Is a 40-Second Boot Time Normal for a New AM5 Gaming PC?
Asked by
MellowCedar42
I recently built a new PC with help from a friend, using a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, an MSI B850M GAMING PLUS WIFI6E motherboard, and a 1TB Kingston NVMe SSD. From pressing the power button to reaching Windows, it takes about 40 seconds. The screen stays black for a while, then the MSI logo appears briefly before Windows starts. It works normally once booted, but I've heard similar systems can start in 5–10 seconds. Is this boot time expected, or is there a BIOS setting or hardware issue I should check?
Answers
Check the motherboard’s BIOS time in Task Manager after Windows loads. If most of the delay happens before the Windows logo, it’s probably firmware or memory training rather than startup apps. Updating the BIOS and checking settings related to memory training, such as Memory Context Restore or retraining behavior, may reduce the delay. Be aware that some systems may retrain again after hardware changes or unstable memory settings.
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Make sure Windows Fast Startup is enabled, and review the Startup Apps section in Task Manager to disable anything unnecessary. However, those settings mainly affect the Windows portion of startup. Since you’re seeing a long black screen before the motherboard logo, the main delay is more likely happening during POST, before Windows begins loading.
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A 40-second power-on-to-login time is a little slow for this hardware, but it’s still within the range seen on some new DDR5 systems and doesn’t automatically indicate a problem. Give the system a few days of normal use, but if the delay remains consistent, update the BIOS and check the memory-training settings first.
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This is often caused by DDR5 memory training, especially on newer AMD AM5 systems. The motherboard may spend 20–30 seconds checking and retraining the RAM before displaying the logo, so 40 seconds isn’t necessarily a sign that anything is wrong. In the BIOS, look for Memory Context Restore and enable it; that can let the board reuse previously validated memory settings instead of training on every boot. A BIOS update may also improve memory-training behavior.
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MellowCedar42: I’m comfortable changing BIOS settings. What exactly does Memory Context Restore change?