Slow startup times with SSD

There could be a few reasons why your Crucial MX500 SSD is taking longer to boot than expected. Here are a few things you can try to improve its performance:

Check the BIOS settings: Make sure that your BIOS is set to use the SSD as the primary boot device. Some BIOSes might have options like "Fast Boot" or "Quick Boot" that can speed up the boot process.

Check the SSD's firmware: Check if there is a firmware update available for your SSD. Updating the firmware can sometimes improve performance and fix bugs.

Check the Windows startup programs: You mentioned that you disabled unnecessary startup items, but it's possible that there are still some programs that are slowing down the boot process. Try using the built-in Task Manager in Windows to see which programs are set to run at startup and disable any that are not necessary.

Check the Windows Services: Some Windows services can also slow down the boot process. Try disabling any unnecessary services using the Services console in Windows.

Check for malware: Malware or viruses can slow down your computer's performance. Try running a malware scan with an antivirus program to make sure that your system is clean.

Check the SSD's health: It's possible that the SSD itself is failing or has some performance issues. Try running a diagnostic tool like CrystalDiskInfo to check the health of the drive.

Please post a whole window Disk Manager image of your drives. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them. How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management
If you have a MiniTool or AOMEI Partition use it instead or Windows disk manager.

theridon said:

Of note I have an HDD in my system, but all the install files are on the SSD (I disconnected HDD during windows installation).

From the above I guess that you did a clean install on the SSD. Did you clean the HDD?

Check not only your SSD but also the other disk as well. It has been known that a failing disk other than the system disk can slow a boot.

There are numerous possible causes of course including those mentioned...

theridon said:

I have a new crucial mx500 SSD and it takes a long time to boot. Not INSANELY long times, but 15+ seconds on the BIOS splash screen plus like 6+ on the windows login screen. My older laptop with old SSD boots in less than half the time, so it's way too slow for SSD.

I followed instructions here and did a boot trace: Boot Time painfully slow on WD m.2 SSD Drive, here is the zipped file link : Deleted | file.io from @bro67

I tried disabling all unecessary startup items, also tried doing minimal safe boot and it still took as long to boot.

Of note I have an HDD in my system, but all the install files are on the SSD (I disconnected HDD during windows installation). Any ideas on things to try? Thank you.

Hi,

The boot trace you recorded is damaged! Can you record another ?

Do you have more than one active boot partition since this can delay the boot process? I use Mini Tool Partition Wizard to check this.

theridon said:

Yes, I did a clean install on the SSD and installed windows onto it while my HDD was removed. I also did later completely wipe my HDD.

No, you didn't. Apparently you formatted the Windows partition but left the other system partition (EFI and recovery) and, as Steve C mentioned, it may cause delays.

Delete those two partitions (EFI and recovery)