Windows 10 takes over 5 minutes to reach the login screen

Jacee said:

There are a lot of "help speed up" suggestions here: ..........You need to add the https://www. to the beginning of the URL. It doesn't post correctly for me.

makeuseof.com/tag/speed-windows-10-boot-shut/

thomaseg1 said:

Rather weird

the site is updating , removing old articles . get it while you can.

By Christian Bonilla Jun 23, 2016

I have archived the article here.

Porthos said:

What happens when/if you completely uninstall Comodo???

Uninstalling Comodo reduced the boot time from 6m30s to 3 minutes.

I can't tamper with my laptop by opening it up and replacing the hard disk drive with a solid state drive, as that would void my insurance to physically modify the device.

You are limited on options for better speed. Does your "insurance" replace bad drives? What would you do then?

Porthos said:

You are limited on options for better speed. Does your "insurance" replace bad drives? What would you do then?

Yes they do, provided the drive is faulty. However they will use a drive of the same brand and model of the one that got replaced, which sucks if the brand is a rubbish brand like Seagate. Luckily my laptop doesn't have a Seagate drive .
Anyway CrystalDiskInfo says my drive is in good health.

desbest said:

A clean install won't do anything because once I install all the software I use, transfer my files over and have regular long term use of my laptop, the same problem will happen again.

This is very likely the root cause of your issues!
Not changing habits and doing same thing over and over again.

Not a joke, I too like to setup system after fresh install so that it's almost identical to my usual setup, many times this was also the answer to a lot of issues that were really hard to diagnose. [a usual human error]

I learned my lesion, so my recommendation is to use fresh install for some time and only gradually installing your favorite programs.
It's not only about programs that you install but also settings which you apply, therefore do not adjust all at once, do it little by little. and solutions may pop out by them self.

For start, after fresh install, leave OS settings all default, don't install anything except OEM drivers, and you should see some improvement.

I've fixed the problem now.There was two parts to it.

Drivers specific to my computer

This is for an Acer Aspire 315-56 or A315-56. Sometimes it's called Acer Aspire 3.

Firstly, my computer manufacturer, Acer, not only does their website give me outdated drivers on my product page, they also give faulty drivers. If you were to install these faulty drivers, they would fill the computer with junk alongside the current driver that was previously installed at the time of installation. So I went to Windows Settings then Apps then uninstalled the following software, which is strange because drivers shouldn't appear there, only in Device Manager

It was as if drivers had graphical user interfaces and the user could open a window associated with it, even though no such windows existed.

• Intel Serial IO Driver
• Realtek Wireless LAN Driver aka Realtek FE/GbE Family Controller
• Realtek Ethernet Controller Driver
• Intel Chipset Driver

That cut the startup time from 9 minutes to 7 minutes and 30 seconds. I then restarted my computer to finalise the uninstall of the drivers. On windows even if uninstalling a driver doesn't prompt the user to restart, you should still restart anyway, as traces are often left on the computer until a restart happens. But it was still over 5 minutes to reach the login screen.

Windows Update

Then I was doing some internet surfing on Ten Forums and noticed that maybe Windows Update neglected to even bother to fetch some updates for me to install.

Below are Windows Updates to install manually by downloading the file.

The below windows update should ONLY be installed on Windows 10 2004

• Servicing Stack Update KB4577266 for Windows 10 2004 ONLY - KB4577266

You should also install the following 2 windows updates in the following order if you have Windows 10 2004 or 20H2.

• Servicing Stack Update for Windows 10 2004 and 20H2
• Cumulative Update May 11, 2021 - KB5003173 (OS Build 19041.985 and above) or a later cumulative update

AFTER the above 2 Windows Updates are installed, install ONE of the following Windows Update if you have version 2004 or 20H2 depending on your computer's processor type (or architecture). You either have a 32 bit, 64 bit, or ARM processor.

Direct download links for KB5000736 MSU file from Microsoft Update Catalog:

• Download KB5000736 MSU for Windows 10 v2004 and v20H2 32-bit (x86) - 165 KB
• Download KB5000736 MSU for Windows 10 v2004 and v20H2 64-bit (x64) - 166 KB
• Download KB5000736 MSU for Windows 10 v2004 and v20H2 ARM64 - 163 KB

After I installed all the relevant windows updates, my startup speed went back to how it was the first day I used the computer, you know, after a clean install after wiping everything out.

Now it takes 2m50s to reach the login screen which is the optimum time.

A SSD is seen by the computer and OS the same way as a HDD. That is why it is so easy to replace a HDD with a SSD.
A SSD boots in seconds and open programs at a blink of an eye. They are almost 5 times faster than a 2.5" HDD.
A SSD is also shock prof as it has no moving parts, very important on a Laptop.

If you had seen the link I posted, you have up to 2T SSD.
Takes 20 minutes to replace the HDD with the SSD. And I don't think it will void your insurance.
Acer Aspire 3 SSD Upgrade, Memory Upgrade & Additional Hard Drive - YouTube

On the video it shows that the Aspire 3 A315-56 has a M.2 Slot. If it does, you can use a small (256G) M.2 NVMe SSD for Windows and programs and use the current HDD for data only.
You will have the speed of a SSD and the space of a HDD at low cost.
That is the configuration I have on my desktop and on my old Sony Vaio laptop.