Very slow boot time - 100% disk active time

simrick said:

If you're willing to perform a clean install, I would suggest grabbing an ISO from the MS website and that way you can put just Windows 10 on there, without all the ASUS bloatware.
Download Windows 10 ISO File Windows 10 Tutorials
Might want to back up your drivers first, just in case there's something special you need.
Backup and Restore Device Drivers in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials

Got the laptop back to the store I bought it, in order for them to look at it. When I get it back, I will try this solution as a last resort.

Okay, it passed Seatools long test - that's good, but twenty-two percent fragmented on a new installation?
I'd definitely try a clean install and see if that makes a difference.

I factory reset the laptop back to its original setup once, so that might have played its role in the fragmentation.

Will get back here if anything new comes up. Thank you very much for the help.

Updating just to say that the retailer found no hardware issues on the laptop (although his search was not as thorough as mine), but anyways I performed a clean install of windows without the ASUS bloatware and I noticed a slight improvement in disk performance. It still takes about 2 minutes to fully boot -mostly because Google Backup And Sync scans the disk everytime upon boot-. I just have to accept that this is probably the best performance I can get out of the mechanical HDD it has.

I have also noticed that the first time I open an office file (xls, docx, ppt), it takes about 10 seconds !! Every other time I open the same type of file during the same Windows session (i.e. no reboots), it opens almost instantaneously as it should be. I honestly don't know why this happens, but I guess it has to do with Office itself.

Is the superfetch service enabled. If not enable it and restart your machine 6 times. You'll notice improvements after that

zinou said:

Is the superfetch service enabled. If not enable it and restart your machine 6 times. You'll notice improvements after that

Will do... Although another member here said that superfetch might be the reason why the laptop was too slow... I guess I'll have to check and see.

Superfetch when working properly will improve HDD performance caching data frequently accessed.

I do not think anything is wrong other than impatience,
1) The HDD speed is typical of a laptop 1 TB HDD (the SSD users have the memory loss).
2) Defragmentation is done automatically to a schedule in Windows 10. I just set that to weekly or monthly. Worst mine ever gets to is ~2%. Not that it matters with modern disc filing systems.
3) Supposed ASUS bloatware - You can at leisure uninstall things not wanted after consideration, it's not that a big deal.

"I have also noticed that the first time I open an office file (xls, docx, ppt), it takes about 10 seconds !! Every other time I open the same type of file during the same Windows session (i.e. no reboots), it opens almost instantaneously as it should be. I honestly don't know why this happens, but I guess it has to do with Office itself."
This is Windows Prefetch and Super Prefetch working. You must wait a while until the data is collected.
On mine a Word or Excel file on 1st opening is ~1 to 2 sec, subsequent opening is far less than 1 sec. This on a standard Laptop 1 TB HDD.
The data for this is redone after a while.

"I factory reset the laptop back to its original setup once, so that might have played its role in the fragmentation."
" I performed a clean install of windows without the ASUS bloatware"
Either of those get you back to square one and a load of updates and Windows management stuff has to be done yet again. The fragmentation matters little in modern disc filing systems.

Helmut said:

I do not think anything is wrong other than impatience,
1) The HDD speed is typical of a laptop 1 TB HDD (the SSD users have the memory loss).
2) Defragmentation is done automatically to a schedule in Windows 10. I just set that to weekly or monthly. Worst mine ever gets to is ~2%. Not that it matters with modern disc filing systems.
3) Supposed ASUS bloatware - You can at leisure uninstall things not wanted after consideration, it's not that a big deal.

"I have also noticed that the first time I open an office file (xls, docx, ppt), it takes about 10 seconds !! Every other time I open the same type of file during the same Windows session (i.e. no reboots), it opens almost instantaneously as it should be. I honestly don't know why this happens, but I guess it has to do with Office itself."
This is Windows Prefetch and Super Prefetch working. You must wait a while until the data is collected.
On mine a Word or Excel file on 1st opening is ~1 to 2 sec, subsequent opening is far less than 1 sec. This on a standard Laptop 1 TB HDD.
The data for this is redone after a while.

"I factory reset the laptop back to its original setup once, so that might have played its role in the fragmentation."
" I performed a clean install of windows without the ASUS bloatware"
Either of those get you back to square one and a load of updates and Windows management stuff has to be done yet again. The fragmentation matters little in modern disc filing systems.

Yeah, you are right. I was not aware of the Prefetch thing and by no means was I expecting for the performance to improve over time. Guess I'll have to wait a few weeks before I judge the laptop's performance after all...

Guys!

I have Asus ROG with this HDD and performance is horrible. On the other forum I've found that firmware update could help. But for me it's not working, because my firmware differs from the one the guy has. CrystalDiskMark measures about 800 kB/s with this disk. I tried all, and this is definitely NOT software issue. It's this Seagate very poor performance.