*SOLVED* Two PC's but different boot times - Kernel 7.0?

MNS1968 · 2026-05-31 12:13:10

Greetings,

My older i5 computer is now taking a very long time to start since the last kernel update. I've been using Linux since 2010, so am perplexed why this is now happening.

I have two computers at home. Both my desktop PC's are running Arch, both run the same kernel 7.0.10, software and the same Xfce desktop. Even the grub files are identical on both machines. Both computers use to boot up just as quickly. OK, slightly longer for the old i5 with an SSD, but now this PC can take a minute or two to get through BIOS and after a black screen of a another minute the login screen will eventually appear. The i7 11700 barely takes 20 seconds from pushing the start button to the login screen. The odd thing is with this older i5 PC, once up and running, there is no apparent issue with speed or the operation of this computer and even a restart is quick and seamless. It's almost like the older components of this computer need time to heat up from a cold start!

The main PC is a Intel i7 11700 with a ASRock Pro 4 motherboard, boot drive is an Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 250 GB drive and is my daily driver. The older PC is a Intel i5 3470 on a Gigabyte GA-H61M motherboard and the boot drive is a SanDisk 120 GB Plus SSD and is used for backups, film scanning and film photography editing but is used no where near used as frequently. The boot drive on the i5 machine is a 2019 SanDisk 120 GB SSD and seems in good health for it's age. Testing was done with KDiskMark.

I can't see anything untoward in the journalctl and certainly never had a problem with the install. Maybe it's the newer Kernel possibly being not quite compatible with the older hardware of this computer. Another idea I've had is the old motherboard BIOS chip is failing or the board chipset itself but all the motherboard components look OK as far as I can tell and there’s no swollen capacitors on the old motherboard that I can see. I've even tried booting the older PC without it's Radeon RX480 4GB graphics card to see if that was the issue and using the Intel HD Graphics 2500 instead but the result was still the same. My other thoughts are if the i5 3470 CPU is slowly succumbing to age but I think this is unlikely and it is working within normal temperatures. Idle temperature for the CPU is 25 to 27°C and never gets above 55°C even under load. I regularly clean my PC's and repaste my CPU's with MX-5 thermal paste around three year intervals.

Incidently if your wondering, the BIOS on this GA-H61M motherboard is up to date from the last Gigabyte BIOS update available, circa 2012. It hadn't been updated since the original Linux install some five years ago but I have since flashed the BIOS again but to no avail.

My only other thought is if a Systemd boot would be better option for the older machine rather than Grub bootloader with this newer kernel?

Your comments and thoughts would be appreciated.

M.

Last edited by MNS1968 (2026-05-31 14:32:31)

seth · 2026-05-31 13:02:50

so am perplexed why this is now happening I can't see anything untoward in the journalctl

Have you checked the system journal or systemd-analyze about *where* things stall? Untoward or not?
Chances are it's a TPM related problem

MNS1968 · 2026-05-31 14:29:47

seth wrote:

Chances are it's a TPM related problem

Not with this motherboard. It's from 2011 and has no TPM support, there's not even a TPM 1.2 Header on this board.

Sorry, I posted journalctrl when it should of been system journal. There was an answer that I must of overlooked.

May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: limiting SATA link speed to <unknown>
May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: SRST failed (errno=-16)
May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: softreset failed
May 31 13:26:48 Arch-Office kernel: ata3: reset failed, giving up

I have to admit, I hadn't use systemd-analyze thinking nothing was apparently showing in system journal.

Arch-Office  ~  systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 1min 1.584s (kernel) + 4.469s (userspace) = 1min 6.053s 
graphical.target reached after 4.280s in userspace.

So adding blame, I got ...

Arch-Office  ~  systemd-analyze blame
1.628s dev-sda2.device

So it's the SanDisk SSD boot drive that's slowly failing.

Thanks Seth, think I'm getting senile in my old age

Hey ho, either new SATA cable or more than likely new drive needed and a fresh install.

Last edited by MNS1968 (2026-05-31 14:39:52)

MNS1968 · Today 10:00:02

*Update*

Turns out it's not the SanDisk SSD at fault nor the SATA cable. Seems I have a bad connection on the motherboard is the cause of the issue.

Of the four SATA connections on the old Gigabyte motherboard one isn't working properly. While SATA2_1 works on the motherboard, this port is the cause for the delay. The other three SATA connections are working correctly.

Last edited by MNS1968 (Today 10:01:17)

Arch Linux

#1 2026-05-31 12:13:10