XPS 8900 slow boot time

Thanks for the response.  I was hoping that Dell would fix this but doesn't appear that it is high on their radar.  I have contacted support about this as well.  Will update this thread if that leads to something.

I would not hold my breath waiting for dell to improve this.

It took a long time for dell to update BIOS to get it to work with GTX 9xx class video cards and there was a huge uproar.

The thing is, once you use retail hardware (vs OEM hardware) that has competition (eg Gigabyte, ASUS, EVGA ) you will start to see the Niche that Dell plays in, and most buyers don't know what they are missing.

It is unfortunate that Dell doesn't improve their BIOS because their hardware choices are decent and middle of the road and at the price point of an 8900 it could be much, much better if their software was better.

Your 8700 should be A10

Your 8700 should be A10

Hello,

Few days ago I have received an XPS 8900 but with a regular (non-SSD) 1 GB hard drive and I have actually timed the total boot time (from machine being turned off, to Windows 7 log in screen) and it takes a total of 48 seconds which seems to be rather slow.

An update:  After spending several hours with Dell support, there was no progress on the issue.  Since it was a new system, I was able to exchange it for another XPS 8900.  The second one had the same issue as well.  So, it was not specific to my original XPS 8900 (as Dan-H mentioned earlier).  The other desktop I was comparing the boot times to in my earlier post is an HP Pavilion 500-200t (a low end model) and it is surprising that Dell wouldn't fix the issue.  I wonder if HP advertising how much quicker their desktops boot up in comparison to Dell's would do the trick :-)

That does sound rather slow.  However, I have not time the boot times with the hard drive that came with the desktop (non-ssd).  So, can't comment on that.  I am not sure if there is anything in Windows 7 that would provide how long the BIOS is taking to boot.  In Windows 10, that information is on the "startup" page of the task manager.

I have XPS 8900 with Windows 10 and BIOS v2.1.3.  It takes 115 seconds to boot...  There seems to be nothing that I can do but to wait for a new BIOS release.

I have just found out that my external hard drive was the cause!  After disconnecting the drive, it takes 14 sec to boot.

I recently upgraded my XPS 8900 by adding a EVGA 650 G2 power supply.  It did not increase the boot time, nor did I expect it too.  I also tried upgrading my memory from 8 GB to 16 GB.  It did not increase the boot time from the time I push the power button to login or from login to desktop.  I am using a Samsung 850 EVO SSD.  I am satisfied with the boot times and the general speed of the computer.  But I am disappointed that it is not much faster than my XPS 8300.  Both computers are using SSD's.  I don't game, and use my computer mainly for word processing and the internet, but I do like a fast computer.  The memory increase did improve the time it takes to launch the internet, VLC videos, Windows Live Mail, and the time it takes after you push administrative tools, computer management, storage and then the disks show up.  Overall, I would say it is a 15% increase in speed, so for $37 it was worth it.  I doubt it if using a Samsung 950 Pro PCIe NVMe would speed up boot times from what I have read, so I am not wasting my money.  They were supposed to come out with a new version of SSD early this year, but I have yet to see it. 

Disable all power-management.  Just don't turn the box off.  Then it's instantly available.  It will even run and last longer if you do this.