Slow SSD startup (possibly affecting my wifi speed) Clevo P157SM

I've had my clevo for 3-4 years now (upgraded to Windows 10), and as of late, my clevo is experiencing slow startups. I'm using an SSD, and it'll usually take at most 10 seconds to startup. Now the laptop takes too long to startup. Once booted up, It hangs on a black screen for a good minute, then a message to "insert media disk" pops up. That message hangs for a good 30 seconds, before the "Sager" logo comes up. It takes another good minute for the loading circle to appear on the Sager logo. This process itself also takes another minute to finish. By then, it's been almost 5 minutes to reach the login screen. However, once I login, everything loads in pretty fast.

Ever since I started having this issue, my wifi speed (Intel 7260 AC) has also took a dive. I'm not sure if this can be correlated with the startup issue or not.

Both issues have been occurring for a good 2-3 weeks now. So I decided to reorder a new thermal paste and clean up the laptop (been about 4-5 months since the last clean up). I'm not sure if cleaning out the laptop will fix this issue though, so just in case, I would like any feedback on what might possibly be the issue.

 

If it was a thermal issue you could check it out just by running software that reads temperatures like HWMONITOR, REALTEMP, etc.
To me it sounds like a problem with your install or your SSD.
Is re-installing your system something that you can do at ease? Have you ever installed other operating systems? Check in your BIOS if there are more boot entrances other then the Windows Boot Manager. I had something similar after messing up my dual boot configuration.

 

I haven't touched or messed with the SSD at all. And I upgraded from windows 8 to windows 10 since last year. But this problem is recent. SSD temps are ~30C, and my HDD is ~40C.

 

mine was 12 seconds from pressing the on button to being on the forum.
the older it gets the more clogged up with programs and such like and now its 36 seconds and mine will be 4 years old in september.

i dont think thermal paste would slow up bootup. thats more for high temps while its been running for a while.

check my link below and run the free ssd checker to check on its life. also free temp monitors are worth loading.

one thing ive noticed in the past is if ive got a sd card installed and forgot to remove it then that can add to slowing it up so have you got any external drives plugged in.

 

I have 3 other boot entrances. Ipv4/Ipv6 realtek and an external harddrive. The Windows boot manager was set 3rd, behind the Ipv4/Ipv6. I set it as the first boot, but the problem still persist. There's a message when I first startup the laptop, before the logo comes up, "No media present".

I understand that bootups can become clogged over time. But, this case seems extreme, going from a ~10 second bootup to a 5 minute wait, and this issue just came out of the blue. I have 2 external hdds. I'll try disconnecting those and see if they affect the bootup (not sure if the hdds the issue though, had them for 2 years).

When I enter the BIOS, there's a huge lag in the input. Takes about 1-2 seconds for the BIOS to respond to my key inputs. E.g, If I pressed the down key, there's a 2 second delay.

 

So I disabled the network stacks in the BIOS, disconnected the external harddrives, but the problem is still there. At this point, I'm suspecting it might be the motherboard or SSD itself. However, mentioned before, once I reach the login screen, it takes about 5 seconds to load up the desktop and access this page.

Motherboard temps are ~50-60C idle. That seems pretty high?

 

It is (extreme). That does not sound like a boot that's overly saturated with startup items (even a very basic mechanical HDD shouldn't take that long in most cases).

That's a good start. Look for anything you may have installed/updated recently too, and/or run a virus scan. You might even want to run a file integrity check on Windows (cmd -> sfc/ scannow), or a startup repair, or even a health check on the storage drive you're booting from. Let us know what you find out!

A bit high, yes, but nothing that would cause your slow boot time.

 

load and run this. at least this will check the ssd http://ssd-life.com/eng/SSDLife-Freeware.html

 

I just ran an integrity check. Unfortunately the problem is still there. I just started up a virus scan, that's going to take a while though.

I do remember a slight hiccup with a recent windows updates. While I was still using the PC, occasionally a troubleshoot error would popup, insisting that the windows update failed to install.

It says my drive health is excellent, at 89%. Expected to last another 9 years.

 

I would not be surprised if that had something to do with the boot issue. Glad to hear the drive and integrity scan show things as copacetic, though. If it comes to it, you could try a restore point (if you have one available that's older than the issue).

 

I had restore points disabled for 2 years now.... I regret doing that...

Unfortunately I can't uninstall the latest update. As the option to uninstall said update won't appear. While it appears for other windows updates (security, office).

 

Right, this is the case for some of the more critical updates. Hopefully it's not related to that.

If you have another drive or extra space on your existing drive to work with, you could try to install Windows to that and test from there. If you still have slow boot times on a clean install, you can more or less narrow it down to hardware fault.

 

Thanks for all your help. Setting that up is going to be a nuisance. But, hopefully that leads to somewhere.

 

If it isn't already off, make sure to disable Fast Startup. This inane, harebrained 'feature' can result in the exact opposite of what its name would lead you to believe.

 

Found the solution. Such a simple solution too...

Anyways, it was one of my external HDDs. It was the second boot in order, even though windows manager was first, it caused the slow startup. Even disabling the external HDD in the boot order doesn't seem to fix it. So I had to disconnect it entirely before I can start up my PC. Then it works fine.

I was wondering, anyway to fix this (without pulling out the HDD)?

 

Nevermind, the issue is still there. For a while it seemed like my external HDD was the cause of the long post time. As it would go through the post process relatively quickly after I disconnected the HDD. Now it seems like the issue has been reverted even with the HDD disconnected.

I would like to point out, my PC has beeped once and then shut off. After that, I wasn't able to turn on my PC unless the charger was plugged.

 

That probably is the critical battery alarm built into the BIOS, I think that once the battery reaches 3% and you have the Battery Alarm option enabled inside the BIOS, the pc will beep and the battery led will start flashing. Once it shuts down and the battery is at such a low state, the BIOS doesn't let you power it up to prevent damage to the battery.

Can you tell us if Secure Boot, CSM or Network Stack is enabled in BIOS? I don't know if these will cause a delay to be honest but at this point it may be worth it to play with these settings and see if any of them has any effect on your issue.

 

I just picked up on the battery issue. But, before a shutdown/restart my battery has always been at 100%. However, when I unplug the charger and try to boot, the LED lights indicate that my battery is critically low. Once I'm able to log in (plugged in with a charger), the battery would say it's at about 3%. About 5-10 minutes of use, the battery is back to 100%. In the BIOS I also set the alarm for low battery off. Not sure why unplugging the charger during a boot would cause the battery go from 100% to critically low, then have it back to 100% after 5 minutes of use.

As for the Secure Boot and Network Stacks, I have those disabled.

As mentioned before, it seems like I was able to solve it temporarily. Had to disconnect all other devices, except the charger. From there it seemed like one of the two external HDDs was causing the long POST times. The problematic HDD (Seagate) was displayed in the boot order, however, the HDD (WD) that didn't add any additional time to the POST had no option for a boot in the BIOS.

 

Sounds like it's high time to replace the battery.

 

The battery seems to work fine. Even when it's at 100% it'll last a good 2 hours. However, it goes from 100% to 3% only during the boot when the charger isn't plugged.

 

The voltage is used to measure the remaining life so any variation in that could cause odd readings.

 

Back at hand, I really think the POST time has to do with the USBs or something along those lines? Disabled boot from usbpor in the registry, didn't fix the issue.

Is there anyway to measure the voltage without the voltmeter?

 

Hwinfo or aida64 might give you battery readings from the sensor.

 

Wow the wear level is 62%.
Designed Capacity is ~77000 mWh
Full Charge Capacity is ~30000 mWh

I rarely use it unplugged though. So can it really be the battery that causes the POST load times? I took out the battery, and the POST load times are still long.

I do have multiple devices plugged in (mouse, keyboard, 2 external HDDs, PS4 controller, HDMI cable for a 2nd monitor), however, mentioned before, I was able to temporarily fix the long POST time and narrow it down to one of the external harddrives. Unfortunately, the lengthy POST time has returned, even with all devices disconnected.

 

It will explain the odd battery issues, as for the long boot times it really depends where the delay is.

 

Are there any methods on how to find where the delay is?

Once I start up the PC, there's a black screen that hangs for a good minute or two before the logo shows up, which I'm guessing is the POST. The screen would also hang on the logo for a while before the loading circle comes up.

 

What are your full system specs?

 

Windows 10
Intel i7-4700MQ
GTX 780m
16 GB DDR3 1600MHz
120GB Crucial SSD
1TB HDD (I believe it's a toshiba)

 

Try taking out the HDD and make sure you don't have a disk in the ODD.

 

Seems like it was the HDD. I removed it and the boot was pretty fast. I reseated the HDD, and unfortunately, my PC isn't recognizing it now. The HDD was working fine before though, besides the long POST times.

EDIT: I reseated the HDD again, and it wasn't recognized. However, I restarted the PC and accessed the BIOS. Sure enough it was recognized when I accessed the BIOS... weird. The POST times seems to be fixed. Hopefully it isn't like the case with the external HDDs (temporary fix). I guess, the HDD just needed to be reseated.

Thanks for that simple suggestion (feel pretty stupid atm).

 

Don't worry about it, it's not that silly of a miss. I would advise you to back up all information on that HDD. You could also check in future that the boot order does not get swapped (can sometimes happen) to the HDD which could cause a long pause.