If there is something that drives most people crazy, it is that their computer takes a long time to start up and shut down. Although it may be a matter of minutes, having to look at the screen while our computer turns on or off makes it seem like an eternity. When we launch the PC, everything is smooth and both startup and shutdown are usually fast, however, as time goes by and we add applications, these are two processes that tend to become quite slow. We are going to show you all the ways to speed up startup and shutdown in Windows 10 . The truth is that there are many and different causes that can cause our computer to become slow when turning it off or on. In each case, they may be one or the other, we may not even know them, therefore, we are going to show a series of recommendations to follow to try to speed up both processes.
Best ways to speed up Windows 10 startup
If you want to speed up the startup of the operating system, there are several things you can do by optimizing the processes in Windows, checking the security options or with different settings regarding the programs or applications that are used. In the last case, you can consider changing the hardware you have, for example, opting for a faster hard drive or other elements that are more adapted to your consumption habits. You can also consider suspending the computer if you are going to use it in a short time, or hibernate it if you want it to start sooner as specific alternative options. However, since what we want is to speed up the processes, we will tell you about several things with which you can really speed up the start and start enjoying the use of your computer in less time.
Windows 10 Quick Start
The Microsoft operating system has a special function that allows us to speed up the start of the system. We are referring to the Quick Start of Windows 10, an option still available in the Control Panel and that we can easily activate as follows:
- We open the Control Panel.
- We select the Hardware and Sound option .
- Next, we enter Power Options.
- We click on Choose behavior of the start/shutdown buttons .
- On the next screen we select the Activate fast startup option.
- We save the changes.
If the option cannot be activated or deactivated, we will click on “Change the currently unavailable configuration”.
Update graphics card drivers
On some occasions the failure when starting our computer can be related to the drivers of our graphics card . If they are damaged or very old, they can slow down the process. It can be solved easily and without much complication. We just have to right click on the start icon and select the ” Device Manager “. Once inside, we look for the graphics card in the menu that appears and by right clicking on it we select ” Update driver software “. This will allow us to have the latest drivers and rule out that they are the cause of the slow start of our computer.
Check if we have viruses or malware
Sometimes it is possible that the start of the computer becomes slow because we have been infected with a virus or malware that takes advantage of the system startup to do its tasks. This will therefore slow down the process, therefore, it is advisable to do a good analysis of our PC to clean any threat hosted on the computer and that is causing it to start up very slowly. Therefore, it is good to have a good updated antivirus system and do a full scan from time to time. You can start with a quick scan if you don’t have much time. You can also resort to the security system that Windows offers you to find out if there is something that could be affecting the normal functioning of your computer.
Change the hard drive to an SSD
Although all the options mentioned are at the software level, the truth is that, if we are still using a hard drive on our computer, an improvement at the hardware level can make our PC start up much faster. Therefore, changing our mechanical HD to a solid state drive, SSD, will speed up the start of Windows 10 considerably. This is an action that requires an investment, but it may be worth it considering the improvements you experience, especially if your hard drive starts to give you problems or runs low.
Enabling Fast Boot
We will not do this adjustment from Windows itself, but from the motherboard in case we have a model with UEFI technology . This process is usually useful on desktop computers, although there are several exceptions that we will detail below. When we press the start button on a computer of this type, it usually takes a long time to reach the first loading screen.. Windows boot is fast, but nothing frees us from having to wait 20 or 30 seconds before that happens. Why is that? Well, because modern motherboards do all kinds of checks before starting the operating system. It is done for stability and security issues. If you have a model with a numeric display, you will be able to see in real time all the operations that are taking place. Well, this can be disabled. The only bad thing is that if you have a problem later with your motherboard, you will have to do a CMOS reset to find out what error is occurring. If you are a standard user, you will have no problem with this. However, if you have overclocked your computer (CPU, chipset or memories), it is better that you do not do this process.
