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As you know, many people buy SSDs to not only speed up their computing experience, but also speed up the boot time of their machines. SSDs will sometimes cut minutes off boot times when compared to hard drives, however, more often than not, many people do not know how to properly configure, or even know that it is possible to configure their system in such a way to speed up their boot time even more. There are some other things you can do than just slapping an SSD in your system and setting the SATA mode to AHCI or RAID to achieve ultra-fast boot times by using the latest hardware. When we say ultra-fast, we mean powered off system to desktop in 6-10 seconds.
Does this sound crazy? Well, it really isn’t. Today, we are going to go over how to optimize your system and do a native UEFI Windows installation to speed up your boot time as fast as possible!
UEFI VS BIOS MOTHERBOARDS
PCs have specialized software called firmware that controls the hardware. On older systems, the motherboard’s firmware is called a Basic Input/Output System or BIOS. You are probably familiar with this term and have gone into a BIOS to tweak settings for your system, whether it be to change the boot order or overclock your system. It handles initialization and testing the system hardware as well as loading a boot loader or operating system.
It also allows the OS a way to interact with the system’s I/O. Over the past few years firmware has been progressing quite a bit. If you have a computer that was built within the last 3-4 years, chances are that it has a different firmware called a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface or UEFI implementation. Without getting to deep into details, UEFI has a lot of benefits over the old BIOS firmware we are used to, including the ability to use the mouse, more security, and much faster POST and boot capabilities.
The latest UEFI motherboards have fast boot options integrated in them under the boot tab menu. Typically there are three options, Disable, Fast, and Ultra Fast (also called hardware boot, Windows feature, or something similar in the UEFI). Disabled means that it will do a normal boot with no speeding up of the POST. Fast means that it will cut some of the checks during POST to speed up the POST process. Ultra Fast is where things might seem to get a bit complicated, but really they aren’t.
The Ultra Fast option allows the motherboard UEFI to initialize all the hardware at once vs sequentially as with a BIOS, thus speeding up the POST process, however, you have to have a UEFI GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) compliant graphics card. Now what the heck does UEFI GOP compliant even mean? It basically means that your graphics card supports native UEFI Ultra Fast booting. We will talk about what cards are compatible later on. Also, one thing to note is that the Ultra Fast mode will boot so fast that you may have to use a UEFI setup utility from your motherboard manufacturer to enter back into the UEFI once it is enabled.
UNDERSTANDING GPT AND MBR
On the software side of things you also need support, the system drive needs to have a GUID Partition Table or GPT when the OS is installed onto it, not the standard Master Boot Record or MBR we are used to and older BIOS’s understand.
GPT and MBR are different partitioning schemes that set the partitioning layout of a storage medium. The MBR allows for you to create partitions on a storage medium and allows a BIOS or UEFI to see the active partition to boot off of it. Like UEFI, the GPT is a bit more advanced and has some benefits to it. It is backwards compatible with MBR as it leaves an MBR in LBA 0. It can boot off of partitions that are greater than 2.2TB in size. There is GPT header and partition table redundancy as they are located in the beginning and ending LBAs of a drive. It also supports up to 128 primary partitions (could actually be more, but limited by OS’s) vs 3 + 1 extended partition that can be expanded into logical partitions. All current SSDs and HDDs can be set to GPT or MBR, so they shouldn’t limit your ability in doing a native UEFI install.
The key point to note here is that, when booting off a legacy MBR installation, the BIOS boot option will be the OS drive’s name. When booting off a UEFI GPT installation, the boot option will no longer be the physical drive’s name, but an option called Windows Boot Manager. Windows 8 and newer supports this type of boot mode by default. Windows Vista, 7, and Server 2008 64-bit versions support it as well, however, it can require a little extra work when installing off a USB. Other Linux OSes support UEFI boot as well, but for today, since Windows 8.1 is the current OS we use and soon Windows 10, we will be focusing on it over the other OSes.
WIN8 FAST STARTUP MODE
Combining Windows 8 and UEFI Ultra Fast boot does not only to allow for faster POST times, but additionally Windows 8 has a special fast startup mode that should be enabled by default. It speeds up Windows load time significantly. When enabled and you do a clean shut down, Windows will save the kernel session in the hibernation file. When you start the system up after this, the windows files and drivers will all be loaded much faster from that single file and thus faster boot speed.
You must have hibernation enabled to take advantage of this feature. The size of the hibernation file by default is 75% of the amount of physical RAM installed. If you have a lot of RAM you may modify the hibernation file size by typing this into command line: powercfg /hibernate /size XX (XX = percentage of physical RAM you want to set from 0-100). Typically it uses up about 15% or so, but just to be safe we wouldn’t recommend setting it to under 30% if you decide to do so. We actually prefer to leave it alone at its default setting.
SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
By this point, we hope to have armed you with a bit of a knowledge to understand the process as we now set things up for that lightning fast startup you are here for. Don’t worry, if you have an older system that does not support fast boot, we will also cover a few other things you can do to speed up your POST and Windows load times that apply to most systems.
On the following pages, our plan of action is as follows:
- Hardware and Physical Connectivity
- Motherboard BIOS/UEFI Settings
- Check Current Installation, Windows Installation, and Optimization
rather detailed, and informative. thanks
Thanks!
I always ensure that all my SSDs and HDs are partitioned using the GPT scheme and my Windows installs are in UEFI mode.
What I didn’t know is about GOP. I have a motherboard with the P67 chipset. Recently I upgraded my video card to a Zotac GeForce 960 GTX AMP Edition and I needed to force legacy mode to get it working at POST, unfortunately. I’ve searched through the internet and I saw that other people have exactly this same issue.
My motherboard’s UEFI Setup doesn’t have any choice related to Secure Boot or CSM, only “Legacy Mode”, which is apparently related to loading legacy BIOS or UEFI option ROMs. Didn’t affect the ability to install and boot Windows (or Linux) in UEFI/GPT mode.
Much of the article has to do with performing a UEFI install of Windows 8 as opposed to getting the fastest boot possible–but still, it’s good to see this instruction out there for people who don’t know what a “Legacy” install is–but that info should probably be put in a separate article. In Windows 10 10162 my hidden partitions are automatically sized, created, and formatted correctly by the Win10 install program–when I install clean to a *raw* partition–creating a 450MB Recovery and a 100MB EFI partition.
A few comments…
*My HD7850 2GB card I bought a long-time back already has a factory GOP bios, no need to flash…I haven’t heard of any 7xxx-series cards that don’t–I believe all of AMD GCN discrete GPUs from 1.0 on have a GOP bios….
*Also, the thing about the hybrid Windows “fastboot” (using hibernation) to remember is that it takes extra time during shutdown to save the kernel state–so shutdowns increase by the length of time that boots decrease, roughly…:) I didn’t realize that myself until recently. I keep hibernation turned off–but I have only desktops–no laptops.
*With the Samsung EVO SSDs on current AMD core-logic systems, RAID won’t work even with the latest AMD SATA drivers–have to set the system for AHCI. That’s a peculiarity of the Samsung drives and the current AMD SATA drivers, imo (dated 9/2014.) WIth regular HDDs the RAID setting incorporates the AHCI function without a problem. (I found out, though, that using Dynamic formatting and then having Windows stripe my RAID 0 drives resulted in RAID 0 performance very close to using the RAID controller mode on basic-format HDDs.)
*Most “fastboot” options (on my motherboard, an MSI 970-Gaming) are the same but may be labeled differently than in your article. Mine are “Windows 8 Fastboot” and “MSI Fastboot.” I suspect that the “MSI Fastboot” is equivalent to your “Ultra Fastboot”…;) Seems like the only thing it does differently is skip the bios entry screen–if I use it I have to boot to windows first, then run a little MSI proggy to reboot and then go into the UEFI settings from there. I use only the Windows 8 fastboot option in my UEFI settings, accordingly…;) (The second or two saved in the boot with MSI Fastboot isn’t worth the hassle on the other end when going back into the UEFI.)
*I mentioned Legacy mode…I gather that it isn’t widely appreciated that if you aren’t doing Secure Boot (Secure Boot state = ON, in msinfo32.exe) you really aren’t doing a UEFI install or running Windows in true UEFI mode. The whole point of UEFI over bios is that it protects the boot process, so secure boot should be running. I’ve often wondered how many people think they are in UEFI mode but run with secure boot off. Must be a bunch, maybe–my UEFI bios allows that setting, but I just thought I’d mention it.
OK, so with hibernation turned off, in AHCI mode booting from the Samsung SSD (250GBs), Win10x64 build 10162, no “ultra fast” mode used, and secure boot on, I’m delighted to say my boots are under 10 seconds..! THe great thing is that it is consistent–ie, there’s no difference between a cold boot and a warm boot–they are all under 10 seconds–if I cut out the UEFI entry screen at boot–I can shave 2 seconds off that, maybe…but I’d rather take the extra second or two so that I can hit the DEL key at boot and go right into the UEFI whenever I want–don’t want to have boot to windows and then boot again to get there…;) And, also, my shutdowns are much shorter than they were when I was monkeying around with hibernation & hybrid boot.
I have to ask: what is this obsession with boot time? Why does it matters in 2015? I don’t remember the last I rebooted my computer. Why does saving 10 seconds every blue moon matters? I’m not trolling, I’m really curious to know.
This article is as much meant to those moving to SSDs as as much as those with SSDs. For those moving to SSDs, the typical PC start time is more than a minute. If the average person starts their PC 5 times a day that is 5 minutes or 1 day and 6hrs a year…sat waiting for your PC to start.
I wonder why someone would do full shutdowns and reboots instead of using the sleep mode, but I can see boot time being important for them. Thanks.
To save electricity, I do it all the time. My computer boots in 7 seconds so it’s never an issue. SSD+Win8+uEFI, It’s not rocket science.
I don’t know how much you pay for electricity, but over here it cost me about 2-3$ a year to keep my computer in sleep mode 20 hours a day instead of shutting it down. A computer also consume a lot more power when booting up than while sitting idle, offsetting some of that saving. But every dollar counts, I can appreciate that. Thanks for your reply Quix!
I always disable hybrid shutdown on Windows. Some hardware, especially on USB can have trouble. Some drivers really don’t like it, sometimes the power is still here on USB ports and when you boot up, there is no full reset of the hardware and problems happens.
Another thing is when you dual boot, Windows lock the access to the partition if it wasn’t a full shutdown (or restart).
If you’re on a laptop, sleep is probably not a problem but on a workstation, it can be different.
Anyway, on a SSD , the POST can be longer than Windows full boot time.