Slow boot times up to 7 min on an Elite Desk 800 G4

[StormWard]

Greetings!! I have a G4 800 35W Intel with a fresh install of OS.  Bare minimal software (office suite, printer and scanner drivers) and 1TB M.2 and 32 GB memory.  The boot takes 5-7 min to get to Windows, with 1-2 min on a blank screen, and 4-5 min on the HP logo.  I am comparing to a friend who owns a G4 705 35W AMD Wolf edition that has been running for 3 years, loaded with software, 256 GB M.2 and 8 GB memory.  His boot times are 15 sec on a blank screen and 30 - 45 sec on the HP logo.

Is there a known issue with boot times on the G4 800?  Perhaps the unit does a full hardware health scan than the 705 doesn't?  It just seems 5-7 boot time on a modern-day computer is excessive.

Thanks!!

[BeemerBiker]

Bring up the windows event viewer and look for error messages

Disk error

Timeouts

Lot of apps phone home especially security apps (McAfee, Norton) and if DNS is not configured properly they cannot find their servers and try a lot before finally getting through.

Another possibility is bloatware.  Use "msconfig" to boot into windows safe mode.   if safe mode boots much faster then use the task manager and look at startup processes to see who is taking too much time.   Safe mode will not use WiFi or bluetooth mouse or keyboard so you will need a wired keyboard and mouse to get out of safe mode.

It is also possible your friends system is simply waking from sleep mode or from hibernation and was not really turned off.

[StormWard · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the information.  Unfortunately, the event viewer had no leads, and booting to safe mode had the same results and long boot times.

Pure coincidence, I ordered an upgrade to the Intel dual band WiFi card to get tri band WiFi 6 to match my mesh router.  It arrived this event and after I installed it, the book lag completely disappeared.  It now boots in less than a minute.

I am assuming something was wrong with the old WiFi card and even though it technically appeared to be working and give back no error, the system board must have been going through a lot of retry with it at the hardware level.

[BeemerBiker]

I am glad you got it working.  From your description the problem is the older WiFi card not being able to find a clear channel.

You might want to log into your modem and run the app (if any) that finds the best channel.  For example (AT&T modem):