Extremely slow boot times – help!

Hey everyone! I’ve been dealing with this annoying little glitch for a few months now, but since I barely ever actually shut my PC down, I haven't noticed it as much as I should have lately.

Basically, when I boot up, it takes forever—probably over 2 minutes. It just hangs on the Gigabyte logo for about 2 or 3 minutes before finally loading into the OS.

When I first built this rig last summer, everything was perfect; it would boot up in like 5 seconds flat!

I haven't touched any of my BIOS settings, though I did flash a new BIOS update for the motherboard recently. I can't really remember if that might have messed with the boot speed or not.

Here are the specs:

Gigabyte B660M gaming x DDR4 (rev. 1.x) updated to the latest f21 BIOS version

Intel Core i5 12400f

32GB DDR4 3600MHz

Transcend 1TB NVMe Gen4 x4

AMD Radeon RX 6600

Windows 10 Pro

I did a quick Google search and tried messing around with some settings in the BIOS, but honestly, nothing worked.

Oh, one more thing—when I look at the boot priorities in the BIOS, I only see the Boot Manager listed. My SSD isn't showing up as an option, even though I don't think that should be the actual cause of the delay.

If anyone has any ideas on what might be going on, please let me know! Thanks a ton! )

............

I was just wondering, have you happened to map any network drives lately, or maybe connected some kind of new device to your network? 🤔

Alright, I finally figured out what was causing the headache!

It was the LAN cable...

I shut down the PC, unplugged the cable, and suddenly it booted up in like 5 seconds flat!

So, does anyone know why on earth that happens, and how can I fix it for good? ))

Sean Taylor7 said:So, I think I finally figured out what's causing the headache

It’s the LAN cable...

I shut down my PC, unplugged the cable, and then it booted up in just five seconds..

Now, does anyone know why this happens or if there’s a way to actually fix it? )

Not really 😁

It honestly just takes as long as it takes while the computer and the network try to shake hands. That's just how it goes, I guess.

Guys, false alarm! 😁

I finally figured out what’s actually going on:

It turns out it doesn't matter if the LAN cable is plugged in or not.

When I shut my PC down completely, it boots up super fast—like, 5 seconds flat.
But when I hit restart, it takes a massive 2-3 minutes just to get going!!

Basically, the restart function is totally screwing me over...

Hmm??

Is there anything actually showing up on the screen so you can see what's hanging during those 2-3 minutes? (Assuming you turned off the splash screen in the BIOS, obviously)

So, Windows 10/11 uses Fast Boot when you shut down, but restarts can still drag on a bit—not a huge deal, but it happens. Just remember, Fast Boot only kicks in during a full shutdown.

Fast boot is an option you can toggle, but honestly, I don't even have it enabled on my rig, yet I still get to see how long the POST takes. It’s actually pretty handy if your BIOS settings get a bit wonky—like if the system is hunting for some hardware that isn't even plugged in, you'll catch that during the POST process.
Also, I was wondering about the best way to restart the PC... maybe just hitting the reset button?

I can't help but wonder why Windows doesn't just include a built-in boot troubleshooting tool that actually breaks everything down for you, maybe showing exactly how much impact every single individual service and process is having on your overall boot speed 🤔

It doesn't really matter, I'm not even going to bother restarting it, everything is fine 🙂

I honestly don't have the energy to mess around with it anymore, it just feels super weird that it's taking this long

wearymason4 said:It’s got Fast Boot enabled, but you can totally turn it off. I don't even have it turned on myself, plus I have the option to adjust how long the POST screen actually stays up. It's super handy if something in your BIOS settings is acting wonky—like if the system is hunting for hardware that isn't even plugged in, you'll catch it during the POST.
The real question is how you're actually restarting the PC... maybe by hitting the reset button?

Reset? You mean a restart happens when you hit the restart button, right? 🙂 We definitely know the difference between a reset and a restart!

Don't even act surprised, I've seen just about everything at this point. Like, I once had this elderly guy whose PC wouldn't boot, and it turns out he’d just popped an empty floppy disk into the drive—of course, the screen was just staring back at him saying "no bootable media."
Another time, I had these two high school kids—electronics majors, supposedly—bring in a rig they built themselves, only for it to be a total brick... turns out they’d screwed the motherboard right down to the case without using any standoffs 🤣
Ever since then, I find myself double-checking every little stupid thing just in case....

Nah, still hasn't done the trick...

Honestly, I’m starting to think the issue might actually be Windows itself. When I first built this rig (about 7 months ago), everything was running smooth as silk, but then I let it run some updates in the background—I totally forgot to toggle the settings to stop them—and I have a hunch things started acting up right after that. I can't say for sure, though, because, like I mentioned, I'm either powering the whole thing down or just letting it idle indefinitely. I almost never actually hit "restart" unless an installation forces my hand.

So, let's pivot! I really need some solid recommendations. Right now, my main drive is:

Transcend 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 MTE240S M. 2

The problem is, this thing doesn't have DRAM, so I'm looking to pick up a secondary drive that *does* have it. My plan is to move Windows over to the new one and just keep this current drive strictly for games and stuff.

What would you guys suggest in the 512GB to 1TB range? Size isn't a huge deal to me.

Also, what's the verdict on upgrading to Windows 11? I set it up on my family's laptop back home in the States, and it seemed pretty decent, but since I don't live there, I can't really jump in and test it out myself!