How Can Telll With 100% Certainty That Fastboot Is Disabled ?

mike888 · 26 Dec 2021

Got a new laptop at Christmas and one of the first things I did was to go into power settings "change settings that are currently unavailable" and unchecked the fastboot option. Not convinced this worked, after restart I went into the BIOS and fastboot was still enabled ! I changed this to disabled , saved settings and restarted the machine.

What concerns me is the laptop still boots very quickly and the splash screen has not changed to include F2 or F12 to enter BIOS which I thought would happen after disabling fastboot. (Although F2 and F12 still work).

Windows boots in less than 10 seconds or less and I would like to know with certainty that fastboot has been disabled due to the slow drain on the battery if it hasn't been. I would be grateful for any easy tests that can be done to make sure that fastboot is indeed disabled.

The machine won't be used much . its capable of Windows 11 and meets all the requirements but I will not be updating in the near future due to the various reports i have read and that some people are returning to Windows 10.

Thanks

AndreTen · 26 Dec 2021

Fastboot in BIOS and Fast Startup as Windows setting are two different things.

- Fastboot in BIOS usually means no compete memory (and peripherals) check, only quick one

- Fast startup in Windows is a system functionality - last known system configuration is written in hiberfil.sys file and read upon system startup.

If there is no check mark in Control panel - Power options - Choose what power button do - ... Then Fast Startup is disabled.

Now, to check, you could change some hardware components and try to restart - Fast startup will have a problem, since configuration is read from file. I usually completely disable Fast startup, but this will also disable hibernation (which is useful in the case of laptop) with command:

Code:

powercfg -h off

No hibernation file, no fast startup. But like I said.. you'll get rid of possible hibernation too

W10 Tweaker · 26 Dec 2021

Hi Mike888

From an elevated Command Prompt type or copy and paste the following;

Code:

powercfg -a

This will produce a short summary that includes the Fast Boot status.

mike888 · 26 Dec 2021

powercfg -a
This is good command i tried it on one of my other older computers and gave the correct answer. Not yet tried on the machine I originally wrote about.

- - - Updated - - -

Should I change fastboot in BIOS based on what you have written or can it be left as it is ?
My main concern for the changes that I originally made is so that the computer shuts down completely and doesn't consume any power, apart from the CMOS battery for the time etc.

AndreTen · 26 Dec 2021

I have my BIOS set to Fast boot, and Fast startup in Windows disabled.

Fast boot in BIOS doesn't affect power consumption. You can have it on

NavyLCDR · 26 Dec 2021

AndreTen said:

I have my BIOS set to Fast boot, and Fast startup in Windows disabled.

Fast boot in BIOS doesn't affect power consumption. You can have it on

Windows Fast Startup will not affect power consumption either. It is a modified form of hibernation.

AndreTen · 26 Dec 2021

NavyLCDR said:

Windows Fast Startup will not affect power consumption either. It is a modified form of hibernation.

Agree, but OP wanted to know specifically about fastboot.. Fast Startup should be disabled anyway, for other reasons

NavyLCDR · 26 Dec 2021

AndreTen said:

Agree, but OP wanted to know specifically about fastboot.. Fast Startup should be disabled anyway, for other reasons

I apologize, I should have quoted @mike888 @mike888 disabled Windows 10 fast startup out of concern for power consumption when the computer was shutdown.

mike888 said:

My main concern for the changes that I originally made is so that the computer shuts down completely and doesn't consume any power, apart from the CMOS battery for the time etc.

Windows 10/11 fast startup does not consume any power when the computer is shut down because it is a modified form of hibernation.