Slow Boot Time on CM4
Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2026 8:27 pm
Hi,
I am currently using a CM4 (with eMMC) on the official IO board and a Waveshare HMDI screen (1600x600).
Overall, it takes about 45s from a cold boot to music playing through Android Auto, which I find a bit underwhelming.
The CM4 spends 15s just in the boot loader which from my Google search is not unusual. With a bit of optimization in systemd I got the actual OS to load in ~7s (2.5s kernel + 4.5s userspace). Hudiy loads for another ~10 seconds (I could probably start this while the OS is still loading) and once Hudiy is up, it takes another ~10 seconds until Android Auto is connected and playing music.
Compared to the video linked here (viewtopic.php?p=128#p128), the time spend in the bootloader (before the screen turns on) seems to be similar, but the OS and Hudiy itself seems to be a lot faster than in my setup. Before I just bite the bullet and treat myself to a CM5, is there any optimization I may have overlooked?
High-level overview of my "optimizations":
- Disabled a bunch of unused systemd services (including networkd-wait-online)
- Static IP instead of DHCP
- Disabled camera and display auto-detection (Waveshare displays don't seem to offer EDID information)
I am currently using a CM4 (with eMMC) on the official IO board and a Waveshare HMDI screen (1600x600).
Overall, it takes about 45s from a cold boot to music playing through Android Auto, which I find a bit underwhelming.
The CM4 spends 15s just in the boot loader which from my Google search is not unusual. With a bit of optimization in systemd I got the actual OS to load in ~7s (2.5s kernel + 4.5s userspace). Hudiy loads for another ~10 seconds (I could probably start this while the OS is still loading) and once Hudiy is up, it takes another ~10 seconds until Android Auto is connected and playing music.
Compared to the video linked here (viewtopic.php?p=128#p128), the time spend in the bootloader (before the screen turns on) seems to be similar, but the OS and Hudiy itself seems to be a lot faster than in my setup. Before I just bite the bullet and treat myself to a CM5, is there any optimization I may have overlooked?
High-level overview of my "optimizations":
- Disabled a bunch of unused systemd services (including networkd-wait-online)
- Static IP instead of DHCP
- Disabled camera and display auto-detection (Waveshare displays don't seem to offer EDID information)