Why does gaming PC load games so slowly but otherwise run fine?

[Heine03]

I apologize before hand if this is in the wrong forum/thread. My PC seems to load games very very slowly and I have been unable to diagnose why. A quick example is in Civ 6, I have a friend whose computer has much lower specs, but he can load into our game (that I host) in 30 or so seconds. For me, it takes a minimum of 3 min, sometimes upwards of 5. Once the games load however (this affects basically every game I have), the game runs smoothly on high - almost max settings. I have reseated every component and even bought a second GPU (soon to be returned) to verify that there were no issues with the PCIe ports on the motherboard or an issue with my GPU (this was at MSIs tech supports recommendation). I find it unlikely that all 3 of my PCIe ports are faulty, so what do you guys think is the cause? Specs are below.

Processor: i5 6600k @3.5Ghz
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 970 100 ME (4GB, GDDR5)
RAM: 16GB (2x8) DDR4
Motherboard: MSI Z170a M5 Gaming

PS: I even once installed one of the games on my SSD to see if it improved, and there was surprisingly, no change.

Solutions and discussions welcome. Thanks!

 

[popatim]

Loading issues are largely determined by your HDD/SSD; so which one do you have?

 

[Heine03]

Loading issues are largely determined by your HDD/SSD; so which one do you have?

Both. The motherboards PCIe ports were defective I found out. Had it for months and never even realized, it was defective out of the box lol.

By the way, I mentioned the SSD in my post