XPS 8950, BIOS 1.0.8, slow startup

Yes, it is consistent. FYI, I have isolated this a bit. I was asked by support to disable all the startup tasks. This had no effect. I was asked to boot in safe mode. This had no effect.

Since this is BIOS time, it is the time before Windows is booted.

My BIOS time on previous machines is less than 5 seconds. On this machine the lowest is 18.6 seconds. This is from cold start (not restart).

It may be what it is on this machine.   I had a desktop I built with an ASUS gamer motherboard with UEFI BIOS and it was consistently 20 plus seconds..   I was used to legacy BIOS (Not UEFI) and they booted fast.

All my machines use EUFI Bios. Other than this one, they all are much faster. Maybe I am stuck with slower times! It is disappointing.

Is it consistently slow or just a one time? 

My BIOS time is 9.7 seconds on my self built desktop 

I've never had or seen a UEFI BIOS that I didn't think was slow.  The more complicated and integrated with Windows, the slower they can get. With Win 11 the TPM comes into use.  

Only "5 second" BIOS I've seen was conventional, not UEFI.

@marsdavid - Is this the original version of BIOS that came with your PC or did you update to v1.0.8?  If you updated, do you know know what BIOS version was previously installed and what its BIOS time was?

Do you see a delay with only a spinning circle on the screen when you boot the PC?

There were issues with Realtek audio drivers causing slow boot times on the XPS 8930 and Dell pulled the last version of Realtek driver from their XPS 8930 support page. So I wonder if maybe the version (6.0.9235.1) offered for the XPS 8950 has a similar problem..?

Unfortunately, there's no older version of the Realtek driver listed for the XPS 8950, and versions for the XPS 8930 aren't  compatible with the XPS 8950. So the only way to test this may be to uninstall Realtek in Device Manager and then reboot and check BIOS times again.

If you do decide to test that way, be sure to manually set a system restore point first, to be safe. And/or image the boot drive on external media before you make changes like this...

Wonder if it could be the thorough check in the BIOS under fastboot or similar

XPS 8930 users, including me, all saw a spinning circle on the screen at boot for longer than "normal" after Windows Update forced a Realtek driver on this PC model. 

And XPS 8930 BIOS times, as reported in Task Manager>Startup, went from ~10 sec to >30-40 sec after that update. After reverting to the previous Realtek driver, BIOS times returned to their previous short times, eg, 12.1 sec for my PC today. 

Another possibility is a Microsoft update(s) needs to be installed at boot but can't because Fast Startup is enabled in Windows. You can test if that's an issue by disabled Fast Startup:

1. Boot to desktop
2. Open Power & Sleep screen
3.Click Additional power settings
4. Click Change what power buttons do
5. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable
6. UNcheck Turn on fast startup
7. Click Save changes
8. Do a full power-off shutdown, not just a Restart. Then power on and boot

Be patient at #8 because some update(s) may have to be installed.The BIOS time after this boot won't be meaningful because FS is disabled, so ignore it. But, when you get back to the desktop re-enable FS because it will make future boots noticeably faster than when it's disabled. Then do another normal full power-off shut down, boot up and check BIOS time again.

I don't know previous version of BIOS or BIOS Time with that release. I have V 1.0.8.

My understanding of BIOS Time is that it is the time before spinning circle or dots. That is, the time in EUFI BIOS processing. I was interacting with Dell-Care via private mail on this. They have told me that I need to contact Dell software support or install clean. I will contact Dell support first.

Fast Starup does not appear for me. I had looked at that previously as it was a good idea.

I just got off a 90 minute call with technical support. No help. Last step is for me to set BIOS storage from RAID to AHCI/NVMe and do a clean install. This was my suggestion to them. They told me if that does not help, I can call back and they will replace the motherboard!

@marsdavid This article has suggestions for decreasing the Last BIOS time: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/what-is-last-bios-time-in-windows-10-task-manager

@RoHe Fast Startup checkbox not shown in Windows. Only shows Sleep and Lock (see screenshot)

I will consider all your suggestions. Work on it tomorrow. Thanks

@Vic384 Good idea. Windows is on SSD. I was going to change BIOS storage setting from RAID to AHCI/NVMe. Once I do that, SSD will no longer boot. I can try the hardware removal first. Less work overall.