Intermittent boot problem - stuck at spinning dots (sometimes)

Yes, when in doubt, always disable Fast Boot (or Fast Startup). The booting time difference is not perceivable and you avoid such compatibility issues.

hi everyone-

just wanted to a final update on the issue. so even the MSI FAST BOOT thing did not help. it doesn't seem to have anything to do with that.

but the very very very BIZARRE thing that it IS linked to was connected my mobo's POWER LED HEADERS to a desktop powerbutton. so basically, my entire pc is just sitting in a setup frame that people use for testing but i just keep it that way for convenience. so i have been using the power button directly on the mobo to power up.

but i discovered on amazon that they sell these palm sized buttons which act just like the power button on a standard pc case and connect to the mobo headers to work.

well, i had forgotten that these intermittent freezes only really started happening after i had connected that thing.

so i was going to just remove the button altogether but i thought i'd do some due diligence and tried disconnecting bits at a time. first thing i tried was disconnecting the POWER LED headers. no real rhyme or reason to that... i just followed my gut.

anyway, ever since i removed the power led headers, the desktop button no longer lights up when the pc is on.... BUT IT DOES NOT HANG AT BOOT ANYMORE!!! it's been months. and it's been nothing but clear sailing.

so i have no idea wtf that's about. could it be that my power supply is SO on the edge that connecting the POWER LEDs actually pushed it over the limit?

again, i have no idea why... but this is what worked.

and just came back to update this thread so in case someone stumbles onto this on their troubleshooting journey, they have this bit of info that worked for me.

Most likely the power led cable was shorting for some reason and affected the motherboard. If you have both power and disk activity LEDs, you can connect the disk activity LED to the power LED on the motherboard so you can see when your PC is on. It is similar to using the reset button to switch on the computer when the power button is damaged.

The spinning dots (Windows 10 and 11 21H2) or spinning curves (Windows 11 22H2) means that some driver or other component has stuck preventing Windows from loading. In that case reset the computer 3-4 times to get into Troubleshooting screen. Select Troubleshoot and then Advanced Startup Settings. This will restart and give you a list. Select 4 Safe Mode or 5 Safe Mode with networking if you want internet connection. If it loads Windows you can investigate and troubleshoot from there. In some cases the graphics drivers don't load properly. If you cannot reinstall the driver in Safe Mode, go to Device Manager and manually replace the graphics driver with Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, then restart. This will stop Windows trying to fix the graphics drivers and let you see the desktop. Once at the desktop install latest graphics drivers from Manufacturer, avoid Windows Update.

PS: The OP already said it was a faulty power LED cable (hardware issue).