After upgrade to Win 8.1 from 8, takes 5 min to restart

After upgrading a Dell XPS One using both Intel HD 4000 and nVidia 640M graphics, the computer takes 5 minutes to restart. The restart screen immediately shows up after hitting the restart button. Then the screen goes black for 5 minutes. Afterwards the Dell logo shows up and everything starts fine from there. I don't understand why the monitor stays black for 5 minutes before restarting.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

I would start by making sure ALL your drivers are 8.1 compatible.

Then I would go here: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26512-dism-fixing-component-store-corruption-windows-8-a.html

I have a couple or so Dells. My latest, the 2305 "All-in-one" has exactly the same problem. I have looked at the bios. Nothing that I have done, has been changed there. All my software and OS setup complies with what I have been doing for quite a while, without problems. I doubt it is a driver problem, as it has not read the OS drivers at that stage.

Hi there

Is this just a FIRST TIME occurrence -- or even a few times. Windows 8.1 has a built in "Pre-fetch" algorithm and based on what it perceives is your usage stores what it thinks you are likely to use next in a "pre-fetch" cache so if the algorithm is correct Windows 8.1 will start up very fast. This algorithm is obviously quite complex and on a new installation there's no history so everything has to be re-built again. Hardware detection after a new installation could take a bit of time too.

If Windows regularly takes that long to start something is wrong -- maybe too many services running, some background process(es) checking for all sorts of things -- accessing computer manufacturers site for updates etc. HP is guilty of that one too accessing the HP site for updates. HP printers are also notoriously bad at that too -- accessing the site and often prompting you to "Buy new cartridges" etc.

I'd love to see computers one day a week totally refusing to do anything that has the word BUY or PURCHASE in it !!! unless specifically requested by the user (shopping for example).)

Cheers
jimbo

Check this thread out....I had to disable "App Readiness" to stop long startup....many of others have also found this to work.

http://www.eightforums.com/performa...ograms-desktop-take-ages-load.html#post403477

Thanks. Keep rolling in the ideas. Dell are lost. MS are lost.
Good suggestions, but, may I say again, in my case, this does not see to have anything to do with configurations in the os. It is happening before the OS is even looked at by the boot up.

I've looked, but I don't see any way to know the exact moment that the OS is first looked at. It happens very soon after the bios checks for devices and passes the boot process off to the OS.
If you have a Hard Drive light on your computer, then the bios is trying to load the OS as soon as you see that light flashing after you hit the Power ON switch.

I'm concerned by the term "restart" being used in the OP's original post. I've seen RE-Starts act all sorts of FUNNY.
While a COLD start, acts completely different.

I've seen many computers HANG on a Restart, where I'd have to do a full Power OFF to reset them and then a COLD boot would come up quickly and normally. So now I try not to ever allow my PC to "Re-Start". But I'll shut it down completely and RE-Boot it.

JFYI, there is a setting in the Boot.ini, accessible in MSCONFIG, where you can change the default Boot Delay, from 30 seconds to just 3 sec's and shorten your boot time by 27 sec's.
The entire "speed up system start" text file has been around the internet for several years and it still works.

Shorten the Boot Time in XP, Vista & Windows 7 & 8, 8.1

Go to the start button, choose run, then type msconfig and press Ok.
On the system configuration window, choose the "Boot.INI" tab.

Check “No Gui Boot”, then lower the timeout to a more manageable time.
I choose 3 seconds instead of 30. (windows won’t accept a lower number than 3)

Next choose advanced options.
This is where you can choose how many processors you have.
Most modern PC's are duo core (2 processors) with some quad core (4 processors)
or even six core....So select the number of cores you actually have then choose OK.
The Windows default is only 1 core.

Now choose apply and OK, reboot and you should see a marked decrease in boot time,
And an Increase in Run-Time efficiency.

I tried that on my own PC and it seems to Work, so I now share it with all my Customer's PC's too.

On my own PC I've also found that if I have extra hard drives, flash drives or a CD in the CD drive, my boot time will be significantly longer. Apparently, Windows will read and record the directory on every drive, during the early stages of System Boot.

So limiting the number of drives and files that Windows has to log in, can only serve to help the boot time.
(clean out all your junk files)

Just a thought,

Happy Computing!

TechnoMage

Would resetting the BIOS help any or clearing the CMOS and reconfigure your hardware settings.

It's worth a try, but in my own experience (34 years) it's not a bios problem. I might look at the BIOS though, to see just what it's seeing as to number of drives, etc.

But to completely erase the bios, to start over, you'd have to remove all power from the PC and then take out the CMOS battery for about a half hour, to make sure there are no errant bits left in the BIOS memory chip.

On my own, 9 year old motherboard, I have to do that a couple of times a year, to eliminate scrambled data in the BIOS. No big deal!
My motherboard has already exceeded it's normal life expectancy by almost 100%. I've recapped it twice and had to fix the CPU Heatsink anchor frame.

If that PC were on my repair bench, I would eliminate all drives but C: from the boot process. Then I would clean out C: of all temp and other Junk files. Then I would further eliminate all unnecessary programs from the Startup Folder (task manager on Windows 8).
And probably do a full scan, for Viruses, Adware, Spyware, worms, Trojans and rootkits.

Something is delaying the boot process and I would try real hard to find and eliminate that "Something".

It's what I've done on MANY of my customer's PC's. I've taken a PC that was taking 20 minutes to boot up and got the boot time down to around just ONE Minute. "Minus Krud is Cool!" (author, Mike Warnke)

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

Perhaps the op could try a few of those things. They are all basic and I have tried them, as a normal troubleshooting procedure. But a point for me to raise, without interfering with the OP's request for help, is what is different from this computer, from all the others I work with, with the same customisation. I had suspected a hardware fault, until I googled and read that there are quite a few similar reports.

fyi.
Leaving the number of processors Unchecked, allows the computer/OS to automatically use the maximum number available.

rgz
Finally. After a tedious process of elimination.

It looks like Dell and Microsoft are directing to the wrong software for the blue tooth/network drivers for these products. I downloaded and installed this one. For me(?), the problem is solved
Driver Details | Dell US