60 minutes to boot

RogerR · 29 Mar 2016

Daughter bought a 2-yr old Samsung Chronos laptop, which worked fine ... for a week. Then became so slow it appeared to be completely frozen. If left for long enough it actually runs, just takes many minutes between the welcome screen and then the login and then to accept keystrokes, and then to actually open Windows.

I have checked the hard drive (one bad sector), run chkdsk/f and SFC (errors corrected, nothing on the second pass). Memory diagnostic OK. So I think it is a windows, not hardware, issue.

Since it takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes to reboot from any failed operation, troubleshooting is a mighty PITA. The laptop was purchased with 7 Home Premium preinstalled, and there is no Samsung disc with all the drivers on it, making a clean reinstall difficult.

At one point I accessed Startup and disabled all but the essentials. My suspicion is a failed windows update, so I rolled back to the earliest backup date. Now, in Task Manager, I notice the previous owner is the User listed for most of the Services. That owner is not listed in User Accounts.

Should I try to delete the old user from the Registry, or is that a red herring?

ThrashZone · 29 Mar 2016

Hi,
I'd change out the hard drive for a new or upgrade it to a ssd personally
Clean install and finding drivers isn't all that big of a deal

I would see if there is any heating problems first though
Download Real Temp 3.70 | techPowerUp

Also what security was installed on the machine when you got it and what is on it now ?

RogerR · 29 Mar 2016

Avira is on board and so is Malwarebytes (scans clear).

Swapping hardware may be an easy fix but she doesn't have $$ for a new HDD (much less an SATA) she just needs to get through school.

I considered heat, but it seems to act the same hot or cold and the back does not get especially warm.

Clean install would be faster at this point, but there is no disc, just a licence # on the back, so I don't know how to deal with that. And laptops have a ton of special drivers for touchpad, LAN, BT, on and on.

Mellon Head · 29 Mar 2016

@ RogerR

You can get the drivers you need for Windows 7 here at this Samsung page:

Series 7 Chronos (NP700Z5A-S01UK) | Support | SAMSUNG UK

As for a Windows disk... I don't know if there are still any legal places to get a Windows 7 Home Premium ISO anymore, unfortunately, but if you have a valid product key on the bottom of the laptop you could use any Windows 7 HP disk to install, then properly and legally activate with your product key.

Another option would be to contact Samsung and see if they have recovery media for sale. Most OEMs do. Samsung has contact information on the bottom of that page that I linked.

Benteke · 29 Mar 2016

Mellon Head said:

@ RogerR
Another option would be to contact Samsung and see if they have recovery media for sale. Most OEMs do. Samsung has contact information on the bottom of that page that I linked.

Personally, I would go this route. I recently tried re-installing using win7 .iso & product-key on my LT & it proved to be a royal PITA. Eventually I got fed up & just used the OEM restore disks.