Solved Potential Hardware Issue

[GrahamD]

I have suddenly had a problem with my PC and I think it's hardware related.

If I boot windows, it gets to "Starting Windows" and stays there for about two minutes before log in screen. I haven't changed anything either hard or software, it just started doing this one day. It also delays with starting in Safe Mode and having swapped out the Hard Drive for another, it also does this in Windows 10, hence which is why I think this is hardware.

I have tried unplugging various bits, but I don't have much disconnect and I'm running out of options. If I go to Device Manager, everything is there present and correct. Windows sees all my 16GB memory I don't have any external drives, memsticks etc. I do have a USB Corsair water cooler, but the software says that all works. I do have a AMD Radeon RX 5500XT Graphics card which seems to be working ok.

Is there a way I can easily diagnose what is causing the slow boot?

Just to cover my bases, I have done the usual Chkdsk, SFC etc. All report clean.

 

[torchwood]

Hi Grahem

follow this tutorial, post in the BSOD subforum at W10, you will get more support there


BSOD - Posting Instructions - Windows 10 Forums


Roy

ps you can carry over your username there

 

[Megahertz07]

Please edit your profile with ALL the hardware specs. It will help us to help you.
System Info - See Your System Specs

Let see if your disks are healthy (chkdsk checks the logical part)
Download, extract and run CrystalDiskInfo It's a portable, don't need to install.

 

[GrahamD]

Please edit your profile with ALL the hardware specs. It will help us to help you.
System Info - See Your System Specs

Let see if your disks are healthy (chkdsk checks the logical part)
Download, extract and run CrystalDiskInfo It's a portable, don't need to install.

I have included all the hardware into my profile and have run CrystalDiskInfo, with no errors.

I have just run the Windows Memory Diagnostic on default settings, which has come back with no errors.

 

[Megahertz07]

A memory test is done under WinPE (Pre environment, like dos window)
%windir%\system32\MdSched.exe

Memory Diagnostics Tool - Read Event Viewer Log

 

[GrahamD]

The saga continues...

I have tried removing as many USB devices and hubs as I can get away with, to the point that the only devices I had was the Corsair water pump and a mouse - all to no avail. I have tried swapping out keyboard and mouse just in case.

I have tried the Memory diagnostics tool and everything appears ok. Device Manager with all hidden devices shown shows no issues. In Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools\Advanced Tools I have run the Resource and Performance Monitor which has come back with

"A Service is reported as having an unexpected error code"
Cause: One or more services has failed. The service did not stop gracefully, suggesting the service may have crashed or one of its components stopped in an unsupported way.
Details: Service exited with code not equal to 0 or 1077
Resolution: Restart the service

Under the heading System Service Checks (Failed)
Abnormally Terminated Services Check 1 2 Failed
Workstation Service Check 1 0 Passed

The Hardware Device and Driver Checks shows everything passed.

The only other thing I have done is halted the Security Updates, as the last and final update did some damage to my computer and had to do a system restore to take it off - but I did this some months ago and hasn't been an issue up to now.

I have timed the startup and from the Windows Starting animation to log in screen is 2 mins 50 secs, which would normally be a few seconds.

 

[GrahamD]

As I'm grasping at straws, I also have a HD with Linux Mint installation which I have been playing with. On startup, there is a popup with says its started in Software Rendering mode as there "could be a problem with drivers or some other issue". I hardly use this install, but this is the first time I have booted it up for quite some time. I would take this as a confirmation that I have some hardware which is causing the glitch.

Just a thought - Although the memory diagnostic says there is nothing wrong, as I have 4 sticks of memory, would there be worthwhile trying to remove one stick at a time to see if that's what's causing the hang-up?

 

[torchwood]

Hi Graham,

Rendering is associated with your Graphics cards, check the drivers for it.
note if it was recently updated that could be the cause, newer is not allways better.

Roy

 

[GrahamD]

Solved. Turns out after messing around looking for something not quite right, it happens to have been the RTC battery on the motherboard, which was stopping the Bios/UEFI from working properly. Although the RTC was working ok, the battery voltage was low. One battery changeout and everything is working great, including Windows 10 and my Linux install.