[solved] AsRock X870 Riptide WiFi caused very slow boot on Fedora 43
Problem = SOLVED but sharing this for anyone who finds it via search. Took me a while to track down the problem.
TL/DR; Very slow boot time (~2min15sec) on modern hardware -> AsRock motherboard wsas looking for not-connected USB-front-port -> disable in BIOS -> reduced boot time to 51sec
Problem: System was looking for 4x USB 2.0 ports, that can be connected on the motherboard, if they are in the front of the PC case. There was nothing connected to these 2x 9-pin headers, because my PC case only has 3x USB ports at the front (2x USB 3.2 and 1x USB 4 - they were connected to different motherboard headers). Each of the 4x USB ports took ~20sec to connect, error, etc.; together they caused a significant delay.
Hardware/Configuration:
- AsRock X870 Riptide WiFi
- CPU: AMD 7600X3D
- RAM: 32 GB DDR5-6000
- Storage: 3x NVMe SSDs
- OS: dual-boot Linux-Windows - Windows 11 Pro on first SSD; Fedora 43 with KDE on the second SSD (=Lexar NM790 1TB, LUKS-encrypted Btrfs)
- Boot manager: /boot/efi and /boot on the 2nd SSD with GRUB as boot manager
- BIOS version: 3.40 (not the latest version but I only update when needed)
Solution: Disabled the USB port in BIOS/UEFI. For the 2x USB 2.0 headers, this was USB2-port11 in this BIOS. Both the time between power-on and the GRUB menu ('firmware') _and_ the time between the GRUB menu and the desktop login screen improved significantly from ~2m15s to ~51s.
The path in de BIOS/UEFI to disable this is:
`Advanced\AMD CBS\PROM21 Chipset Common Options\PROM21L.1/2/3/6/7 USB Port Configuration Options` and then change `USB2 Port 11` from 'Auto' to 'Disable'.
Diagnosis process and ruled-out causes:
Boot process took 2m to 2m30 for Linux. Windows boot about 1m30.
systemd-analyze returned:
Startup finished in 35.8s (firmware) + 7.0s (loader) + 2.9s (kernel) + 1m 7.8s (initrd) + 7.2s (userspace) = 2m 0.6s
This is including: 5 second countdown in GRUB menu, ~10-20 seconds to enter LUKS decryption password and possibly ~10 seconds to enter username password.
`journalctl -b` returned a lot, but this caught my eye, because there was a few seconds between each of these steps:
usb 1-12: new high-speed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
usb 1-12: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 1-12: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb usb1-port12: attempt power cycle
usb 1-12: Device not responding to setup address.
usb 1-12: device not accepting address 11, error -71
usb usb1-port12: unable to enumerate USB device
[...this repeated +3 times for "usb device number "...]
Port 12 never appeared in `lsusb` and it was not accounted for by counting USB-ports. Also, comparing the names of what was connected in the `lsusb` output, and functional tests, showed that all USB devices seemed to be working properly.
It repeated 4 times - once for each of the 4 not-connected USB 2.0 front ports. This pattern of trying to enumerate 4 separate USB-ports made me realise it was from the front USB port because it was exactly 4 USB 2.0 ports that were on the motherboard CPU+chipset connection diagram of the manual.
This made me suspect the headers for those USB-ports, and not look into individual USB devices anymore. This was correct. After disabling the USB 2.0 "port" responsible for these 2 headers in the BIOS, there was no more delay.
(Note: There are 2 headers on this motherboard (USB_5_6 and _7_8) on the bottom-right side, for 2 USB 2.0-front ports each; 2 headers * 2 ports = 4 USB-ports.)
I didn't think the UEFI and initrd would be waiting on a USB port that wasn't there. I worked for two or three hours eliminating other USB-devices. My prime suspect was an external WD 3.5" HDD that was connected but not powered. After that I worked on eliminating the USB-hub of my monitor, wireless 2.4 GHz dongles (2 keyboards and mouse), a USB-powered desk lamp, and a cheap gaming controller clone. None of these turned out to be the cause.
Comparison of boot times before and after (`systemd-analyze`):
Startup finished in 35.8s (firmware) + 7.0s (loader) + 2.9s (kernel) + 1m 7.8s (initrd) + 7.2s (userspace) = 2m 0.6s
Startup finished in 19.527s (firmware) + 8.108s (loader) + 2.784s (kernel) + 4.182s (initrd) + 7.034s (userspace) = 41.637s