POST Time Census: Firmware Boot Seconds by Platform

Every PC times its own start. The firmware counts from power-on until it hands over to the operating system’s loader, and the system keeps that number. On Windows it appears in Task Manager as Last BIOS time, and on Linux systemd-analyze prints it as the firmware part of the startup line, beside the loader, the kernel and everything after.

On DDR5 platforms the number has grown, and memory training is the usual reason. A moderator’s guide on ASUS’s ROG forum describes training as the board testing and adjusting memory signal timings during POST, says later boots are quicker than the first, and says Memory Context Restore shortens cold boots further by skipping part of the work. Owners trade single readings in threads. This board, that BIOS, so many seconds. A search in September 2026 did not turn up those readings collected anywhere with the board, the BIOS and the memory beside them.

This page opens that census. One row is one boot of one machine. The data, the field definitions, the validator and the report form live in the open repository: github.com/iBlessi/techfuelhq-census (CC BY 4.0).

If the machine never reaches a picture, this is the wrong page. Monitor says no signal covers the wait after new memory or a CMOS reset, and computer won’t turn on covers a machine that does nothing.

How results are reported

For each platform, split by the state of the memory training shortcut, the census gives the number of readings, the median, the shortest and the longest firmware time in seconds, and how many board makers are among the rows.

It publishes no verdict on a board or a BIOS version. The same board with two memory kits is two different measurements, and a BIOS update replaces the firmware that does the training, so the row carries the memory and the BIOS version beside the time.

What one row records

A row is one boot of one machine. Of its 18 fields, you fill in 4, the reading fills in 12 and the maintainer sets 2.

The memory training shortcut

The setting is Memory Context Restore on AMD boards. The moderator’s guide gives its place in ASUS’s BIOS as Extreme Tweaker, then DRAM Timing Control. If you have not looked, say so. “Not checked” is a better row than a guess.

How to take the reading

On Windows, start the machine the way you usually do and sign in. Open PowerShell, which needs no administrator rights for this, then paste the line below and press Enter.

$p=Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power';$o=Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem;$b=Get-CimInstance Win32_BaseBoard;$f=Get-CimInstance Win32_BIOS;$c=Get-CimInstance Win32_Processor|Select-Object -First 1;$d=@(Get-CimInstance Win32_PhysicalMemory);[ordered]@{census='post-time';v=1;os='windows';fw_post_ms=[int]$p.FwPOSTTime;fast_startup=$(if($null -eq $p.HiberbootEnabled){-1}else{[int]$p.HiberbootEnabled});board_vendor=$b.Manufacturer;board=$b.Product;bios_version=$f.SMBIOSBIOSVersion;bios_date=$(if($f.ReleaseDate){$f.ReleaseDate.ToUniversalTime().ToString('yyyy-MM-dd')}else{''});cpu=$c.Name.Trim();dimms=$d.Count;ram_gb=[int](($d|Measure-Object Capacity -Sum).Sum/1GB);ram_speed=[int]($d|Select-Object -First 1).ConfiguredClockSpeed;os_build=$o.BuildNumber}|ConvertTo-Json -Compress

It prints one line that starts with {. Copy that line into the builder below. The command reads the firmware time from the registry and the board, BIOS, processor and memory from Windows, and it prints no serial number, computer name or user name. The figure was checked against Task Manager on one Windows 11 build 26200 machine before publication: the registry held 63,981 milliseconds while Task Manager showed a Last BIOS time of 64.0 seconds.

On Linux, run systemd-analyze and paste what it prints. The builder asks for the board and BIOS by hand. If the line has no part marked (firmware), the machine did not pass a firmware time to systemd and there is nothing to report.

The reading belongs to the boot that started the session you are in. Say whether that was a restart or a start from off, because the two can differ.

Send a report

Sending needs a GitHub account, because the report is filed as an issue. No account? Copy the report and email it to contact@techfuelhq.com.

What has been published

Current count: 0 reports. No group has rows yet, so nothing is published.

A group publishes at five readings. Below that it is listed as collecting, with its count and no figures.

Limits of this data

• Reports come from people who chose to send them. An owner annoyed by a slow start is more likely to report than one who never noticed.
• The firmware reports its own time. A board that counts differently from another will read differently for the same wait.
• Time spent in the BIOS setup screen is part of the figure. A boot where you entered setup is not a reading of the board.
• The state of the memory training shortcut is the owner’s word. The system cannot read it.

Use the data

The dataset is one file. submissions.csv holds one row per boot, in the field order above, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Attribute it as “TechFuelHQ open census” with a link to this page.

My own board is the ROG Strix B650-A, reviewed here. The coil whine census is the sibling dataset that started this series.

Change log

• 0.1.0 (2026-09-29): fields, the Windows command, the systemd-analyze reader, validator and intake form. The census opened with 0 rows.