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XPS 8930, taking minutes to boot
My 8930, which has been a great machine, suddenly a day ago started taking 4 to 5 minutes to boot up. There were no problems leading up to this. A day or two ago I turned it on and after 30 seconds or more the round Dell logo appears but it would not ever boot. Finally the next morning I booted it and just left it on and the round Logo appeared after a minute or so and I just left it like that and finally after 3-4 more minutes it boots and runs fine. It is still doing this after 2 days.
Now let me add this info. For over a year when I boot this machine sometimes a BIOS page pops up and says it had detected a possible problem and has a "continue" box at the bottom right. I just hit this "continue" with the mouse and it quickly boots and runs just fine. I am pretty sure the pop up concerns the start button or something else on the top next to it......USB audio etc. However all of those slots work fine.
Ideas or suggestions?
RoHe
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March 16th, 2024 00:44
Version of BIOS? Did you install a BIOS update right before this problem started?
Version of Windows?
When was last time you replaced motherboard battery? If it's "old", start there, if nothing else than to rule the battery out.
If new battery doesn't help, reboot and tap F12. When the menu opens, select option to run diagnostics and run all of them. Be patient, this will take a while. Copy error messages, if any...
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mfurr
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March 16th, 2024 01:07
Thanks RoHe. BIOS is 1.1.30, never did install 1.1.31 Windows 10 up tp date and the battery is about 8 months old BTW, the trouble started after installing the last Win 10 update a few days ago. Had a power blip and it rebooted. I did let it finish the update though. I will go ahead and do your above steps later tonight or tomorrow morning. When I turn the machine on it is taking from 5-9 minutes or so to boot up with just the round DELL logo showing. BTW, I was going to ask you to post a little guide for using Marcium free version, and should I use clone or image? I don't really know what boxes to check or just leave alone, but that is another topic. The computer works just fine and speed is fine once it boots.
RoHe
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March 17th, 2024 01:23
I wouldn't clone or image the boot drive until you figure out and fix whatever is going on now. Otherwise, your image could have the same problems booting. If you have personal files on the boot drive, back those up on external media asap, but not Windows and app files.
Cloning a drive means you directly copy the image from one drive onto another drive. The XPS 8930 only has one NVME SSD slot (assuming your boot drive is an SSD), so you would need to buy an external NVME>USB adapter for a new SSD in order to clone the existing SSD onto the other, and then swap the new drive into the M.2 slot on motherboard. Cloning a drive also means everything on the destination drive is overwritten, but the cloned drive is bootable when swapped back into the PC.
Imaging a drive means you copy all partitions on the existing drive and save the (compressed) image on another drive. The image is saved on the other drive, along with everything else that is as already on that drive. The image on that other drive is not bootable. You would need to create a bootable USB stick using the same imaging software to boot the PC and copy the image back onto an internal drive, deleting everything that was already there.
It sounds like it's trying to install that update and failing and/or if the Windows update got interrupted, it's possible it's corrupted. So you might want to uninstall the update. If you have a recent Windows System Restore point, one just before that last update, you might want to revert to that Restore point. Or, read this about uninstalling a recent Windows update.
Macrium Reflect is only free for 30 days now. So not a long term way to store images, unless you're willing to pay for the product. Their website has lots of detailed info about imaging and cloning drives. So have a read...
RoHe
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March 17th, 2024 01:41
I got forum Notification that you made another post in this thread "2 hours ago", but I don't see it.
You marked my first post as the Answer, so has this been fixed?
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mfurr
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March 17th, 2024 02:30
@RoHe Yes, I don't know why they haven't posted my reply to you. I finally got it straight and part of it was a problem with a Logitech wireless keyboard I was using. I did go through all the BIOS and battery changing etc and it helped and finally got it all back to normal. Thanks.
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RoHe
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March 18th, 2024 19:18
Glad you got it sorted.
Odd a Logi keyboard was causing problems. Is/was Load Legacy Options ROM enabled in BIOS setup? That's about only setting I could possibly see causing slow boots.
Still no sign of your previous post. Could you have said something that got accidentally got flagged as spam?
mfurr
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March 20th, 2024 04:56
Ron, I just checked in and saw your last post. No, the reply they didn't post was just an explination of the things I did and the order etc. I talked a little about how I cleaned the inside stuff and got all the dust etc out, changed the battery etc. I am going to try the Logi MX Keys Mini again tomorrow and see if it gives me any trouble.
RoHe
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March 21st, 2024 01:00
Before you go too far, open Device Manager and click View>Show hidden. Then look everywhere in Device Manager for any Unknown device(s). Right-click and uninstall the Unknown device(s).
Then click Action>Scan for hardware changes. When that's done, shut Windows down normally. With power off, disconnect current keyboard and plug in Logi MX Keys Mini and boot PC. See if that solves the problem.
BTW: Be sure to connect (whichever) keyboard to one of the two USB2 ports on rear of PC.
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