Extremely slow POST and boot with Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Rev. 1

[DefRef]

I pulled the original Seagate C drive and replaced it in the case with the cloned Toshiba since that's working for boot, then moved the DVD drives back to the ICH10R ports, so all six current devices are on the Intel controller.

Disconnected all USB devices but the KB & mouse and boot time is now under 3 minutes to responsive. However, from 40 seconds until 2 minutes, it's going to sleep still. It's POSTING so fast that the screen hasn't turned on before it's already into detecting drives, then Windows boots and then at the 38-40 second mark, zzzzzzzzzzzz. Then around 2 minutes, it wakes up and finishes loading.

What is it doing there? We could be looking at a 1:45 cold boot time if not for the nap. (Plus whatever lag happens when the external USBs are hooked back up.

EDIT: For grins, I uninstalled my nVidia drivers and swept with Driver Cleaner. On the subsequent boot, the mouse cursor appeared at the 40 second mark along with the "Welcome to Windows" splash - Yay?!? - and then the background went black, leaving the cursor on the screen for a long time while Windows doddered around trying to find the drivers. I manually ran the install and the subsequent boot was longer, if anything than before. I still haven't reconnected any other USBs.

I've manually set the BIOS to go for PCIe-1 16X. For the longest time, it was just set to PCI, though I don't think that should be the issue. I've double-checked in the manual that the card is in the correct slot.

 

[chadashcroft22]

Few Things to try:

1. Have you tried the system with only 1 graphics card in and see if that helps at all?
2. Oh and I know it's obvious but when was the last time you defragged your hard drives?
3.Latest drivers/bioses/chipset installed? This would be the most important because if it is taking forever on the windows logo screen a driver is corrupt/missing causing the long boot times. Might not hurt to check for an updated vga bios if you think it is related to your cards.

 

[hackerballs]

only about 2 billion things can make the boot-up weird

maybe a bad stick of RAM....that has been known to cause boot problems

I hope that you have and have used this already.......a very good tester http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/gr/memtest86.htm

 

[DefRef]

Few Things to try:

1. Have you tried the system with only 1 graphics card in and see if that helps at all?

Do you work for the NSA? Because you must've been seeing what I was doing! (Would you happen to have video of when...oh, nevermind.)

While monkeying around with the stupid GeForce Experience thing - how long does it take to scan a few folders and match up settings? - it was telling me that it couldn't optimize games because I didn't have qualifying hardware. Huh? I was using it yesterday. Then it hit me, I've just reloaded the drivers and hadn't yet gone into the nVidia control panel to manually set the 8800GT as the dedicated PhysX processor. I shut down GFE, set the cards to their assignments, then relaunched GFE and it worked. (If you can call what it does working.)

That got me thinking, was there something in the driver that's gacking over that 8800? It is four generations back and perhaps 6 years old. Could be. I was also wondering if a bay card reader whose CF card slot stopped working could be an issue and since I had to pull the 8800 out of PCIe-3 to get at the plug, I decided to see what effect it had on boot up.

Plenty! I had it blink out a little while it was booting, but I was able to start interacting with Windows at 2:15 and this is with all the external USB stuff reconnected. It's still getting crap together in the background, but we're still hella better than when this nightmare started.

I wonder if something changed with the 320.49 WHQL driver that borked things up? I'm sure not many people are using such a configuration as mine, so perhaps it's a bug. I'll watch future change logs for fixes and see if I can put the 8800 back in. I hope this doesn't dent my gaming performance too badly.

While this isn't going to set any records, things are greatly improved. All it needed was a new hard drive, BIOS, proper ACHI drivers and a whole lot of hours banging my head against the desk. Who needs sleep when frustration is so much more a fun way to stay up all night? Bah.

Thanks to all who chimed in with suggestions and tips. Toldja I didn't need to reformat!!!

EDIT: Had a problem with Batman Arkham City crashing either instantly or within a few seconds until I looked at the Event Viewer log and saw the PhysX DLL was the cause. Went into the nVidia driver folder and just reran the PhysX msi and it's all good now.

Also see that my UPS widget is showing I'm idling at 29-32% load; with the 8800GT in it'd idle around 39-41%. Maybe with the power I save I can afford to pay for running the A/C 24/7 during this warm spell. 80F at 5 am is BS. Cool front coming on Saturday.

 

[Carfax83]

I wouldn't start celebrating yet man. 2:15 is still way over the average boot up time, so something is still definitely wrong there..

 

[DefRef]

Starting at TEN MINUTES, it's pop the corks time. Yes, it's still long. Yes, it's giving Boot Time Critical errors when it's taking 80 seconds, down from 360 and more. I wish there was a boot log where I could see how long individual components are taking to t-shoot what the hangup is.

 

[hackerballs]

I'm happy for you as now you will lose some anxiety.................still, 2:15 should be :45

 

[DefRef]

How to get there though. I ran an optimizer that spotted some background apps that were slowing the boot and delayed them, but it still sucks. Is there a way to do a "refresh" install of Windows since a total format isn't an option? If not, then it's moot and not that bad a problem because I rarely reboot so this isn't the imposition that a 10-minute boot was.

 

[hackerballs]

rebooting your PC helps on a daily basis will help...........resets things

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Do you have another PSU you can try, if the unit is older(I have NOT read this whole thread). I have had similar issue's, aging caps on the PSU seem to cause the same issue my 2 cents.

 

[DefRef]

HTF would power supply caps cause slow boot times and nothing else?