Solved Windows Boot Manager suddenly slower for Win11

Hi - Somewhere around the time that I updated my PC to Win11 v22000.469 (not sure if it was this update), I noticed that my power-up boot time suddenly became a lot longer.

Prior to this issue, when I would boot up, my PC would go from the MSI Logo with the spinning dots to the Win11 logon screen in about 2 or 3 seconds. Suddenly, it has increased to about 25 seconds before the Win11 logon appears. During the longer period of time, with my monitor screen will give the "No Signal" indication briefly, then reconnect to the GPU signal before finally getting to the logon screen.

My understanding is that this pause is occurring during Windows Boot Manager. When I boot into Ubuntu via USB, I never see this kind of delay.

Does anybody know what has changed and if there is any way for me to fix this?

I know, I know, "First World Problems." :)

But it really annoys me that my system feels like it has become somewhat corrupted or degraded for some unknown reason, and I'd really like to fix it if I can.

Thanks!

Please install BootRacer to get some idea about the delay.

Welcome to the forum. Make sure you have the latest bios installed as well as Nvidia's new drivers. Latest NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Drivers for Windows 11 (You have an impressive GPU, by the way)

I would also suggest you see if the issue persists in a clean boot state. Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 11 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Tutorial
If it does, reboot in normal state and run SFC /scannow from an administrative command prompt.

rockyanexp said:

Please install BootRacer to get some idea about the delay.

Click to expand...

Hi, @rockyanexp - I installed BootRacer, and had high hopes. BootRacer said that it could trim over 10 seconds from my boot time if I made some registry mods. Unfortunately, I didn't see any change or improvement after I made the mods, even though BootRacer said that my boot time was 10 seconds shorter (it wasn't).

glasskuter said:

Welcome to the forum. Make sure you have the latest bios installed as well as Nvidia's new drivers. Latest NVIDIA GeForce Graphics Drivers for Windows 11 (You have an impressive GPU, by the way)

I would also suggest you see if the issue persists in a clean boot state. Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 11 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Tutorial
If it does, reboot in normal state and run SFC /scannow from an administrative command prompt.

Click to expand...

@glasskuter - I did a Clean Boot as you recommended. I didn't see any improvement there, either.

I am still seeing the extra 25 second delay. I was wondering if it could be GPU driver related (meaning, introduced by recently updated Nvidia drivers). Unfortunately, I didn't see any improvement when I went back to late 2021 Nvidia drivers.

However, I did see a temporary improvement when uninstalling my Nvidia drivers: Nvidia's uninstaller said that it had to reboot to fully remove the drivers. When the uninstaller rebooted, I didn't see the 25 second delay, and my display didn't flash during the reboot.

I suspect that the uninstaller did something to the WIndows Boot Manager to control the uninstallation during the reboot. But, after the drivers were uninstalled, my PC returned back to the 25 second delay issue.

I'm confuzd.

So let me get the series of events straight. When you completely uninstall the nvidia drivers, your boot time goes back normal. At this point in device manager you are running the Windows default driver. Correct? At this point you also no longer have the Nvidia GeForce Experience control software installed. Correct?
You then reinstall either the old or new version Nvidia drivers (which includes the Nvidia software) and your boot time slows down again. Correct?

If that is the series of events, I would first eliminate the GeForce Experience software being what is slowing your boot down. Disable it from starting at boot using the first section of this article. Restart and check boot time again. How to Disable GeForce Experience
This does not stop the app from working, only from auto-starting.

Report back your findings.

If disabling Geforce Experience as per above resolves your issue
A web search shows different versions of Geforce Experience has been causing this problem for years. The culprit seems to be the Nvidia Stream Service which causes the slow boot problem.
Go back into task manager/startup tab and enable the app again. Then
In search bar type services, in search results above click services app
Look for service named "nvidia stream service" Right click on it-properties Change startup type from automatic to automatic (delayed start)
Restart and hopefully your problem will be solved.

Let us know.

OK, so it took a bit of digging (and, a lot of back-hoeing) ... but I got the problem fixed!

@Thanks, @glasskuter, for getting me on the right path. I had given you a little bit of misleading information, but it got me investigating something new.

The misleading information was about how I told you when I was uninstalling the Nvidia drivers, I did see the shorter boot time. But, that was just once during the Nvidia uninstall. After the Nvidia drivers were supposedly removed and I was running the Windows 11 display drivers again (which were from Nvidia), the bootup delay had reappeared. So, I had the issue with the Windows 11 stock driver as well.

But, your comments got me thinking ... What if the Nvidia display drivers weren't fully uninstalled, and there was some junk left behind? The mysterious display flashing during the bootup also made me suspicious.

Fortunately, I have an application that I bought years ago called "Total Uninstall". I ran that, and did a an "advanced scan" Total Uninstall of all the installed Nvidia products - some of which aren't visible through the Win11 (or older Win10) Application/Program uninstaller.

By doing a Total Uninstall of the Nvidia drivers and support applications, and going with the Win11 default driver, my PC booted back up almost instantly again!

Then, I did a full installation of the latest Nvidia RTX GPU drivers, and my PC is still booting up just fine now.

Thanks for the great support!

AzJazz

Good troubleshooting. Glad it's resolved