Computer Booting Very Slowly. Suspect Motherboad.

<<< since I blew the power while vacuuming >>> check the caps see if you find any damage caps on motherboard. If there is, new motherboard is needed.

Also try to reseat all power cables, data cables, mem, cards, etc.

Post back when you can.

Addon comment:

"use Rams from another machine to see if it improves your system booting to BIOS."

The above mentioned simply means to swap rams on your current mainboard as it may be the causing factor that's resulting in the slowness of your system as I ever had rams being short-circuit when the power supply blew.

Try to scan for the virus using the Anti-Virus software too ...... Sometimes the virus could slow down your PC ............ If you want your PC to be functioning as a new PC, try format it and it will become every things clean just like a new PC ......... Hope this help .....

i would check in the bios if everything is set as it should be, or try bios default settings.

If you can open the case simply check the wire connections inside even unplug and re-plug the wires inside this might help

The PC is about 2 weeks old. I'm pretty sure it's the motherboard. Must have fried it when I blew the power. The slowdown is only at the startup and bios screens. I tried unplugging it and taking out the cmos battery to no avail. Definitely not a viral problem. Will check the cables tonight.

and remove the motherboard battery for more than 60 seconds before re-installing it again

"and remove the motherboard battery for more than 60 seconds before re-installing it again" Tried that.=) Left the battery out for a few minutes. Gave me CMOS errors when booting. I'm guessing because the settings were lost. Guess I'll try reseating everything tonight when I get home. I'm just surprised it started up at all if I fried the board. Wierd that it's fine once windows loads. Why would that be?

I suspect you may have corrupted some files on the hard drive when the sudden power outage took place. The symptoms of a bad capacitor would be more like having to keep restarting the computer until it eventually starts. Is this the case or is it just taking a long time once you push the power button once.
Another thing you may try is starting the computer in safe mode by pressing the f8 key repeatedly on startup until it gives you a menu to choose safe mode. Use the arrow keys to highlight safe mode and click enter.
You should notice a pronounced difference in startup time as alot of drivers are not initiated in safe mode.
Here is a guide to getting into Vista safe mode
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm#03

Will unhook the cdroms and try memtest tonight tkfast. Thanks for the suggestion. It's an ASUS PK5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131180
Do you know of a diag tool for it? I will also try to reset the BIOS as PC Idiot said. I've already flashed it with the most updated version.(Which I think it was using anyway.) and pulled the plug and CMOS Battery.

"The symptoms of a bad capacitor would be more like having to keep restarting the computer until it eventually starts."
I think you may be onto something here. The POST and BIOS messages are slow and it sometimes takes a few tries to get it to start.  Disk SMART status is ok. Bios sees all the ram and the processor.

>>  since I blew the power while vacuuming   <<   what happened?
to test the mobo, try these :
http://www.pc-doctor.com/                                    PC doctor
www.tufftest.com/tt01-lite.htm                        free      TuffTest lite

>>  since I blew the power while vacuuming   <<   what happened?

I was vacuuming in the other room and I tripped the circut breaker. I've had the problem since then.

then i doubt that it is hardware; but you never know
you can try to upgrade your bios

stopher2475,

If u have already barebone your system to the minimal, updated ur BIOS to latest version and has reset it to default settings etc all and even changed your ram, I believe there's all you could do and if it's still slow, it could be the BIOS chipset that's being affected in this instance as you mentioned that this only happens during bootup and in BIOS mode and does not affect once windows startsup as windows does not utilise BIOS after booting in normally.

It's kind of ridiculous to ask u to replace the BIOS chipset (Award, AMI or Pheonix etc) I believe it's possible to check with your mainboard manufacturer perhaps for warranty and RMA

If it takes a couple of pushes of the power button, this could be the power supply(they have capacitors also) or a bad cap on the motherboard.
Whenever you are trying to sort issues that occur at the wall plug, the first in line to get hit is the power supply. I would start there even if you were on a surge suppressor.

Hi stopher2475,

Did you managed to resolve ur issue? Hope everything goes well.

Dear nobus I posted a reply to you on question under the following url kindly have time to read my comment
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22904460/Odd-new-PC-problem.html

Sorry I haven't updated. The vendor is replacing the motherboard as you suggested. I will post back once I have it and install it.
Thanks,
Chris

stopher2475,

All the best and keep us updated of the results.

Just installed the new motherboard. It's definitely faster but not like it should be. Still 10 minute bootup is better than 20.=) Could it be the RAM? or Powersupply? I'm not sure what to try next. It's still a perfectly usable machine. It's not like I can just try out new parts.

Further narrowing down the issue:

1) How many rams do u have? 1 or 2? If u have 2, remove 1 of it and run ur system with only 1 ram. Else, try to check with ur friend if they have spare ram to isolate.

2) As for power supply slowing down ur system, that's the 1st time I heard of it. I believe power supply should be out. What's left is your CPU chipset, not sure whether that has been affected. There's nothing else that could affect your system bootup.

did you test your hardware?
another thing to try is a clean install (best); even running sfc /Scannow from the run box, or a repair install can help  : http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

It can't be the install. This is all pre OS problems. Just trying to shift through the bios screen is slow. I guess I'll try 1 stick of ram at a time tonight to see if I can isolate. I have a spare sata I can try as well. It is faster now with the new motherboard but that could be the ram in a different slot. This was a machine that booted in 60 seconds and now takes 10-15 min.=( Sucks b/c I only had it a little over a month. Could they have sent me a second bad motherboard? It would seem unlikely.  

try a fresh install on another partition or disk

stopher2475,

maybe yes, maybe no, difficult to isolate. Since you have a "new" mainboard (though sometimes the company/IT shop may provide you a refurbished/RMA-ed mainboard), it's still better to try out and if they really change a 3rd mainboard for you and still the issue persists, u really have got to narrow it down to ur CPU chip or ram.

If you do have onboard graphics, try booting up with onboard graphics instead of your nVidean8800GTS graphics card.

Agree with nobus, just like my fourth comment, fresh install sometime could help out ...... there is a lots of possibilities if you never try it and straight away said is not the OS problems ...... we are trying to make the area that cause the problems become smaller so we are get closer with the answer. .... ;)

Tried one memory module at a time. Unhooked DVDs. Still slow. Again I'm thinking power supply or possibly another bad motherboard. Could try detaching HDD. Can't even navigate through the BIOS. It's like there's a 30-60 delay between each button push.

replaced the power supply this weekend. I think they sent me a bad RMA motherboard and that's still the problem. May try to get them to send me another one. Rindi, should I just split the points among the people who tried to assist?

It depends on the answers you got, I haven't read them yet, nor have I read the Q itself. If the answers either aren't correct, or not helpful, then you shouldn't accept them. Then you should follow the instructions within the Link I posted above, a section there tells you how to deal with unanswered, or "I answered myself" Q's.

Aöso, if you are still waiting for hardware to arrive, you can still leave the Q open until it does, just tell us about it.

If anyone is still watching this is it worth sending the motherboard back. I'm thinking the RMA return they sent me might have been bad. Is that something that happens with these returns? Did no drives and 1 stick of ram at a time. so I'm thinking the processor or the RMA motherboard is all that's left. Possibly video card. Once again once the system boots all is fine. Just the boot and bios stuff is slow.

>>   I'm thinking the RMA return they sent me might have been bad. Is that something that happens with these returns?   <<   i have read from several people here about problems with RMA boards - so yes, it happens. Up to you to decide to send it back or not

Does it really seem like software when I can't even navigate the BIOS setup? That can't be. There's like a 30 second delay in the BIOS settings. That's before any software is loaded.

and check if it is trying to boot from some thing else than the primary disk, and disable those