Is "fast boot" in Windows 10 causing issues for anyone?

[Hokie]

I learned recently that Windows 10 by default turns on a power setting called "fast boot". I won't go into what it does but you can Google it and find all the details. The bottom line is that with this setting turned on you are not really doing a full shutdown when you shut down Windows. The RAM is still powered and holds some things in memory.

That's great if it works but I began having start up issues on my HP Pavilion 590 desktop after the last Windows feature update. The PC would boot to a dark gray screen and lock up. I had to hold down the power button for 5 seconds to get it to reboot. Crashing down like this can be a recipe for disaster.

After trying several things I finally stumbled across this fast boot setting under the system and power menu. I turned it off and that seems to have cured the issue. I believe the problem might have been related to installing an NVME M.2 SSD and moving the OS over to that. It does take slightly longer to boot but still boots quickly with the SSD as the boot drive. If your PC is having trouble booting at times you might check this setting.

To change it go to Settings, System, Power & Sleep, choose Additional Power Settings, then select choose what the power buttons do. The settings will be grayed out but you can click on "Change settings that are currently unavailable". You have to be logged in as an administrator to access the setting.

[Quemado]

1. I already had "fast start" turned off.

It was not causing my computer to have issues, but like you, I wanted to avoid crashes and lock ups.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Thanks for the info. Bookmarked

I haven't had the problem yet.
I was wondering why boots were so quick since last Win 10 update.

[Hokie]

4. I think changing my boot drive to an SSD might have been part of the problem

I added a 250 GB NVME drive and moved the OS over to that drive. Fast start might not have liked that. It still boots quickly even w/o the fast start turned on though.

[Hokie]

3. The problem seemed to get a lot worse after the last big update

I really started to notice the lock up on booting after the May feature update for Windows 10. Before that it would periodically lock up coming out of sleep mode but after the update it failed to boot almost every time.