“I press the button and it takes an hour to reach the desktop.” That is the most common complaint we hear about older machines. Let’s split that time into stages — then you will know where it is actually worth spending money.
Stage 1: POST (Power-On Self Test) — 5–15 seconds is normal
From the power button to the Windows logo. If it drags on for 30 seconds or more, the problem is in the BIOS or in a piece of hardware.
Typical causes:
- The BIOS is checking every drive — if you have two or three old HDDs, each one takes 5-10s to spin up and answer. Unplug the ones you don’t need, or change the “Boot order” so the SSD is checked first.
- Flat CMOS battery — the BIOS forgets its settings and has to look for everything again on every start. A new battery is cheap, and swapping it is simple enough to do yourself.
- RAM trouble — some machines run a memory test on every power-up if the BIOS spots something odd.
Stage 2: Windows boot — 15–30 seconds is normal
The spinning dots, then the logo, then the lock screen. If it takes one to three minutes, the problem is the drive or the Windows services.
The usual culprit: an HDD instead of an SSD. This is the cheapest upgrade you can make. You pay for the labour and the SSD (256GB-1TB, the price depends on capacity), and your computer starts up 5-10x faster. Labour is listed in our price list, and we tell you the exact amount after diagnostics, before any work starts.
To check whether you already have an SSD: Win+R → “dfrgui” → if Type says “Solid state drive”, you have an SSD. If it says “Hard disk drive”, it is an HDD and the upgrade is worth it.
Stage 3: From desktop to actually usable — 10-30s is normal
The desktop appears but you cannot click anything because programs are still loading in the background. This is the stage where the most time is wasted for no reason.
What to do:
- Ctrl+Shift+Esc → Startup tab
- Sort by “Startup impact” → look at the “High” entries
- Anything that isn’t essential (Spotify, Steam, Adobe, Skype, OneDrive, antivirus programs you don’t use) — Disable
- Restart and see how it feels
In the workshop we regularly find 30 or more apps in startup on infected machines. Clean-up and optimisation are charged according to our price list.
When an SSD upgrade is the best move
- The computer is four years old or more
- You run Win10 or Win11 on an HDD (Win11 was designed for SSDs only)
- You have enough RAM (8GB+) — then the drive is the bottleneck
We clone the existing drive (everything stays, programs and files) — you pay for labour plus the SSD, and we tell you the exact amount before we start. It takes 2-4 hours. Find out which one to choose here.
What does not help, whatever the internet says
- “Defrag” on an SSD — COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, it shortens the drive’s life
- Registry cleaners — placebo, more harm than good
- “PC Optimizer” software — 90% of it is adware, the rest does nothing
- More RAM if you already have 8GB+ — it will not speed up the boot
Bring it in or send it by courier — diagnostics without disassembly are free. If it turns out you need an SSD, we tell you the exact price before any work starts.