Start Up Delay - Black Screen Solution!

I installed Bitdefender TS and consequently had a black screen appear between the Windows boot screen and my fingerprint logon screen. A black screen delay was never present using my previous antivirus (Norton 360) and the only change to my system was the installation of Bitdefender. The black screen appears for varying lengths of time, usually between 30 - 60 seconds. Granted, it's not a huge delay but I build my computer with SSD for high performance and my start up time is typically 15 - 20 seconds. An additional minute delay is a 400% increase in my start up time. That is unacceptable. This issue has been frequently reported across different platforms but I was unable to find any posted solutions. Fortunately, I was able to find a fix.

My System

Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

Asus P8Z68–V motherboard

Intel i5–2500 K processor

Samsung SSD 840 Evo 500 Gb

WD Black 1 TB HDD

I have a typical SSD install with Windows and programs on the SSD with data, photos etc. on the hard disk drive.

I ran Microsoft Autoruns and turned off everything I could involving Bitdefender. Most of these things seem to involve the Bitdefender Wallet. There were about four items out of the hundred(s) items shown under the "Everything" tab in Autoruns. There may have been others but I'm providing this list after the fact and scrolling down through "Everything" I can't distinguish what I shut off this time relative to previously. These four I'm sure of. In my case the specific items were:

Bit Defender Wallet

Bit Defender Wallet Agent

Bit Defender Wallet Application Agent

GarmanExpressTrayApp

Yes, I do realize Garman Express isn't part of Bitdefender but I happened to notice it and shut it off along with the Wallet items. When I tried to shut down any other Bitdefender related auto runs, I was given a "Access Denied" pop-up. In essence I ended up shutting down anything I could involving Bitdefender auto runs.

The black screen delay was reduced to five seconds.

I still have a black screen between the Windows boot screen and my fingerprint logon but it now is only for five seconds. I'm still not entirely happy, I can live with an additional five second delay and I don't use, or have any intention of using, the Bitdefender Wallet. My objection isn't to (possibly) eliminating the functionality of Wallet. My problem with Bitdefender was having to do this in the first place. I have a two year subscription and I will be changing to a different antivirus at the end of two years.

Incidentally, I tried numerous other fixes which had little or no effect on the black screen delay. These included:

Bitdefender Update, System Scan, Tuneup/PC Cleanup, Tuneup/Registry Cleaner

Iolo System Mechanic Toolbox/Individual Tools/Startup Optimizer

Iolo System Mechanic Deep Scan and Repair

Samsung Magician OS Optimization, Performance Optimization and Performance Benchmark

Windows repair utility (nothing found)

Autoruns for Windows is a free utiliity download available from Microsoft that will give you comprehensive customization of startup location..

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...spx?ocid=fwlink

Good Luck!

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Comments

Rohugh

The "black screen" start up delay is a problem that has been around for a long time and there are several other topics (like this one). Bitdefender are aware and are working on it - whether they can do anything about it is a different matter but the hope is they can.

My Windows 7 suffers with it for up to 20+ seconds, my Windows 8.1 has no delay at all.

jrjspence

The "black screen" start up delay is a problem that has been around for a long time and there are several other topics (like this one). Bitdefender are aware and are working on it - whether they can do anything about it is a different matter but the hope is they can.

My Windows 7 suffers with it for up to 20+ seconds, my Windows 8.1 has no delay at all.

I found that out very quickly when I started searching for this problem. So far, mine is the only post with a solution to this problem in the BD forum. Granted it's not a perfect solution and I don't expect it to work for everyone but it did reduce my black screen from 60 seconds to 5 seconds. I still have a black screen (I didn't with Norton 360) but I can live with 5 seconds. Prior to discovering this, I was planning to uninstall BD TS, simply write off the money I paid as a stupid choice and switch forever to one of their competitors.

Rohugh

I worked with Support for a few hours on this and for me it was found that one of the drivers were causing the problem, disabling it removed the delay all together. However, that driver is needed for on-access scanning and it must not be left disabled. (Discussion in this thread).

Hopefully the devs will be trying to find a way around the problem.