PC has trouble starting.

Bluegunk

Member
I'm recently having an freeze on start issue with this PC. On power up, it remains on the PC Specialist Del / F2 for Bios screen, and the Motherboard readout says "Detect HDD". Sometimes, after a ten minute wait, it will continue to boot. Sometimes not.
When stuck, if I reboot, restart, or get to the BIOS screen, eventually the PC will start and run perfectly.
I've refreshed Windows.
The SSD C drive reports no errors and is fully optimised. I wonder if a Windross Update did something?
I have four mains-powered USB-connected storage disks attached. These have been attached for over a year and I had no problem with the set-up. The start-up problems begun around April-May . I've scanned all disks for errors and come back with none.

Any ideas how I can investigate this as an IT Dummy, most appreciated.

The PC is under extended warranty.

Thanks!
Clive

Case
PCS SR-819 RGB FULL TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™ i9-10900X 10 Core (3.7GHz @ up to 4.7GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG RAMPAGE VI EXTREME ENCORE: DDR4, 6Gb/s, CrossFireX/SLI, Wi-Fi AC - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
1TB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 470MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 256MB CACHE
1st Storage Drive
1TB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 470MB/W)
Intel Optane Memory
64GB INTEL® M10 OPTANE MEMORY (X299) - USE WITH MECHANICAL HDD
External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
6x Slim USB 2.0 External Blu-Ray Writer
Memory Card Reader
USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ASUS STRIX Soar 7.1 PCIe sound card
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [MUP-00003]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Supplied on USB Drive
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2019 (1 Digital License)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Insurance
Simplesurance Purchase Protection inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 7 working days
Welcome Book
PCSpecialist Welcome Book - United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland
Logo Branding
PCSpecialist Logo
 

B4zookaw

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
It may be a stupid question so apologies but: Have you tried unplugging all the USB connected drives and running it?
I was going to suggest the same thing. I'm wondering if your boot order has USB devices higher, so it scans each of the 4 to see if it is a boot drive, before moving to the next device in the list. And if there is an issue with the USB drives being ready to read, it blocks the PC from booting.

Can you post a screenshot of your boot order options in the BIOS?
 

Bluegunk

Member
Thank you. I will try that. The Bios has the C drive SDD as the first boot device.
That was the first thing I checked.
I will try that on the next boot up, so this may be tomorrow or later today. I'll let you know the results.
 

Jasontvnd

Bronze Level Poster
Might be worth unplugging the HDD as a troubleshooting step aswell , Basically leave it as just the SSD , No USB drives and no secondary drives.

Next step for me would be to completely do a fresh install of windows from a USB drive Incase something is wrong with the windows install.
 

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
If it was me, and was having to do a full wipe & reinstall of Windows, I'd also consider putting a smaller, faster m.2 SSD in there just for the OS/Apps...and move the 1TB PCS SSD to one of your spare m.2 slots.
 

Jasontvnd

Bronze Level Poster
If it was me, and was having to do a full wipe & reinstall of Windows, I'd also consider putting a smaller, faster m.2 SSD in there just for the OS/Apps...and move the 1TB PCS SSD to one of your spare m.2 slots.
Honestly outside of benchmarking we've yet to see the gen 4 ssd's make any real difference.

Lets get the guys computer working before we try to convince him to buy a faster ssd.
 

TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Honestly outside of benchmarking we've yet to see the gen 4 ssd's make any real difference.

Lets get the guys computer working before we try to convince him to buy a faster ssd.
Nothing to do with Gen 3/Gen 4 PCIe (which is what I assume you mean). It's to do with the difference between a 'slower' SATA SSD and an 'faster' m.2 SSD with orders of magnitude greater performance!

The advice was simply to point out that if you're going to spend the time and effort to wipe & reinstall Windows, and reinstall all your apps, then it would be a good time to consider putting in a significantly faster m.2.

I'm also not talking about 'willy waving' benchmarks either, I'm talking about simple things like boot times, OS update speeds, copying/pasting/opening/saving large files (my InDesign catalogue files can be 2GB per chapter), Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects scratch disk, etc.
 

Jasontvnd

Bronze Level Poster
You're not using them correctly. They make a huge difference and with directstorage that's only going to be more relevant.
Spyder I have a good understanding of how SSD's work , Access times are what makes SSD's good not drive read and write performance.

The difference between a Sata SSD and a gen 4 m.2 in real world performance is next to negligible.

If it takes 9 seconds to boot from gen 4 SSD you are looking at around 14 seconds from a Sata SSD.

Gaming performance is even less of a difference , The only time I use my gen 4 SSD for any real performance benefit is when I'm scrubbing through 4k footage and honestly it wouldn't make a huge difference using the gen 3 in that case.

Direct storage might change that or it might just be another example of marketing not living up to the hype.

If the OP has an issue with his drive and it's still in warranty he should be RMAing it.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Spyder I have a good understanding of how SSD's work , Access times are what makes SSD's good not drive read and write performance.

The difference between a Sata SSD and a gen 4 m.2 in real world performance is next to negligible.

If it takes 9 seconds to boot from gen 4 SSD you are looking at around 14 seconds from a Sata SSD.

Gaming performance is even less of a difference , The only time I use my gen 4 SSD for any real performance benefit is when I'm scrubbing through 4k footage and honestly it wouldn't make a huge difference using the gen 3 in that case.

Direct storage might change that or it might just be another example of marketing not living up to the hype.

If the OP has an issue with his drive and it's still in warranty he should be RMAing it.
Again I'm afraid your not basing this off current technologies

Directstorage make a huge difference with any speed you throw at it.

The boot speeds you mentioned are significant for anyone, the fact you say it's barely an prpvement really surprises me.

The fact you say that in your testing you've not seen any particular improvements and that RW performance has no impact suggests your not using it for any storage related performance workflows as anyone that does, including gamers would instantly tell you how wrong that is.

Just because you haven't experienced improvements for your given workflow doesn't mean others using scientific throughputs or databases, gaming, rendering outputs etc doesn't have a significantly different experience to you.

Don't generalise based on limited experience, it's not fair on the people you're advising.
 

Bluegunk

Member
Many thanks for your assistance everyone. I went through all the USB devices and the disks were fine. There was clearly an issue with one or more devices and reconnecting them seems to have fixed them all bar one.

The culprit appears to have been the upstream USB for the ROGP35v Display's two USB 3.0 ports. Win 10 refuses to work with that, and it may have been the source of the problem. It's no big deal, I don't need to use those.

All sorted now. The PC boots normally.
 
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Jasontvnd

Bronze Level Poster
Again I'm afraid your not basing this off current technologies

Directstorage make a huge difference with any speed you throw at it.

The boot speeds you mentioned are significant for anyone, the fact you say it's barely an prpvement really surprises me.

The fact you say that in your testing you've not seen any particular improvements and that RW performance has no impact suggests your not using it for any storage related performance workflows as anyone that does, including gamers would instantly tell you how wrong that is.

Just because you haven't experienced improvements for your given workflow doesn't mean others using scientific throughputs or databases, gaming, rendering outputs etc doesn't have a significantly different experience to you.

Don't generalise based on limited experience, it's not fair on the people you're advising.
Yeah I hate it when I only have 9 seconds to boot windows instead of 14 it's a nightmare....

I also never said read/write performance is irrelevant I said SSD's ability to get near instant access is the biggest benefit over HDDs.

Don't talk about my experience Spyder i've never had to use it to win an argument and I won't here but suffice to say it's probably alot more comprehensive than your own considering I'm likely older and have a work related background in IT.

As for your gen 4 improvement for gaming it's just not true.... Load times for games are basically the same for just about any SSD.
 
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