Boot time getting longer and longer.

[Gat Pelsinger]

The more data I fill my drive with, the slower and slower my boot is getting. Why does more data make your system slow now that I really think of it? Does this mean there is some additional processing by which the boot time takes longer? My Windows install is bloated, but from the memory and processes side is not only clean but very optimized but could optimize more. How do I improve my boot performance? After installing so many programs, is Windows doing more processing for some reason? If so, how do I find its source?

[Mumintroll]

Is it a mechanical harddrive or SSD?

If it's an SSD then it might be the first signs of a failing drive.

 

But anyway try the usual tips if you haven't done so already.

Store your stuff on a second drive.

Uninstall what you don't use and need anymore.

Look up what apps autostarts and disable what you don't need.

Defrag it.

[Dutch_Master]

Next step: install a non-bloated OS, like Linux or a BSD.

[Zando_]

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

After installing so many programs, is Windows doing more processing for some reason? If so, how do I find its source?

What programs? Check the startup programs tab in Task Manager, a lot of apps like setting themselves to automatically open at boot, that's the main slow-down for boot/login times. 

 

1 hour ago, Mumintroll said:

If it's an SSD then it might be the first signs of a failing drive.

Or it's just overly full. Most SSDs slow down as they get much above 80% full, AFAIK it's something to do with multilayer flash cells and the drive having to shuffle bits in and out to fit new ones in, with less space to just dump things and shuffle them back it has to search around more, slowing down the drive. 

1 hour ago, Dutch_Master said:

Next step: install a non-bloated OS, like Linux or a BSD.

Nah, Windows is fine with an SSD and a decent CPU. Both 10 and 11 remain pretty consistently quick so long as you keep on top of startup programs. 

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Zando_ Don't give me those tips to disable startup apps and all. I have done critical optimizations (not "optimization" but just remove stuff I don't need). My process count is under 80 boot, though it can get even lower. On my older machine I got it down to 40 to 60 I think and about a gigabyte of memory usage. That machine with a hard drive boots faster than my newer machine with an SSD. Not kidding. But yes, after boot, my newer machine totally destroys my older PC with an hard drive. It's just the boot part which keeps getting slower and slower the more data my drive fills up with. No matter it has an SSD or hard drive. But after boot, all programs and stuff pretty much open as fast as before I think.

 

At least help me get down to either the problem being of bloatware or my SSD. I remember I saw a program or something which lets you see what files Windows loads on boot or whatever idk. I just want to see what stuff is slowing me down or if it's the SSD itself slowing down by its nature because of bloatware. Can you debug Window's boot? That would be interesting. Also, do you guys not experience such problems?

I should also mention that the SSD I have is an Intel 660p series 512GB Pcie 3.0 x4. So, it is a bit old.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Don't give me those tips to disable startup apps and all.

1 minute ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

At least help me get down to either the problem being of bloatware or my SSD.

Startup programs are the bloatware that would effect boot times, thus why I asked about them. 

3 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I have done critical optimizations (not "optimization" but just remove stuff I don't need).

What optimizations? If you cut enough out of Windows you start to break it, not make it better.

5 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Also, do you guys not experience such problems?

I don't. I leave the OS itself alone and just disable all the startup programs I don't want  in Task Manager. Boot times are slow as I am on HEDT and have the fast boot stuff disabled, but they are consistent. 

6 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I should also mention that the SSD I have is an Intel 660p series 512GB Pcie 3.0 x4. So, it is a bit old.

Shouldn't effect things, I've had $25 SATA SSDs boot as fast or faster than my nice samsung NVMe drives. The OS loads a ton of tiny files, so a drive's sustained read/write for large files (the number they stick in the marketing as it looks the best) isn't really relevant. How full is the drive? How much slower have your boot times gotten, and are they consistently slower or is it random? And have you looked around your BIOS for fast boot/wake related settings and tried enabling/disabling them to see if it helps consistency? 

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Zando_ On my 477 GB (usable) SSD, I have about 30 GB free adding all the partitions. The C drive is only 10 GB free out of 200 GB. When this device was new a full boot (not fast startup) would take a full circle and a half of the boot animation. Now it takes several and it keeps consistently increases the more bloated my drive gets. But yes, it is consistent. If I don't bloat my SSD further, it will not slow down further. I just noticed that the Intel optane memory services is not working. I remember my PC not supporting it but still checking. And I will try the fast BIOS boot thing. Also, my fast startup is not working for some reason even though it is enabled. One thing I do remember is that no matter how slow my boot got, fast startup boot always stayed the same, taking time equivalent to not letting the boot animation start. So, I don't think my SSD is getting slower. It has no problem reading mass amounts of data at once. But I think random reads and writes are being hit.

[Mumintroll]

36 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

@Zando_ On my 477 GB (usable) SSD, I have about 30 GB free adding all the partitions. The C drive is only 10 GB free out of 200 GB. When this device was new a full boot (not fast startup) would take a full circle and a half of the boot animation. Now it takes several and it keeps consistently increases the more bloated my drive gets. But yes, it is consistent. If I don't bloat my SSD further, it will not slow down further. I just noticed that the Intel optane memory services is not working. I remember my PC not supporting it but still checking. And I will try the fast BIOS boot thing. Also, my fast startup is not working for some reason even though it is enabled. One thing I do remember is that no matter how slow my boot got, fast startup boot always stayed the same, taking time equivalent to not letting the boot animation start. So, I don't think my SSD is getting slower. It has no problem reading mass amounts of data at once. But I think random reads and writes are being hit.

 

So you have only 30gb free space left on that 477gb SSD, which also is partitioned? It's also an older and well used SSD?

 

Well....

If you've read all the recommendations on how to keep an SSD healthy so it won't meet an early death then you wouldn't have faced this problem.

Always leave a good amount of free space on an SSD and don't partition it.

I think the write cycles are getting depleted, make some backups before it's too late. Also check the health of that SSD, like CrystalDiskInfo is a good app or perhaps something else.

[Zando_]

17 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

But I think random reads and writes are being hit.

Read should be fine AFAIK, but yes writes will be hit when the drive is overly full. I don't recall if SSDs get grumpy about multiple partitions too, I've never split up drives that way so I can't speak from experience (I use separate physical drives as I've picked up a bunch over the years for cheap). From googling, looks like partitions should be a non-issue. It's likely just the low free space that's bogging the drive down. 

41 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

And I will try the fast BIOS boot thing.

BIOS fast boot skips initializing some devices until the OS is up, so since you've confirmed the SSD is what's slowing it down then it likely wouldn't make much of a difference. 

 

It seems to be purely down to how full your drive is, the only real solution would be to keep more free space. The rule of thumb I've always seen is 10% free, so ~50GB on a 500GB drive. Windows itself will complain if it goes past that, I use 1TB drives so whenever they drop below 100GB free, Windows explorer marks them in red.