The startup duration keeps increasing.
The startup duration keeps increasing.
I gather more information on your system, the reasons behind the slowdown, and ways to enhance boot efficiency.
Is it a mechanical harddrive or an SSD? If it's an SSD, early signs of failure might appear. Still, apply standard advice if you haven’t already. Keep your important data on another drive. Remove unused programs and files. Check which applications start automatically and turn off the rest. Run a defragmentation process.
What applications? Look at the startup list in Task Manager; many programs tend to launch automatically, which can cause delays when booting or logging in. Or they might be taking up too much space. Most SSDs become slower once they reach over 80% capacity, according to some sources—it’s likely related to how multilayer flash cells handle data, requiring more movement as new bits are inserted and removed. That extra shuffling reduces speed. Windows works well with SSDs and a solid CPU. Both versions 10 and 11 still perform reliably if you manage startup programs effectively.
@Zando_ Please skip those suggestions about disabling startup apps. I've already made significant changes (not just tweaks) to remove unnecessary elements. My boot time stays below 80 seconds, and it can drop even further. On my older setup I managed around 40-60 seconds with roughly a gigabyte of memory usage. That machine with the hard drive boots quicker than my newer SSD one. Not exaggerating. After startup, my newer system completely outpaces the older one—whether due to bloatware or the SSD itself. But after boot, everything feels almost as responsive as before. Could you help identify if the issue lies in bloatware or the SSD? I recall seeing a tool that displays what files Windows loads at startup. Would it be useful to inspect the boot process? Also, do you often face similar slowdowns? I should note my Intel 660p series 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD—still a bit outdated.
Startup programs add unnecessary bloat that slows down initial launches. I focus on streamlining the OS rather than changing the underlying system. Reducing startup entries in Task Manager improves performance without altering the OS itself. Fast boot features in BIOS can help, but I've tested them without consistent gains. SATA SSDs perform comparably to NVMe drives in speed, so drive capacity isn't the main issue. Check if your drive usage is high and whether boot times are trending downward or remain erratic.
@Zando_ On my 477 GB (usable) SSD, I have about 30 GB free adding all the partitions. The C drive is only 10 GB free out of 200 GB. When this device was new a full boot (not fast startup) would take a full circle and a half of the boot animation. Now it takes several and it keeps consistently increases the more bloated my drive gets. But yes, it is consistent. If I don't bloat my SSD further, it will not slow down further. I just noticed that the Intel optane memory services is not working. I remember my PC not supporting it but still checking. And I will try the fast BIOS boot thing. Also, my fast startup is not working for some reason even though it is enabled. One thing I do remember is that no matter how slow my boot got, fast startup boot always stayed the same, taking time equivalent to not letting the boot animation start. So, I don't think my SSD is getting slower. It has no problem reading mass amounts of data at once. But I think random reads and writes are being hit.
You have limited storage with only 30GB available on a 477GB SSD that’s already partially used. It’s also an older device. If you follow the advice on maintaining SSD longevity, you should have avoided this issue. Keep plenty of free space and avoid partitioning. The write cycles might be wearing thin—back up your data soon. Use tools like CrystalDiskInfo to monitor the SSD’s health.
Read should be okay according to what I know, but writing can get problematic when the storage is too full. I don’t remember SSDs reacting negatively to multiple partitions; I’ve never split drives that way, so I can’t share personal experience. From what I found online, partitions shouldn’t cause problems. The main issue is probably the lack of available space. BIOS fast boot delays initializing devices until the OS is running, so if your SSD is the bottleneck, it probably won’t help much. It seems the problem is mainly about free space. The best fix would be to leave more room on the drive. A common guideline is keeping at least 10% free space—about 50GB on a 500GB drive. Windows will warn you if it gets too low, marking files in red when below 100GB free.