Do you think your computer is running too fast, but could it run faster?

Thanks to significant improvements in processors, RAM, and especially in storage devices with solid-state drives (SSDs), the speed at which a computer performs any type of task has been significantly improved; For example, if it took 10 seconds to open Word on a computer 10 years ago, it may take just a few seconds on a modern computer with an NVMe SSD. However, what about the boot sequence? Does it take now less than 10 years ago?

Your computer is not that fast because of the boot sequence

Many things happen during PC startup, especially checks (many of which are what we know as Mail). During this process, the computers run self-diagnostic tasks to check that everything is correct, and once this process is completed, the operating system proceeds to load. Therefore, we can say that the time it takes for the computer to boot is affected by the speed of the SSD when it comes Start the operating systemsuch as the time it takes for the motherboard and hardware components to perform Self-diagnostic tasks.

In recent years, the time it takes for computers to start the operating system has improved dramatically, not because this process has been optimized (rather the opposite), but because storage devices have greatly improved their performance and this has allowed us to reduce load times a lot.

Personally, I remember, at the dawn of modern computing when I started, how long my 66MHz 486 DX2 took to start up Windows 95, with only a 20GB IDE hard drive that could easily take a few minutes to let me interact. with pc. Now everything is much faster, and in fact from the time you press the power button on the box until the Windows desktop is displayed and you can interact with it, it only takes a few seconds.

However, in the times in which we live, those 20-25 seconds that the computer takes to boot may seem like a lot, and that the loading part of the operating system may take only 5 seconds. As we said, this is due to the process of diagnostics and checks carried out by computers, a process that, although it has improved and takes less time than it did in computers years ago, is still a burden in terms of speed. Maybe. The computer can be turned on (ignoring the time it takes for computers to return from sleep or hibernation here, as POST is not performed on these machines).

Has the limit been reached?

For now, it seems like it is, although there are some “tricks” that can help you reduce the time it takes for your computer to run those initial checks. Of course, everything will depend on your needs, since these tricks consist of telling the PC not to run certain checks or to skip some things in the startup sequence. Therefore, be very careful if you perform any of the actions that we will list below, because you will be “playing with the BIOS”. Do so at your own risk.

Note: Keep in mind that the names of the options we will discuss vary by manufacturer and motherboard model.

• First of all, under the BOOT tab in the BIOS, there should be a section called Delay Deployment Time or similar. Reduce it to the minimum number you allow (usually 1 second).
• In “Boot Options” there are usually several options. Here we tell the BIOS to order the hardware to “seek” to find and boot from the operating system. If you only have one storage device, turn off all options except for that device so it won’t look through all the other options.
• If you only have SATA/PCIe NVMe devices, disable the IDE controllers so the board won’t check them and save time.
• If you don’t have devices in RAID, disable RAID controller checking as well.
• Same with the 1394 controller.
• If you have Boot from LAN enabled, disable it. This option is often the cause of long POST delays.