How to: Make Your PC Start Up Much Faster
If you’re suffering with your laptop or desktop slow boot speed, here are 9 tips to get your PC start up much faster and improve your efficiency.
1. Scan for Viruses & Malware
If you’ve had your PC for a long time, chances are your machine has picked up a few bugs along the way. Viruses, spyware and other malware can slow your boot to a crawl (not to mention seriously compromise your computer’s security) as they launch in the background at startup and start transmitting and receiving data.
In an age when malware has become a big problem, a good anti-virus suite is indispensable. Run a full system scan to rid your PC of any harmful software. Windows 10 Comes with build in Windows Defender Anti Virus, be sure to always keep it updated.
2. Change Boot Priority and Turn on Quick Boot in BIOS
An easy way to reduce your PC’s boot time is to make sure the BIOS boots off the internal hard disk drive first. The BIOS on most PCs is configured to try to boot off of the optical disk drive and then off one or two other devices (such as a USB flash drive) before attempting to boot off the hard drive. To change these settings, simply enter the BIOS (usually by pressing F2, F12 or the escape key during the boot process), navigate to the Boot menu and move Internal Hard Disk Drive to the top of the Boot Priority list.
Additionally, the BIOS on some PCs allows you to enable an option for Quick Boot. When powering on, the BIOS performs a number of tests—such as counting the system memory—that can take several seconds to complete. Turning on Quick Boot tells the BIOS to ignore these tests during startup.
3. Disable/Delay Startup Apps to make PC start up much faster
Most laptops—particularly those that come loaded with free software—get bogged down during startup when trying to load a ton of programs in the background all at once. While removing unnecessary pre-installed applications can reduce some seconds off your boot time (see our second-to-last tip), a surefire way to do it is to disable all but the most crucial applications from starting with your PC.
To do this, open the Start Menu, type and run “msconfig” in the search menu box and navigate to the Startup tab. While there, look at each of the Startup items and uncheck any that don’t look absolutely essential, such as Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager or Google Update. Alternatively, you can search for Services in the Start Menu, then change the Startup type of any nonessential applications from Automatic to Automatic (Delayed Start). Simply right click on the service, select Properties and then change the Startup type in the drop-down menu, you may see above how i have kept most of my none essential APPs disabled during startup.
4. Disable None Essential Hardware to make PC start up much faster
Among the many pieces of software your PC loads during startup are drivers for all of the hardware on the system: the keyboard, touchpad, sound card and every other component that makes the computer run. In most cases these components are essential, but some pieces of hardware, such as Bluetooth Radios, DVD/CD-ROM drives and built-in webcams, can be safely disabled without compromising your laptop’s functionality. To disable nonessential hardware, go to Device Manager in the Control Panel; once there, right click on any device and select Disable to prevent Windows from loading its drivers during startup.
5. Hide Unused / Unnecessary Fonts to make PC start up much faster
You probably don’t think about it, but it can take several seconds for Windows to load one of its most innocuous features—fonts. Windows 10 comes preloaded with more than 299 typefaces, including fonts for many of the world’s languages. Chances are that you’ll not to compose text in Geniso Regular, Collona MT and Californian FB and and disabling fonts that you’re unlikely to use won’t adversely affect your Windows experience. While it’s easy to delete fonts, hiding fonts achieves the same effect to boot time while preserving them for later—just search for Fonts using the Start Menu’s search bar, right click on the fonts you don’t need, and select Hide.
6. Enable the No GUI Boot option make PC start up much faster
Believe it or not, the floating Windows symbol that appears during startup eats up some of your notebook’s processing power; turning off the Graphical User Interface (GUI) during startup can shave a little bit off your boot time. Type “msconfig” in the Start Menu search bar, then navigate to the Boot tab. Once there, check the box for No GUI Boot. Don’t be alarmed when a black screen appears the next time you’re booting into Windows—it’s still loading the operating system, just sans GUI.
7. Use the Event Viewer to find out and Eliminate Sources of Boot Delays
Microsoft helpfully provides a tool—Event Viewer—to help you figure out exactly how long it takes your computer to boot into Windows and which programs cause the most significant delays. To access Event Viewer, open the Control Panel, navigate to the System and Security tab and then to Administrative Tools. Once there, double click on Event Viewer to open the utility. A number of folders appear on the left hand side—click on the arrow next to “Applications and services logs” > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics-Performance. Double click on the item labeled Operational, then sort the list by Task Category, looking for any item that’s labeled Warning. Most boot delays are caused by essential functions, but a few may be due to nonessential programs such as Windows Live ID. If you find any nonessential programs causing delays, disable or delay those programs using the steps outlined in earlier tips.
8. Uninstall Crapware
Once you’ve implemented all of the above tips, chances are you’ve disabled most of the programs causing significant delays in your laptop’s boot time. Still, it never hurts to get rid of all of that pre-installed third-party software that comes loaded on lots of machines, popularly dubbed “crapware,” that tries to start up with Windows.
Go into Control Panel and click on Uninstall A Program to open the list of currently installed applications. We recommend keeping any software from the PC manufacturer—but feel free to remove anything else you think you’ll never use.
9. Install a Solid-State Drive (SSD) .
If you have the budget then definitely, the best way to reduce your boot time is to install a solid-state drive and assign it as the ‘C’ Drive which is used for your PC Operating System, the Hard Disk Drive can remain as the storage Drive ‘D’ for your other Data. Because they have no moving parts, SSDs offer super-fast boot and wake times and file-transfer speeds as high as 500 MBps.