When did "Fast Startup" start making startup slower?

I used to believe Fast Startup would make my Windows PC boot faster, but lately it feels like the opposite is happening, with startup taking longer than before and the system sometimes freezing briefly before I can use the desktop. I haven't made any major hardware changes, so I'm wondering whether a recent Windows update, driver issue, power setting, or corrupted hibernation file could be causing this behavior, and whether disabling Fast Startup might actually improve boot times rather than make them worse.