7 Ways to Decrease Computer Boot Time

If you want to Decrease Computer Boot Time on your rig, then you can follow these simple steps to get your computer moving much quicker than ever before.


Published: April 24, 2013 11:19 AM /

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photo showing a man sat looking at a computer screen with a hand thoughtfully on his chin.

If you're like me, you hate wasting time waiting for your computer to shut down, boot up, or restart. You'd rather be surfing the web, browsing Reddit for hours and hours, or questioning and killing bad guys. Well, let's look at a few ways for you to decrease computer boot time, so you can get back to whatever you'd rather be doing.


1. Adjust BIOS Settings

The BIOS is the first thing you see when you turn your computer on, and it controls how your computer boots. There is really only one setting you need to change in the BIOS that will make a series of adjustments for you, and that is to turn on "Quick Boot" as well as to set your hard drive to the top of the boot priority. Essentially, this turns off all of the tests that your computer runs at boot-up and sets it to go right to the disk instead!

To do this, hit DEL (or whatever key your BIOS might use) to go into the BIOS settings. Once in the BIOS, go to the BOOT menu using your arrow keys, and set your boot priorities as the Hard Drive first, then "Enable" Quick boot. This will speed up your boot sequence, but keep in mind that if you need to boot to a CD or USB, you will need to tap F9 at startup to choose that option.


2. Clean up your startup programs

This is a really simple, quick, and easy-to-do fix to decrease your computer's start-up time. Search for msconfig (or Start > Run > "msconfig" > OK) and hop over to the "Startup" tab. Look over the list, and if there are any programs that you don't need to start as soon as you log into Windows, disable it!


3. Change your boot timeout

You know the black screen that pops up when your computer doesn't like the way it was shut down last, or that gives you the listing for Operating Systems you can boot to if you dual-boot? You can change that time-out to be less than 30 seconds, greatly enhancing your boot time! Much like cleaning up your startup programs, search for msconfig (or Start > Run > "msconfig" > OK) and hop over to the "Boot" tab. On the bottom(ish) right of the tab, you have the option for "Timeout," which you may change to however long you'd like.


4. Upgrade your RAM

RAM is important to the performance of your PC. If you don't have enough, chances are you notice slowness on a frequent basis. Today's standard is about 4 GB of RAM (at least), and it seems to be growing. To check how much RAM you have, right-click on "My Computer", go to "properties" and then scroll down until you see "System Memory". If you have less than 2GB, I would highly recommend upgrading! (Stay tuned for how to put more in, too!)

To see what kind of RAM you need, head over to GoldenRAM's Analyzer and find matching RAM on NewEgg!


5. Disable devices that you don't use

Do you have a floppy disc drive in your computer? If you do, chances are, you still never use it. You may even have adapters and various other parts of your computer that you don't use anymore. If so, disable them to speed up your Windows startup time. Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Manage", then on the left side of the page, choose "Device Manager". right-click anything you may not use, like my modem in the picture below, and choose to disable to stop it from being used for no reason!


6. Give your computer a static IP Address

Part of your computer's boot time is taken up by it trying to determine an IP Address to use. This can easily be solved by switching your computer from an automatic IP Address to a static one. This will save your computer from having to figure out what number to assign itself! (Stay tuned for a walkthrough on how to do this on different versions of Windows)


7. Keep your Anti-Virus up to date and running

Anti-Virus is an essential part of making sure that your computer is safe and clean. It's important to make sure that you keep your up-to-date and that you scan regularly. If you don't, you should run a scan at least once a week. If you don't already have some, I recommend Avast! or Microsoft Security Essentials, which are both free and will keep your computer working smoothly.


There you have it, seven steps to decrease your computer boot times. Follow these, and we can guarantee you'll see some amount of a speed increase when your boot your computer. If you have any questions or have some other ways to decrease computer boot time, post them in the comments!

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Rutledge Daugette
| CEO and Founder

Rutledge Daugette is the Guides Editor & Founder of TechRaptor. Rutledge's degree in Game Programming ultimately led him to found the site in 2013, with… More about Rutledge