Troubleshooting Slow Boot Times on Your Razer Blade: A Guide

Are you experiencing prolonged boot times on your Razer Blade laptop, even with a high-speed NVMe SSD? If so, you’re not alone. Many users encounter this frustrating issue, which can detract from the overall experience of using a high-performance laptop. In this post, we’ll explore possible reasons for the delay and offer some insights based on personal experience.

The Issue at Hand

A few weeks ago, I acquired a Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2019) through eBay at a competitive price. Equipped with an Intel i7-8750H processor, an RTX 2070 Max-Q GPU, a generous 64GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO SSD, I expected exceptional performance. While the system boots to Windows in under 30 seconds after the initial logo appears, the time taken to reach the Razer logo at startup is concerning—taking between 1.5 to 2 minutes.

Interestingly, this slow boot time persists regardless of whether the battery is installed or not. Initially, I ran it without the battery and later decided to add a new one, hoping it might resolve the issue. Unfortunately, that hasn’t made a difference.

Exploring Potential Culprits

To tackle the slow boot issue, I’ve already explored several avenues:

1. BIOS and Secure Boot Settings: I toggled the Fast Boot and Secure Boot options, but to no avail.

2. Memory Testing: My suspicions regarding the RAM arose when I encountered multiple errors during testing with MemTest86 in multi-core mode. However, when I switched to single-core mode, all errors disappeared, suggesting the RAM may actually be functioning correctly.

3. BIOS Updates: The laptop currently runs on a BIOS version dated 05/16/2019, while Razer’s website provides firmware updates from 2021. Curiously, when I attempted to use the firmware updater, it indicated that my system was already updated.

What Happens After Restarting?

One noteworthy observation is that if I boot up the laptop immediately after shutting it down, it operates smoothly and quickly. However, if I leave it off for five minutes or more, the sluggish boot time returns—taking a frustrating minute and a half once again.

Seeking Solutions

I’m reaching out to the community for help. If anyone has encountered similar issues or has suggestions