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A couple days ago I shut down and unplugged my Win 7 PC to change outlets on the power strip. It was running great with no issues or complaints. Startup times were like a minute at most and performance was snappy. No new software installed, nothing changed on my end.
When I switched plugs and booted back up a few seconds later it got stuck on the BIOS screen (I thought). I waited for a couple minutes but it didn't budge and didn't respond to me hitting F12 to enter the BIOS (just to see if it had crashed, didn't actually care to enter the BIOS). I restarted several times with the same result. I tried switching the plug back, negative. Tried leaving it unplugged overnight, no change.
I finally just left it on the BIOS screen for a while and after several minutes it started the OS initialization. Unfortunately this took forever and it was like watching it in super slow-motion. When it finally booted up everything continued to be in slow-mo, when I open or close windows they fade in and out. The mouse moves normally and internet browsing is not affected, but this is an HTPC and I can't watch TV on it anymore because the picture is too slow.
I ran the disk check and didn't get anything, and everything I can tell seems to be fine but I really don't know how to do any diagnostics, there doesn't seem to be any diagnostic tools set up on my PC. I am confident it isn't software or hard drive related since it affects the computer before the OS even boots up. I am thinking it has to be motherboard or memory related?
Any advice on how to check that for free (I am poor, no funds available to spend on this), or any other suggestions?
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You CMOS battery may have died and restored your BIOS settings to default (and therefore not optimal). If so your system clock would be off in the BIOS. I would follow @Hennes advice and also run a memtest and hard drive test as well if it doesn't resolve the problem. Heat would also explain this problem. Check all fans are spinning when you boot. – Moses – 2013-09-09T00:04:31.213