Black screen for a few seconds before login

[shinozuka]

Windows 8 was fine. For Windows 8.1 I had Windows 8 format and do a clean install and then immediately upgraded to 8.1. Now at least half of the time when I boot up after BIOS info and the windows logo shows briefly I see a black screen for 2 to 5 seconds I'd say. Then the lock screen. So after I get to where I can input my password everything is fine.

But I can't figure out why there is this few seconds of black nothing before I can input my password. I can't see that anything is wrong.

 

[gavanid]

If you have a HDD drive install the windows sdk and performance tools and run a boot-time defrag.

Try the cmd below before installing sdk, not quiet sure you need it in w8

These work in 8


How to enable boot defrag of system files on Windows 8? - Microsoft Community

or

How to speed up boot process under Windows Vista or Windows 7 - Windows Tips 'n' Tweaks - MSFN Forum

 

[shinozuka]

Windows is installed on a SSD. Sorry I should have mentioned that.

 

[XweAponX]

You mean, between the Initial huge Purple Screen, and the Login Screen? It's normal. In WIndows 8, there is always a point where the video signal is not being sent during boot. On my system, it's 10 seconds, on other newer systems, sometimes it is just a flash. It is most irritating when it happens for a few seconds.

In your case you have the Lock Screen turned on, but it is the same thing. I don't know why it blacks out during boot, maybe it is initializing the Video Driver, but that "blank spot" is in all Windows 8 and probably 8.1 to some degree of length.

If you never noticed it on 8, it was probably less than a second. But 2-3 seconds is normal for most systems, 10 seconds is normal for my old systems.

 

[acepro71]

You mean, between the Initial huge Purple Screen, and the Login Screen? It's normal. In WIndows 8, there is always a point where the video signal is not being sent during boot. On my system, it's 10 seconds, on other newer systems, sometimes it is just a flash. It is most irritating when it happens for a few seconds.

In your case you have the Lock Screen turned on, but it is the same thing. I don't know why it blacks out during boot, maybe it is initializing the Video Driver, but that "blank spot" is in all Windows 8 and probably 8.1 to some degree of length.

If you never noticed it on 8, it was probably less than a second. But 2-3 seconds is normal for most systems, 10 seconds is normal for my old systems.

well i don't know what to say i built my pc not long ago its very new and it still takes 10 seconds long at black screen !

and with logon screen on it takes 20 seconds in both 8 and 8.1

isn't there any way to fix it ?

 

[XweAponX]

Well, it's not really a "Blank" screen, it is a short interval when there is No Video Output to the Monitor. On my HDTV, it says "No Input".

My Asus M2N motherboard was made in 2006, it has a 10 second time of "No Input". My Other PC, is an HP made around the same time but it has virtually the same Motherboard, only branded for HP, and that one has an 8 second blank interval. But I have a better Video Card in that, at least better than the one on this machine, although it is still a cheap eVga 35 buck card.

Ive never been able to get rid of the Blank time, and I've never been able to reduce it. Restarting from Hibernation, it's not as bad.

There could be any number of issues, if your motherboard has "fast Boot" and enabled, you won't see the blank. Brand New Machines all have it, a brand new Asus laptop took about 30 seconds to boot from shut off. and I heard THAT was a long time. Also if you have multiple hard drives installed, and multiple OSes, that could affect it as well. I dual boot 8 and 7 on both my machines, but on my other machine, the Boot Loader for both OSes are on one HD.

Unless you have fast boot and have it turned on, you'll get the blank spot, and normally it is about 10 seconds.

How about when you Hibernate, does it blank out then too?

 

[caperjack]

im using a old Dell OptiPlex duel core ,and it has a 10 second or more blank screen on bootup ,toltal time about 50 to 70 seconds ,I have a ssd hdd with win 8 enterprise installed on it and it boots in about 20-30 seconds with a brief blank screen,not sure how long ,only booted it about 6 times so far ,didn't take notice

 

[Lee]

After reading this thread thought I would see if I have the same problem (if it is even a problem), and there is a 3 second pause after the screen goes from the spinning dots to blank (black) to log on (set to auto), albeit it still only takes 12 seconds from start to start screen. So not sure if this isn't just the OS and computer just saying howdy to one another.

 

[XweAponX]

I am, also running an Optiplex, with 8.1 - And that one has about a 15 second "No Input" between the Spinning Round things and the Login Box.

 

[XweAponX]

Ok- I have here a brand new HP pavilion 17" laptop- it has about a 7 second lag/blank/no input area between the initial ms wheel boot screen and the login screen.

This is brand new mind you, it does have a bunch of HP utilities it loads. It has an intel 4000 HD graphix controller.

It's about the same as my GeForce 210 in my media computer. This is wholly normal, not much you can do about it except remove all of your startup profiles- and put some services on automatic "delayed start" that should cut down the time a bit more.

 

[Burgurne]

Hmmm, don't get it.
I have 2 PC's, a little one with an Celeron CPU and onboard graphic (build in the Celeron), 2 HDD. It has the black period for about 3 seconds. 4Gbyte ram

Then I have a gamer PC, Windows boots from a Samsung 840 EVO SSD, there are 3 HDD's more in it, it has a Core i5 3570K CPU, and 8Gbyte ram. The gamer-PC has this balckout for about 10-11 seconds!!

Both PC's are clean installed with the Windows 8.1 ISO (installed by a "tech-key", and then activated with my win-8 keys).
But why is the more powerfull PC about 3 times slower than the little "surf" PC to get over this blackout?

I have searched for a tool like "bootvis.exe" from an earlier windows version, that could monitor what is going on during boot, and then write a report about it. But I did not find any.

Only way I can avoid the blackout with the gamer PC is Intel Rapid Start.

 

[XweAponX]

Yah, thats about the only way you won't get the period of no video.

On just about all of the Windows 8 Laptops I have worked on, the only ones that did not have that no video time-out were ones that used Rapid Start.