Aside from the very thoughtful and concise response you have already been given you could disconnect your hard drive and see how the PC boots at that point. Understand that not having an OS to boot to will simply give you a no OS found error but it would substantiate that your hard drive, or at the very least programs or registry, is the root cause of your slow boot time.

I don't think I can "disconnect" my hard drive without digging into the guts of my notebook. :P I'm a bit shy when it comes to getting inside my laptop. Thanks for the input though.

mikedl said:

Great advice, Dzomlija. Well said!


kisazeky, if, after following the advice given by Dzomlija, your computer still takes 2-3 minutes to boot but otherwise runs fine, I wouldn't worry about it.

Mine takes 2:30 or so, consistently, and I have pared down the start up programs as much as I care to at this moment (sure I could go further but I'll be using the programs anyway). The biggest hit I get is my AVG Internet Security - it takes 40 seconds to load according to Soluto.

To reiterate Dzomlija, if the computer runs fine otherwise, don't worry about the boot time too much. :)

Yes, my computer runs just fine after booting. It's a little grumpy at first though. :P Also, I'm going to check out Soluto...maybe it can help me.

Thanks for your responses everyone

Edit: This probably doesn't mean anything, but I looked at my system tray right when my desktop booted up and I noticed my firewall and antivirus were there already and already initialized.