Lenovo H420 Desktop takes over 5 mins to boot up [ Edited ]

[WEB1]

Hi,

We have a Lenovo H420 desktop that takes over 3 mins to boot up. After you switch it on, the monitor displays a black screen with 'Lenovo' in white writing and remains with this screen for minutes on end seemingly doing nothing (hard drive  cannot be heard working and it's activity light doesn't flash). After about 3 minutes Windows 7 suddenly loads in a matter of seconds.

Any ideas what is wrong? Is this normal?

We've only had this computer for about 3 months and it has been doing it since we bought it. We reset the computer back to its factory settings but that hasn't changed anything. Bios doesn't seem to be accessible as no startup screen saying press del for setup etc shows.

Kaspersky and Malwarebytes doesn't show any nasties.

Thanks

[topmahof Community Moderator]

Hi WEB1 and welcome to the community,

Here's your Hardware Maintenance Manual .  On page 16, it shows how to get into the Setup Utility Program.

Check the configuration, it might be set to do a memory check or something before booting.

Do you have anything plugged in to USB, like an external hard drive, a phone, a flash drive that it might be trying to boot from?

Dave 

[WEB1]

Hi Dave.

Thanks for replying. Have tried what the maual says by either holding F1 or pressing repeatedly until the beeps sound and it does nothing. The black screen with 'Lenovo' just displays as usual.

Oh, probably should add that when you switch the computer on, it never shows a POST screen like most computers, just the 'Lenovo' splash screen for 2 mins or so and then straight into loading Windows.

[topmahof Community Moderator]

Hi WEB1,

That Lenovo screen you see should be the bios screen.

How about trying to press F12 at startup, (I have a U160 and I have to press Fn+F12), and see if you can bring up the boot order.  See if there's anything in front of the hard drive as far as booting.  There should be an option at the bottom of that screen to enter setup, see if you can get into the setup utility from there.

Just press the F12, don't hold it down, it might take a couple of trys to get the timing right.  I press mine just before the Lenovo screen comes up and when that screen comes up, it says at the bottom, entering boot order.  Holding it down just boots into Windows.

Does F8 bring up the safe mode screen?  

Dave

[WEB1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply. Tried what you suggested and it didn't work; the keys did nothing. So I removed all peripherials, switched the computer on, and it loaded up lightening fast. It turned out it was a card swipe scanner that was causing the slow startup problem. Without it, the bios settings can be accessed and the computer loads fast. The scanner isn't faulty because I tried our spare ones and the result was the same. Thought if I changed the startup sequence so hdd is 1 and usb fdd etc are excluded would sort the problem out, but it didn't.

At least we know there is nothing wrong with the computer. We'll just have to live with the slowness!

Many thanks for your help and time.

[topmahof Community Moderator]

Hi WEB1,

At least you figured out what it was.

Dave