Help.Black screen before Login Menu. Minor annoyance but needs fixing.

(And before you ask, yes, I scoured Google. Plenty of hits, but different problem.)

When I start Windows, I get this black screen showing nothing but the mouse pointer for exactly 81 seconds before the Login Menu appears. Not a huge problem, just very annoying.

I can log in just fine after that. The problem does NOT occur when I start up in Safe Mode, and I've tried disabling all Startup Apps & Services using Msconfig but the problem remained.

In my experience, when something like this happens, it's because Windows is looking for something but can't find it, like an app or another computer on the network.

The Event Viewer logs are no help. How can I figure out what's causing the delay? Thanks.

Hi Icit. Yes. Been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt.

Finally gave up and restored the 8 month old backup after trying to fix things today took a nasty turn for the worse.

The backup has a few issues being so old, but nothing major (I think.) Thx.

ICIT2LOL said:

Ok well if there is something you get stuck on post back:)

Crud, sorry Icit. Replied to wrong post. This new problem is the RESULT of restoring the backup (after an agonizing two months trying to fix another problem that refused explanation).

An SFC scan finds nothing wrong. Temps are fine. Disk checks are clean.

The HDD activity light shows minimal activty during the "blackout" period, so it's not like the computer is furiously doing anything to account for the pause. And the pause is always 81 seconds long. Even if I disable every startup app/service, the length of the pause doesn't change.

I've seen similar "black screen" pauses when the computer can't find something, like a missing app or a missing computer on the network, but neither of those appears to be the case this time.

Or at least I think that's the case now. Not sure how to figure out what the computer is doing during that pause.

Thx.

ICIT2LOL said:

Ok well going back to post #1 and the difference in safe and "normal" mode is maybe another hint being that some software (or whatever) is loading before the system is up and running.

Now this could be possibly your AV for example though I should think the system should boot before it is loaded up. Now I am thinking maybe it is a malware issue or a RAM one. The 81 second pause is in itself odd.

...

The next is to run a memtest

Thanks. I downloaded the Kaspersky Rescue Disk and burned it to an eraseable CD. I started a scan of my C: drive but it's going to take 2 hours to complete so I'll have to let it run though later.

I have Ubuntu on another partition and "Memtest86+" is on the menu, so I can run that later as well (though I suspect my ram is fine. None of the stability issues you'd expect from bad ram.)

I typically run a pretty clean machine, and the Backup I restored was operating flawlessly 8 months ago, but there have been a few changes since then... most significantly, the upgraded Internet service but maybe some other hardware & software changes are at fault.

Since this "pause" is a Windows "preload" event and doesn't happen going into Safe Mode, I'm suspecting either a device driver or Windows is looking for a network connection that has since changed.

Figuring that out is the challenge. I'm going to try temporarilyy disabling a few key Device Drivers to see if the pause goes away. Before I restored this backup, I couldn't soft Shutdown/Reboot without disabling my video or TV tuner cards (or the motherboard controllers for those slots), so I'll start there.

I'll let you know what happens. Thx.

as a way of trying to nail this down further try rebooting with ethernet unplugged, all onboard devices disabled in bios, and no usb devices attached (if that's possible, for instance if you have a ps2 keyboard and mouse handy..), and/or with radeon card removed and using onboard graphics. Hopefully after a few boots of trial and error you'll be able to narrow this down. Also check your non-MS services in start > run > startup

johnhoh said:

as a way of trying to nail this down further try rebooting with ethernet unplugged, all onboard devices disabled...

Thanks for the reply.

First, I tried disabling all startup Services/Apps using "msconfig", but it made no difference. Same 81 second pause.

Next, I switched my video card to use the stock SVGA driver and disabled the TV tuner (I didn't unplug them because that would be a huge pain and if it were an "electronic" issue, it would affect Safe Mode too.) That didn't help either.

I unplugged my Ethernet and the only new USB devices added since the original backup was created. No change.

I just wish there was a way to SEE what the computer is trying to do during that gap.