Is your ssd firmware, ssd driver, operating system & motherboard bios completely up to date? What changes have you made in the last two weeks?

Yes all are up to date. After i first experienced the problem, i started updating everything. But still experience it before and after updating. Bios, gpu, cpu, etc., etc....   I did not specifically look at the nvme driver though. (960 pro 512gb)
 
I'll check that out tonight. Although i will have to wait till tomorrow to see if it's still acting the same on boot. ( I have not checked to see how long, if at all, it has to sit before displaying this behavior on cold boot. )
 
I have experience the behavior of windows reopening web browser and such long before this problem started. This is a very recent issue. past week, two weeks tops. In this case I don't think these are related. I usually keep check of startup programs and looked at mine again after your suggestions and all looks well there.
 
I do have fast boot enabled, but it is set that way by default. I have not had any problems with it set that way since i built the system new 7 to 8 months ago. But i will be sure to check that out and disable it in the asus bios.
 
Thanks for your quick responses and input so far, hopefully this won't turn into a long process of poking and proding my first build.
 
Do you think i am doing any damage to my system, still putting it thru daily use while this issue is present? Should i only be using it if im actively diagnosing this issue? Just seems wierd because a reboot fixes it. I will try to catch the cpu stats next time it acts up to see if all is good there to, i just get so freaked out and quickly restart when it happens
 
I forget to check my monitoring programs before i restart.

bdogg454
 
I do have fast boot enabled, but it is set that way by default. I have not had any problems with it set that way since i built the system new 7 to 8 months ago. But i will be sure to check that out and disable it in the asus bios.
 
 

Leave Fast Boot enabled in BIOS, it's not the same and is actually a beneficial thing. The Windows 10 Fast Startup saves the kernel state info which can become stale and cause issues with hardware. See here - note that this is not an exhaustive list of issues, which makes it even more unpredictable. The issue I personally had is that with Fast Startup enabled I was unable to switch between Master and Slave profiles on my EVGA graphics card.

Sajin

bdogg454 
Do you think i am doing any damage to my system, still putting it thru daily use while this issue is present?

No.

While I agree with Sajin that you are not going to damage the system I would recommend backing up any files on the drive you need. Hopefully it's just a Windows update problem but anytime a hard drive starts acting odd it's best to make sure anything on the drive you would hate to lose is backed up in case the drive is dying.

So first boot of the day went well so far. Yesterday after conversating with you guys, i updated the sata driver (intel rapid storage) and cut off  windows fast startup. Will keep my eye on it as im not sure if it's intermittent or everytime i give it a cold boot. So far though, nothing has represented itself.
 
Thanks for the help so far.

Interrupt boot like you’re going to install windows with the USB or disc.
Run Windows 10 repair.

 
Nice.     

thanks for the update

bdogg454
While the super slow boot has not come back. my 960 pro nvme drive is only showing about 1800 read speed in crystal disk mark. It is 80% full, but i did'nt think that would make it drop over 1000 on the read speed.

That read speed sounds like Gen 2 speeds rather than Gen 3...

Benchmark 5 minutes after cold boot

here it is after samsung driver and reboot...

The nvme drive does not show up at all in intel rapid storage....   not sure if that's normal.

What is the best way, or best program to use to test the 960 pro to see if it is failing or going bad? Is there a hard drive testing program.

I am using samsung magician and in the previous post on this thread i posted some pictures of it.
It says my drive if performing normally but when i run benchmarks i get very inconsistant scores.
Anywhere from 2500 to 1300.
 
I have only had it show 2500 speed one time since all of this started and havn't had it show that fast again.
 
Everytime i boot my computer its a crap shoot of how fast the ssd is going to work. I have even noticed my boot acting weird again. Slow boot, hangs on screens between motherboard splash screen and windows login.
 
I can bench my ssd and it show high speed then bench it again or with another program and it will have a 1200 read difference everytimg i run it.
 
And yes it has the recommended 10% set aside.

How big of files does the Samsung software bench mark? As I know the Samsung nvme drives have a slc cache and if that gets full they will drop speeds with back to back kinda testing. It does seem the Samsung driver helped your write speeds though. But those are abnormal low speed for a clean boot test. I just did a quick read threw but it was already probably suggested but I'd check to make sure trim is enabled