diff --git a/test/system/220-healthcheck.bats b/test/system/220-healthcheck.bats
index d5a3d23e5e..200bad33bf 100644
--- a/test/system/220-healthcheck.bats
+++ b/test/system/220-healthcheck.bats
@@ -429,6 +429,8 @@ function _check_health_log {
     msg="hc-msg-$(random_string)"
     hcStatus=$PODMAN_TMPDIR/hcStatus
 
+    # Disable systemd healthcheck in the background as they mess up the timings of the manual commands.
+    export DISABLE_HC_SYSTEMD="true"
     run_podman run -d --name $ctr             \
            --health-cmd "touch /tmp/abc; sleep 20; echo $msg" \
            $IMAGE /home/podman/pause
diff --git a/test/system/250-systemd.bats b/test/system/250-systemd.bats
index 614185dbab..23e3abc1fa 100644
--- a/test/system/250-systemd.bats
+++ b/test/system/250-systemd.bats
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ function mv-safely() {
 
 # Helper to start a systemd service running a container
 function service_setup() {
+    local extra_args="$1"
     # January 2024: we can no longer do "run_podman generate systemd" followed
     # by "echo $output >file", because generate-systemd is deprecated and now
     # says so loudly, to stderr, with no way to silence it. Since BATS gloms
@@ -65,6 +66,7 @@ function service_setup() {
         run_podman generate systemd --files --name \
                -e http_proxy -e https_proxy -e no_proxy \
                -e HTTP_PROXY -e HTTPS_PROXY -e NO_PROXY \
+               $extra_args \
                --new $cname
         mv-safely "container-$cname.service" $UNIT_FILE
     )
@@ -359,7 +361,7 @@ LISTEN_FDNAMES=listen_fdnames" | sort)
                $IMAGE /home/podman/pause
 
     # run container in systemd unit
-    service_setup
+    service_setup "-e DISABLE_HC_SYSTEMD=true"
 
     run_podman container inspect $cname --format "{{.ID}}"
     oldID="$output"