Does having more stuff plugged into your motherboard increase boot time?

[Satan_Prometheus]

I saw this post over on the PCMR reddit:

 

https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/uhjb0a/why_do_pcs_still_take_a_long_time_to_boot_up_even/

 

That made me realize that I have a question about booting.

 

Specifically, wouldn't having more stuff plugged in (i.e., more drives, more PCIe expansion slots, more USB devices, etc.) make the POST take longer because it has more things to test?

 

Tell me if I'm just an idiot, though.

[WereCat]

Yes, it can increase boot time even significantly depending on what you have plugged in. It's typically not a concern on a consumer desktop because you're being limited by the max amount of PCIe lanes but on workstations and servers it can be significant.

[Mcballs1234]

Yes you can think about counting to 3 but you add some then it takes longer to count that's what the computer does on boot it counts the PCI devices and tests them to make sure they work