I have Hibernate disabled, so no, it is a cold boot.

However, my fast boot times are not Windows based but the result of Quick Start settings in the BIOS.   As I said before, my rig does not go all through the BIOS postings or menus listing drives and memory, etc, but straight to the boot screen.  That takes about 4-5 seconds.  This is where I save the time.  I further save time by disabling the lock and login screens, but that is minimal compared to the 30 - 40 seconds saved through bypassing the BIOS post.

True, having an 8 core AMD FX 9350 @ 4.0ghz and an SSD has boosted performance, but these don't really come into play until the OS has loaded. No, it is the UEFI BIOS that provides the rapid startup.  I was running a Gigabyte GA-990FXA UD5 with a Legacy BIOS up until a few weeks ago, and my boot times were similar to yours, well around 25-30 seconds, but that board sort of became obsolete and was replaced with an Asus Crosshair V Formula Z, which is a Republic of Gamers special edition with some performance enhancing features... namely an ultra-quick UEFI start up.

Mark, an antivirus program won't even load in 6 seconds.  Your wifi/net has to have a few seconds to find an IP address......get real, man.  

Have it your way. No point in going on. Go over to TechRepublic and straighten them out for me, will ya?  

Sorry again, Leo. I'm outta here. 

I dunno, Jim, I'm not talking about AV or WiFi.   I am, however, talking about a working desktop in 6-8 seconds using quick start in UEFI.. It's not impossible!

Here's a link to a forum entry on Toms Hardware refering to Win 8 UEFI boot times on Youtube being under 10 seconds

And here's a clip showing an 8 second start.  Like I said, it IS possible.

Here's another... 6 second start

If you just care for the overall boot time, however, you can draw exact numbers for your past couple of boots from the Windows Event Viewer.

Click [Windows] + [W] to jump directly to Search, type event, and select View event logs. In the Event Viewer, navigate to > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics Performance. You can now view the log file that contains all events in that category. The Event ID you are looking for is 100.

Post a screeny here for us, Mark.

I know it's possible, but not from a cold boot. You are in hybrid hibernation, even if you won't admit it.

Booting to a fully operational desktop includes A/V load time and internet connection.

The clip only proves that you can boot from hybrid hibernation in 8 seconds. It is NOT a full cold boot, Mark.

I am not going to respond here again because you won't listen or admit when you're proven wrong. It's pointless. You win.

"I am not going to respond here again because you won't listen or admit when you're proven wrong. It's pointless. You win."

Now Now Jim, Don't give up yet, I am learning some stuff here.

My brother had a computer which started up in about 6 seconds and he didn't even have an SSD ... just an overclocked AMD quadcore running at 4 GHz ... until he changed some hardware and then it took a lot longer, he was pretty frustrated about it. I don't remember the details, but I agree with starkers here: it is possible, with the right hardware and a bit of luck.

My windows computer at work also has a good hardware set-up, it also takes little time to get to the login screen, and also very little time to load the desktop after that. My boss is good with computer hardware and chose a good setup. This one has an SSD though, that helps of course.

Compare that to my computer before I had the SSD. Startup took almost 1 minute. Then the login screen. The further loading of all kinds of drivers and shit, it took another full minute before the computer became responsive again. Total load time was about 2 minutes... I was about to throw my computer out of the window, that's when I bought the SSD and now the load times are ok again.

Or maybe it was because my HDD was dying... it has more or less crashed by now, I cannot start up with my original HDD included for some reason. Or maybe my motherboard is dying or maybe the cables are crap ...

Who knows... it's a mysterious world sometimes.

Same here! I agree with me too.  In fact, I dare not argue with me because I'm always right.  That's the first rule of conversation with me.  And even when I'm wrong I refer myself to rule #1.  Works every time.

As for the bit of luck, it's not such a requirement anymore, not with UEFI enabled mobos making the task of tweaking things so much easier.... and that's where the ultra fast boot times are made possible.  When I was running a board with a Legacy BIOS, no amount of tweaking in Windows would break the 25 - 30 second barrier.  Disabling non-essential services and processes, the lock and login screens, bought a few seconds, but that was as low as I could get it until the UEFI mobo upgrade. 

That's when the ultra fast boot magic began, but somehow that snippet seems to have been lost in translation.

Feching internet... has a lot to answer for.