What is the most common thing we humans hate to do the most? The answer probably is – restarting our computer. It is a very time-consuming process which usually takes a full minute or two. Even average computer with HDD takes 20-25 seconds to boot.
It doesn’t sound too much! But, it’s human nature to be impatient, that single minute looking at a computer screen while it boots seems like forever. We got lots of questions about improving PC boot time over the time. So, we scavenged the Internet searching for an answer. We found many ways to improve your computer’s boot time, some were pretty common, some were hard, some were easy, and some were questionable.
So, here we made the list of things you can do, which are easy and helpful to improve your computer’s boot time. It is basically divided into two parts. The 1st part includes tricks that you can perform with hardware and 2nd part includes tricks you can perform in software. First, we will start with hardware side tweaks.
Hardware Tweaks
Here is a list of the hardware side of things you can do which will definitely help you in improving your PC’s boot time.
· Install Solid State Drive
Installing Solid State Drive can be bit expensive but it’s totally worth it. SDD can seriously improve your boot time. A study showed that computers with SDD installed boots 10x faster than computers with HDD. By installing SDD your PC boot time can come under 10 seconds. You can also enjoy other advantages of installing SDD like- superfast transfer rate, quick launch of Softwares, fast read-write speeds.
· Upgrade Your Operating System
Not all OS upgrades necessarily improve your boot time. But, some old operating systems like Windows 7 and XP boots with lots of components and resources. If you upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 8 or 10, it will really help you to improve your computer’s boot time. This latest operating system boots with only components and resources which are necessary for boot up process, which helps in minimizing boot time considerably.
· Upgrade Your RAM
Upgrading your RAM can help in improving boot time if you have lots of programs which launch at start-up. Latest RAM’s like DDR4 can seriously provide faster speed in launching programs on older machines. But, if your PC is relatively new then there is no need to upgrade your RAM, the inbuilt RAM will do just fine.
Now, we will start with the Software side tweaks which can speed up your PC’s boot time.
Software Tweaks
Here is the Software side of things which will help you in speeding up your PC’s boot time.
· Remove Unnecessary Programs that Launch at Startup
Preventing unnecessary programs from starting with your computer is one of the most popular and promising ways to speed up your PC’s boot time. Many programs start with OS, which results in the slow booting process. If you are running Windows 10, just open task manager or press Ctrl + Shift + Esc and go to startup tab. If you are running Windows 7, you can access the same by following this procedure. Go to start menu and type:
msconfig
and hit enter. Here you can see the list programs which starts with your OS, you can disable unwanted programs from starting at bootup.
· Delay Windows Services That Run at Startup
Many Windows processes start at startup, we don’t really need all these services right at startup. Hence, we can delay certain services from starting at bootup, so PC can boot faster and deal with certain processes later. To do this, go to start menu and type:
services
and hit enter, there you can see the list of services. You can change the startup type of a certain process by right-clicking on it and selecting properties.
· Remove Unwanted Programs and Files
All modern computers today contain a junk of unwanted programs and files, which slows our hard disk performance and speed. Removing such files and programs can improve your HDD’s performance, speed and in turn improving boot time. Lots of programs such as CCleaner can help you in removing such files.
· Install Good Anti-Virus and keep it updated
As we all know anti-virus keeps us safe from viruses, malware, and trojans. This doesn’t necessarily improve your boot time but, it can prevent your PC from slowing down boot time. When your PC gets infected by virus or malware it will surely slow down your boot time. So, anti-virus is a necessary measure to prevent slow down of the startup process of your computer which causes due to viruses and malware.
· Change Your Boot Order From BIOS
When the computer starts, it does not directly boot OS from your HDD. Instead, it looks for other resources to boot from like- CD drive, USB drives. So, changing your boot order from your BIOS will help you in avoiding this delay and improving boot time. Hold the Esc key or whatever key your PC manufacturer have to enter into setup while booting. Now, turn on the quick boot option which will move your HDD at top of the list or you can do it many other ways, just make sure to move HDD at the top in the boot options.
· Disable Hardware Drivers Which are Unused
Our computers have a lot of drivers which starts when OS starts up. We don’t necessarily use all of this hardware. So, we can disable some of these drivers which we never use, results in improving boot time. Go to start menu and type:
device manager
and hit enter. Look for device drivers which you want to disable, right-click on it and select Disable. Just make sure, you are not disabling any important hardware which you might need very often.
· Change Boot Menu Timeout values
If your PC runs in dual boot environment then it probably has time-out value. It’s nothing but an amount of time after which machine automatically boots into default OS. In the case of Windows, it is usually 30 seconds, which is a long time if you are not there to make any selection. To prevent this from happening, go to start menu and type:
msconfig
then hit enter, go to the boot tab and change the timeout value according to your choice.
If you are running Windows along with Linux environment then you probably have GRUB or GRUB2 boot menu. You can change their timeout values too. Here is our article which explains how can you change GRUB boot menu timeout values.
If you have any questions or doubts regarding these methods, make sure to comment them down below. We would be happy to help.