Slow BIOS time Windows 10

[Niels_1987]

Heya

I've posted already before here a question regarding a slow startup of Windows 10 on my Dell XPS 15 after which I updated all drivers, ran a series of tests and finally performed a fresh install of Windows 10. My systems runs quite well and I have no complaints when it is running, but startup stays rather slow with +/- 20 seconds from power on to Windows login screen.

Before I did a fresh install of Windows, my BIOS time was around 12 seconds. Now, it has gone up to almost 17. I read in several fora that BIOS should be around maytbe 3-5 seconds which is a huge difference. I have fast boot enabled, disabled all startup processes that have a high impact on startup and have set hardware checks in BIOS to 'minimum'. I also ran a full virus scan and a Malware scan using MalwareBytes, both returning without any fault. Another thing I tried is running Dell system diagnostics which gives me the following error:

Transformation and lighting stress test cannot run --> wrt my GeForce 960M. The rest is all fine and when I check if the 960M performs correctly in device manager it says it works correctly.

Is there anything I address that is most likely the cause of the slow BIOS time?

Hereby some more information on my system:

Dell XPS 15 9550 laptop
GTX 960M (+on board Intel graphics with Skylake)
i5 6300HQ quadcore @ 2.3GHZ
16gb RAM
Operating system: Windows 10
NVMe Samsung SSD 950 256GB --> Windows is installed on this drive
1TB internal drive

Thanks in advance

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

have you added some USB devices? a memory card reader, printers or multifuctional devices?
(Bios (UEFI) will look at them before handing over to Windows)

How much of the delay is Windows starting up compared to BIOS doing tests?

Is fast startup/quick shutdown configured in Windows and UEFI?

regards
Mike Barnes

 

[Colif]

The bios time means nothing though, and is often not accurate - I helped someone last week where it was showing his bios start up time as 18000 seconds (30 minutes) yet PC was loading normally. If your actual PC is loading fine, just ignore the bios times. The time itself isn't used by windows for anything.

Bios time is meant to be the amount of time it takes bios to hand control of system over to windows.

One thing that can speed up boot time is make sure you have the newest chipset & sata drivers for your motherboard

 

[Niels_1987]

Hi

have you added some USB devices? a memory card reader, printers or multifuctional devices?
(Bios (UEFI) will look at them before handing over to Windows)

How much of the delay is Windows starting up compared to BIOS doing tests?

Is fast startup/quick shutdown configured in Windows and UEFI?

regards
Mike Barnes

Thanks for the reply Mike. You are right: I had one USB (wireless mouse) and 1 SDHC card in my computer. Taking them out gives me a BIOS time of about 4 seconds less.

I'm not sure about your second question. Windows startup is +/- 20 seconds (17 w/o USB/SDHC), BIOS says it was 17 (13 now).

Yep fast startup/shutdown is enabled in both.

Greetings Niels

 

[Niels_1987]

The bios time means nothing though, and is often not accurate - I helped someone last week where it was showing his bios start up time as 18000 seconds (30 minutes) yet PC was loading normally. If your actual PC is loading fine, just ignore the bios times. The time itself isn't used by windows for anything.

Bios time is meant to be the amount of time it takes bios to hand control of system over to windows.

One thing that can speed up boot time is make sure you have the newest chipset & sata drivers for your motherboard

Thanks Colif Pretty sure I have the latest drivers but I'll check again. You are right though and I do not care that much for the BIOS time per se, but the thing that is bugging me is that startup should be able to be way faster with this 950 pro SSD. If it is in that BIOS time that is higher than it could/should be it might be worth exploring for me what I can do about that.

 

[Colif]

How fast is actual boot though? How long it take to get to desktop? MY bios time shows as 9.8 seconds but my actual start up time to desktop is currently 1 minute - I should look at drivers myself but PC works so I don't mess with them unless I have to. (My antivirus has a start up boost function, it shows me system boot time)

Win 7 used to be faster to boot to desktop but win 10, the login process of win 10 seems to take longer even if you have it set to auto login. I don't start all day so a slightly slower start isn't a big deal, its still faster than having a hdd

 

[Niels_1987]

How fast is actual boot though? How long it take to get to desktop? MY bios time shows as 9.8 seconds but my actual start up time to desktop is currently 1 minute - I should look at drivers myself but PC works so I don't mess with them unless I have to. (My antivirus has a start up boost function, it shows me system boot time)

Win 7 used to be faster to boot to desktop but win 10, the login process of win 10 seems to take longer even if you have it set to auto login. I don't start all day so a slightly slower start isn't a big deal, its still faster than having a hdd

Its not that bad actually. It boots now in 15 sec from power on to login and after login in takes maybe 2 seconds till desktop. So I am happy with that. The reason why I was kinda 'worried' about it is that I have installed the SSD myself and it seemed to boot way slower than other people report online. So I thought I might have done something wrong.

 

[Colif]

it can depend on number of start up applications you have as well. They all add to load times. I came from a 10 year old pc that took 3 minutes to boot so the time I get now isn't slow, but then its also not as fast as my 1st ever computer which loaded instantly but then it had no hard drive and ran at .81mhz so times change

old school solid state memory beat new school to start ups but new school so much faster everywhere else.