ASUS K53T laptop with SSD takes forever to boot and wake from sleep?

Hi all - I have an ASUS K53T laptop with a brand new TeamGroup 256GB SSD and 4GB of RAM. The processor is an AMD A6 dual-core @ 1.4Ghz CPU, but I had another Windows install on this same machine with the SSD before I wiped it and reinstalled Windows and boot/sleep worked fine then, so I don't know what has changed?

I tested the RAM and the RAM has no errors...?

All drivers are as up to date as I can get them and it is a fresh install of Windows (done several months ago, but the laptop hasn't been used since). Windows, itself, it also up to date.

Basically it works fine when it is running, but it takes like 3 minutes to start up and very long time (1.5-2 minutes?) to wake from sleep. I've tried turning 'Fast Startup' off and that doesn't seem to make any difference.

There is almost no software installed, so nothing that would be slowing down the boot procedure software-wise.

When starting up, and waking from sleep at a point in both processes, it goes to a black screen and then just sits there for a very long time...

Any ideas what might be going on? Driver issue...? BIOS setting...Windows setting...? It's quite frustrating!

Thanks for any and all help! :)

Hello Darkstrike,
I would confirm all drivers and BIOS are up to date.

Also check your drive health with Crystal Disk info.

See if there are any clues in Windows Reliability History and Event Viewer around the time PC is being woken up from sleep.

What antivirus do you use?

Try testing in Safe Mode and Clean Boot also and disable any non-Windows apps in Task Manager -> Startup tab for testing purposes first before trying Safe Mode and Clean Boot testing.
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts

Just to confirm, you did mean Windows Fast Startup disabled? I would continue to leave that disabled until you resolve this issue.

steve108 said:

Hello Darkstrike,
I would confirm all drivers and BIOS are up to date.

Also check your drive health with Crystal Disk info.

See if there are any clues in Windows Reliability History and Event Viewer around the time PC is being woken up from sleep.

What antivirus do you use?

Try testing in Safe Mode and Clean Boot also and disable any non-Windows apps in Task Manager -> Startup tab for testing purposes first before trying Safe Mode and Clean Boot testing.
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts

Just to confirm, you did mean Windows Fast Startup disabled? I would continue to leave that disabled until you resolve this issue.

OK, finally back! Very sorry for the LATE replies as I only just found some more time to look into this! :)

SSD is a brand new install late last year - a 240GB TeamGroup unit. The laptop has BARELY been used since then. I don't remember it having slow startup issues like this before. The issue is that on boot, after the Win10 logo 'spinning dots' screen, it just pauses on a black screen for like....2 mins....SOMETIMES, the pause is ON the 'spinning dots' screen where it just sits there spinning those dots for the 2-3 mins instead. Sometimes it's that same Win10 logo screen where the dots would be but there are no dots...

On Sleep, it's the same, except that the second you wake from sleep, it then also pauses on a black screen for like 2 minutes until bringing up the 'Sign In' screen. During those two minutes, the HDD activity indicator light doesn't flash at all other than little flickers here and there as you would normally see on any computer at idle.

Yes, Fast Startup IS disabled. Antivirus is plain old built-in Windows Defender. The SSD shows at 99% health in CrystalDiskInfo - no errors.

Drivers are all up to date according to Windows Update and were originally downloaded from ASUS' support website - I may have installed 'Optional Drivers' in Windows Update since then, but can't remember for certain.

There IS a BIOS update (the laptop had version 209, the update is to version 212), so trying to install that now.

Haven't tried Safe Mode yet, but will do that next if the BIOS makes no difference.
@Pluginz - Will try those things next if this makes no difference!
@Megahertz - I reinstalled Windows by securely wiping the drive using the Shred command from a Linux LiveUSB and then reinstalling Windows from a Windows USB created with the Media Creation Tool.

OK....update...for the hell of it, I completely wiped it and reinstalled Win10 and it is still doing the same thing :/

So it can't be an sfc or chkdsk issue because this is a fresh install of Windows as of like...an hour ago.

- - - Updated - - -

ANOTHER update!

I think I might've (at least partially?) found a fix! Was looking up the issue online and came across this:
10 ways to fix slow boot time in Windows 10/11 on SSD

Tried that fix and, at least waking from Sleep, the wake speed is greatly improved, so that's a plus.

Just did a restart as well...still seems to still on the Win10 logo/spinning dots screen for WAY too long for an SSD drive though...boot speed to get to sitting at the desktop even with the SSD was 1min 39 secs :/

The machine only has a 1.4Ghz quad-core AMD A6....so that's not exactly fast....could that be the reason for the slow boot time...?

At least the slow wake from sleep is fixed!

Megahertz said:

Did you install as Legacy - MBR or UEFI-GPT?
Are the GPU drivers from AMD or MS?

Windows update installed official AMD drivers as I see the Catalyst Control Panel in the System Tray.

I just fixed it though! Now that I have ULPS disabled, I tried turning back on Fast Boot and it now boots up in 30 seconds again! :)

All seems well now! :)