My PC is having a major boot issue where it takes about 5 to 10 minutes to finally show the BIOS screen. The VGA light comes on at startup, which is a bit concerning. I've already tried switching out the GPUs, resetting BIOS settings, changing to an HDMI cable, and even swapping the GPU slot. I'm worried this might be linked to the CPU or motherboard, but I'm hoping to find a solution without having to replace those parts. Any suggestions?
3 Answers
It sounds like you might have lost access to your hard drive. Your PC is probably still trying to boot and load the operating system, but it's having trouble. I suggest creating a Windows bootable USB drive to see if it can detect the hard drive. You might need a new one if it's not recognized.
Don’t forget to check the RAM as well. Sometimes simply reseating it can make a difference.
I reseated one of the RAM sticks, but the other one is tucked under my CPU cooler and I can't easily access it.
Sometimes a hard drive that’s not responsive can really slow down the boot process. You might want to try disconnecting the data line from your hard drive and see if your PC boots faster to BIOS after that. If it does speed things up, you’re likely looking at needing a new hard drive soon.
Good news: that actually worked! But the bad news is, my boot drive is the one that’s having issues. I’m still seeing that VGA error during startup though.

Yeah, it still shows up in the BIOS storage list, but it seems like it can’t access the files.