Windows 10 very slow boot

FanadMan

Hi folks

I was give a laptop to repair (cracked screen and running slow) Got the screen sorted in no time but it takes so long to boot to a working state. I've done the usual - disable startup items, all the malware scans (rkill, Hitman Pro, MalwareBytes and ccCleaner) and a full hdd check. It all came back clean. I am stumped as to what can be done next.

Sony Vaio PCG-71311M
Pentium P6100 @ 2.0GHz
4GB RAM


Any ideas?

coylemj

Very slow boot usually points to a slow drive. Does the disk light keep flashing for an age when you boot? Might be time to upgrade to an SSD, especially if it's a HDD that spins at 5,400 RPM. But even a 7,200 RPM HDD is achingly slow compared to a decent SSD.

You mentioned 'full HDD check' in your post so I assume it is not an SSD.

Ranjo

Would you bother putting an SSD in a Pentium with 4 GB RAM? I doubt the faster disk is going to result in great performance.

Does it boot to OS, then still take ages? i.e. have you checked the resource monitor for whats happening?

How much space is left on the disk btw?

Xterminator

might be time for a refresh of the OS IMO. back stuff up and reinstall OS.

FanadMan

It's a 500GB Hitachi HDD with 211GB free so it's not overused. Don't know if it's worth putting in an SSD - the machine is quite old now and it would probably be throwing good money after bad. From logon to it being useable (about 5 minutes), the HDD performance is sitting between 95 and 100%

The RAM is 2 x 2GB. Might suggest to the owner to upgrade to 6 or 8GB. Will also suggest backing up his data - it's mostly pictures and some work docs. Think an OS restore/refresh is probably the way to go.

Johnboy1951

I fail to see how increasing the ram will cure a slow boot. 4GB should be plenty for the OS to boot properly.

Try a liveUSB of some Linux Distro to see how long it takes to boot from USB.

Fabritzo

Is your battery holding a charge? Win10 can boot faster if the pc doesn't lose power, fast boot is turned on by default in power options

FanadMan

Fabritzo wrote: »

Is your battery holding a charge? Win10 can boot faster if the pc doesn't lose power, fast boot is turned on by default in power options

It's normally plugged in and battery does hold a charge fairly well. Fast Boot is enabled and Hibernation is disabled.

Sod it, telling owner to back up his stuff and I'll do a restore.

Fabritzo

From what I gather you might need hibernation turned on for fast boot to work
http://winaero.com/blog/disable-hibernation-but-keep-fast-startup/

FanadMan

Fabritzo wrote: »

From what I gather you might need hibernation turned on for fast boot to work
http://winaero.com/blog/disable-hibernation-but-keep-fast-startup/

Just checked and hibernation is disabled. Fast start, sleep and lock are enabled.

Looking through the startup options, there were a few iCloud and iTunes programs enabled. Disabled them and now the machine boots really quickly.

quaidox

thanks for sharing the solution...

FanadMan

quaidox wrote: »

thanks for sharing the solution...

I'll have to tell the owner to get his wife to use her own computer for the Apple stuff......he had sense and changed to Android

After playing around with the startup, it was definitely the iCloud software that was causing the problems. With it disabled, the HDD access time on startup dropped dramatically. Compared to over 5 minutes for it to be usable, it now takes about 1 minute.