Question Slow Win 10 Startup with NVME SSD

[ibex333]

Intel 660 1TB NVME SSD. Bootup time of 15 seconds...

As a comparison, an 8 year old laptop I have with a cheap crappy 2.5 SSD is 6 seconds.

WHAT GIVES?!

I went to startup tab in task manager and disabled everything. So that's not what's slowing down the boot time. Computer is a brand new Dell G5 I just got a month ago. I only upgraded that SSD on it.

I don't know what else to do... How do I get to the root cause of the issue?

 

[Super Spartan]

The NVMe controller takes longer time to initialize during startup which leads to a big 5-10 second delay before you even start seeing the Windows loading icon start to spin.

For example, the laptop that you see in my signature with one of the best SSDs would bout into Windows in about 20 to 25 seconds whereas my wife's 7 year old Dell Vostro with a SATA Crucial MX500 GB SSD would be on the Windows desktop literally within 8 seconds. In 8 seconds if I stat my laptop at the same time, I would still be waiting for the Windows loading spinning icon to start spinning where she would be back in business.

And this is WITH Windows' useless Fast Startup setting turned ON. So sad, these NVMe SSDs IMHO only show me faster speeds when copying gigantic files but for snappiness, quick loading of Windows, etc. I find the old SATA SSDs better. Just my 2 cents.

 

[ibex333]

Thank you! I honestly had no idea! I might wanna copy my windows install over to a regular SSD and use my NVME for games.

 

[UsandThem]

My NVMe drive boots faster than a SATA SSD in my PCs, so I don't agree with the advice in post #2. Leave the NVMe drive for the OS, and the SATA SSD for games. Huge difference? Not really, but it's a few seconds faster, but how often do you restart your PC anyways? I reboot mine like once a month (unless there is a software update that needs a restart).

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-windows-10-boot-time,5810.html

 

[bigboxes]

My NVMe drive boots faster than a SATA SSD in my PCs, so I don't agree with the advice in post #2. Leave the NVMe drive for the OS, and the SATA SSD for games. Huge difference? Not really, but it's a few seconds faster, but how often do you restart your PC anyways? I reboot mine like once a month (unless there is a software update that needs a restart).

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-windows-10-boot-time,5810.html

Preaching to the choir! But seriously, I just put in a second M.2 SSD just for games. Having just built my new pc, this is the most I will restart my computer, between hardware installs and software installs and updates. Usually it's like once a month.

 

[UsandThem]

Preaching to the choir! But seriously, I just put in a second M.2 SSD just for games. Having just built my new pc, this is the most I will restart my computer, between hardware installs and software installs and updates. Usually it's like once a month.

I agree.

I honestly wouldn't care if my PC even took minutes to boot since it's such an infrequent event for me. Honestly, my entire family and all of our various PCs never get restarted very often. When we're done using them for a while, we put them to sleep, and Windows 10 comes out of that state so quickly that it's pretty well unnoticeable.

 

[razel]

I would do an msconfig to log the boot which can tell you what's taking the longest.

 

[bigboxes]

I agree.

I honestly wouldn't care if my PC even took minutes to boot since it's such an infrequent event for me. Honestly, my entire family and all of our various PCs never get restarted very often. When we're done using them for a while, we put them to sleep, and Windows 10 comes out of that state so quickly that it's pretty well unnoticeable.

I just turned off all power management options today. I can't stand to wait while Windows 10 comes out of hibernation/sleep. I just turn the monitor off/on. That's just a personal preference. Today's computers sip on electricity except when under load. I think my electrical bill was $68 this last month. The home server stays on 24/7 as well. The HTPC gets shut off after each use. I just don't use it all that often.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Startup time or boot time has never been a deal-breaker for me. Like one or more posters said, I leave my machine on mostly all the time. That is, I did so until recently.

It's important for me that everything works properly, because if it doesn't, it could be a sign of some hardware error, driver or software problem. So I insist that all the power features -- particularly sleep and hibernate -- work properly and reliably..

I have 32 GB of RAM, and I have half of it configured for use with PrimoCache. My hiberfil.sys file is therefore a large one. So at end of last year, I discovered that hibernation and sleep would fail on wakeup, throwing a critical error 41 in the event viewer before completing a boot into windows. It turned out that the problem was due to an outdated Samsung NVME driver, and the update completely rectified everything.

But again, the time it takes to return from hibernation or the time it takes to boot fresh is not a deal-breaker for me. I'm only interested in performance once the system is up and running. If I thought there were a delay in waking up or booting due to some hardware problem, I would be on it like flies on roadkill to troubleshoot and fix it.

 

[dlerious]

Do you have anything plugged in to USB? I notice a difference here with my external drive - faster boot when unplugged. A disc in an optical drive can slow the boot for those that still use them (blank discs are worse).

 

[bigboxes]

Do you have anything plugged in to USB? I notice a difference here with my external drive - faster boot when unplugged. A disc in an optical drive can slow the boot for those that still use them (blank discs are worse).

Agreed. Anything that has to initialize slows the boot process down.

 

[Makaveli]

The difference that I see is you are comparing a laptop vs a desktop motherboard. The laptop bios tends to be locked down and not have as much so there is less to do during its boot process. Its a case by case basis some laptops will boot faster than other laptops and same for desktop motherboards.

 

[UsandThem]

Thought there was another reply in this thread, but just another down vote.

Instead of down-voting, how about a link showing NVMe drives are twice as slow a SATA SSDs in booting? @Super Spartan

But I understand, down-voting is easier than backing up a claim.

 

[Super Spartan]

Thought there was another reply in this thread, but just another down vote.

Instead of down-voting, how about a link showing NVMe drives are twice as slow a SATA SSDs in booting? @Super Spartan

But I understand, down-voting is easier than backing up a claim.

I will make a video of my wife's 8 year old Dell Vostro vs my new shiny Gigabyte AERO 15 laptop with Sabrent Rocket+ 2TB SSDs and show you exactly what I mean.

 

[UsandThem]

I will make a video of my wife's 8 year old Dell Vostro vs my new shiny Gigabyte AERO 15 laptop with Sabrent Rocket+ 2TB SSDs and show you exactly what I mean.

Great!

As pointed out by another user (that you down-voted BTW), OEM motherboards are a lot more locked on certain brands (like Dell). And different motherboard manufacturers have different boot times depending on how they are configured out of the box.

With less items to initialize/check, the boot time is reduced by a few seconds. If you happened to even read the link I provided, Tom's tested all types of SSDs on the Asrock motherboard, and there was practically very little difference between a NVMe and SATA SSD. All they had to do was click a couple things in the UEFI.

 

[Makaveli]

I will make a video of my wife's 8 year old Dell Vostro vs my new shiny Gigabyte AERO 15 laptop with Sabrent Rocket+ 2TB SSDs and show you exactly what I mean.

Also are you timing from hitting the power button to seeing the windows desktop, or windows logo to windows desktop?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Agreed. Anything that has to initialize slows the boot process down.

There is a hard drive or drive enumeration sequence, and it can take longer or less depending on the type of device and the number of devices. At this point, I just speculate about throwing a USB drive into the mix, but it could even be thumb drive.