Arch Linux

smithw

Member

Registered: 2014-05-10

Posts: 18

Long boot time before getting to bootloader

Hi, I'm having this issue and I have absolutely no idea how to even ask the question. I guess this is the closest possible forum, although it still seems a bit off. Mods, if it's inappropriate, please feel free to delete this thread.

I have a rebranded Clevo W650SJ that's taking really long times (5+ minutes, and sometimes even more) to get to the bootloader (and even to "BIOS" menu, if I press F2, or boot menu, when I press F8). While I wait, the screen is completely off, even the backlight. I have it configured to boot via EFI using rEFInd, as such:

• /dev/sda - SSD

  • /dev/sda1 - ESP (contains BOTH refind_x64.efi and Windows bootloader)

  • /dev/sda2 - BTRFS root partition

• /dev/sdb - Regular HDD

  • /dev/sda1 - Microsoft reserved partition

  • /dev/sda2 - NTFS root Windows partition

  • /dev/sda3 - Extra NTFS Windows partition

EFI firmware is configured to load refind_x64.efi from the ESP, and from there branch between chainloading the Windows bootloader and loading Arch's kernel from the BTRFS partition.

Since a few days ago, every time I rebooted or turned the laptop on and off, it would take a long time to even get to the rEFInd menu. Figuring something might be wrong with my rEFInd installation, I copied all the files from the refind install folder (/usr/share/refind) to the ESP again (ESP:/EFI/refind/), and cleaned up my refind.conf completely, such that the only uncommented lines on this file are these:

timeout 5
scanfor internal,external
also_scan_dirs Hastings/boot
dont_scan_dirs EFI/Boot,EFI/refind,EFI/Dell,EFI/memtest86

Of course, that didn't work. What did happen is this: I made a mistake on the correct refind_x64.efi path while creating a new entry (just to be sure) for it on the EFI firmware using efibootmgr. When I rebooted, it went to the second item in the boot order (which would be the Windows bootloader), and then it booted regularly fast, instantly from turning on to the Windows load screen. However, when I went on to try and press F2 to get to the BIOS screen (and change the bootloader back to rEFInd), it took a few minutes to get there again. Also, after I finally got the BIOS screen and changed the bootloader back to rEFInd, the computer went back to taking long times to show the bootloader.

Even with the Windows fast booting incident, I'd still hazard a guess this is most likely a hardware issue; but I have absolutely no idea which hardware may be the issue. Once the computer finally boots up (usually after a few tries waiting for the boot menu to show up, that will add up to almost an hour waiting for the computer to boot), everything will work ordinarily, even tricky hardware such as the video card, or RAM intensive programs such as Mathematica. However, if I dare reboot the computer or turn it off and on again, it gets caught up in the waiting limbo pre-bootloader again.

Any ideas what might be causing this? Can this possibly be software related? Or at least which piece of hardware might be failing? SSD, RAM, CPU? Also, how would I go about getting debug logs for something that happens possibly before rEFInd itself starts? I completely lost on how I should debug this.

Thanks in advance.

shulamy

Member

From: israel

Registered: 2010-09-11

Posts: 454

Re: Long boot time before getting to bootloader

(and even to "BIOS" menu, if I press F2, or boot menu, when I press F8).

this is usually a hardware problem.

ezik

mich41

Member

Registered: 2012-06-22

Posts: 796

Re: Long boot time before getting to bootloader

Or firmware issue. With old-school BIOS my first reaction would be loading default BIOS settings, followed by removing battery for a minute if the former doesn't help.