[SOLVED] Boot shows underscore for 5-10 secs before booting on M2 drive. Should I rebuild?

[robbieflower]

I switched to M2 drive on a Asus B450M, and after about a month the bootup changed to showing an underscore (not blinking) for 5-10 seconds, then the american megatrends screen then windows 10 logo till boot.

How can I speed up the boot - and skip the underscore step! BCD Rebuilds etc seem to be for if it does not boot. Should I do it anyway or it doesnt apply to me? Will something else help?

 

[Colif]

is PC set up as UEFI boot or MBR?
Setting up bios for ultra fast boot might skip this

 

[robbieflower]

UEFI

 

[Colif]

do you have latest bios? on gigabyte boards, for instance, updating bios can remove the underscore at start up
Sometimes it can be USB devices causing it.

 

[robbieflower]

Im not sure Im on UEFI - I was checking the bios there.


I have CSM disabled, I dont think it worked with it on
AMI support off
boot OS set to other, the other option being UEFI

I was using armory crate, so I think its all up to date

 

[Jacozeelie]

External drives can cause a slow bootup, if no usb devises except keyboard and mouse, my pc boots up in 4 seconds. If anything else is plugged in, can take to 30 seconds before post

 

[Colif]

if you have csm disabled it has to be UEFI
Boot os to other just means secure boot isn't on. That could perhaps cause a stall as with it on, it won't even try to boot off USB.

 

[robbieflower]

I changed CSM to UEFI and still had the underscore. What are the settings I should be using? anything I found online is from the old asus bios in blue and white

It waits for about 20 seconds before the megatrends screen. Its not a slow boot but a delayed boot.

 

[Jacozeelie]

That, i think is the gpu bios loading first. If it is, there is nothing you can do. Check for a vbios update

 

[Colif]

What are specs of PC?
what else is attached?
try removing any other drives and see if it changes anything.

it shouldn't be sitting on any screen for 30 seconds before flash screen even shows up. Some hardware is slowing it down

 

[robbieflower]

I updated some stuff on armory crate and it stopped, so it may be a bios update as suggested or some other tweak and may come back. But have a better understanding of what may be going on thanks.

 

[Colif]

Mine sits on bios screen for 16 seconds before it hands control to nvme and boots instantly after that, i thought a bios update would fix that until I found out Gigabyte BIOS are just slow to hand control over to windows. Coming from an older PC where it was instant, took a while to adjust.

bios update might be all you need.