Windows 8.1 Pro x64 UEFI very slow boot and shutdown

I am using Pro and it is very slow compared to just Windows 8.  I just build this system a few months ago and I was enjoying it being bug free.  I put in a i7 4770k processor, Gigabyte ud5h z87 motherboard, 16 gigs of RAM, 240 Gig SSD, and a GeForce GTX 670 graphics card*;* it booted in 15 secs.  Since using the 8.1 update, my system takes +4 minutes to boot and about 5 minutes to shutdown.  Arrrg! I have updated all the drivers, I have re-flashed the bios, I tried a new user account and nothing works!! On top of this I have been trying to figure out why I have a memory leak!!! If I didn't have to reconfigure all my photography software I would rebuild the hard drive again and just stay with Windows 8.  Luckily, I only set one computer to 8.1 the others will stay at 8.0. 

Hey Microsoft!!! Fix this!! Or else I am switching my whole company to Apple the next time we need to upgrade!

I have had windows 8.1 64bit Pro installed since the day it was officially released... and yes prior to that windows 8 was booting up in about 5 seconds on my SSD, but like everyone else 8.1 was taking about 30 seconds to boot...

I know everyone has been saying it was the it was because Microsoft removed the Window Experience Index... but I have tried all the recommended tweaks to fix boot time... none of them worked...

Like many here, I have had the slow boot time, I even post on the subject 3 months ago, none of the advice helped me though... even my own advice at the time...

However, I am back to a fast boot & shut down time with 8.1... the only thing I can see that I did different to every one here is, not installing drivers...

about 3-4 weeks ago, I re-install windows 8, but did not install any drivers... just did a lot of windows updates, and there was a lot... and a few days after it had settled down... I upgraded to windows 8.1 (although I was dreading the slow boot times)...

Although I installed software (games & office), I never installed my hardware drivers, I just let windows install what it wanted... windows even installed the latest Nvidia drivers for me...

For the past few months, I have seen so many post about incompatible drivers that people have installed... but that's the difference.... every one with slow boot/shut down times, reinstalled their drivers after reinstalling windows...

Maybe the reason that's Microsoft have not issued a fix, is because they can't fix the users.... Tablets & Smartphones don't have problems, because users don't install drivers...

Basically, there is no possible fix...

I do have to point out that the other 2 computers I upgraded are fine... A Toshiba Satellite and a homebrew Sandybridge with a Gigabyte MB. And that if I can somehow get into safemode (why doesn't troubleshooting recognize my wireless keyboard!!) the computer in question boots as it should.

Most likely in Safe mode the wireless drivers are not loaded.

I do have to point out that the other 2 computers I upgraded are fine... A Toshiba Satellite and a homebrew Sandybridge with a Gigabyte MB. And that if I can somehow get into safemode (why doesn't troubleshooting recognize my wireless keyboard!!) the computer in question boots as it should.

ASUS N56JR (i7-4700HQ, FullHD GTX760M) with Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM, bought a few days ago, almost all useless softwares and apps removed and nothing installed yet except for skype desktop version. No swap, energy saving options set to max performance and fast boot option disabled. Local account login and no Microsoft account automatic connection allowed.

With Windows 8 Pro everything was fine, updated to 8.1 and boot took a few seconds more (so nothing important) but shutdown became minutes. Absolutely unexceptable.

After two days of attempts, including the suggested Clean Boot and similar, which was useless and made me install unwanted software, I tried the suggested solution of disabling one-by-one all the drivers. Finally it worked simply switching off the Bluetooth module (Qualcomm Atheros). Now everything seems to work, and these are my times: shutdown in less than 4 seconds, login screen in 11 seconds (from completely switched off computer), desktop in 15 seconds and complete boot in 24 seconds.

A little off topic: it seems that the Intel Graphics driver (10.18.10.3308) it's not working fine since the writings on the screen are a little fuzzy, as well as the icons in taskbar and system tray. Up to today, there are no available Windows 8.1 drivers from ASUS download site for my laptop. Let's hope there will be, someday...

I hope this will help you.

Have you tried turning on the ClearType text mode? It was on the Win 7 OS and I think it is also on Win 8.

ASUS N56JR (i7-4700HQ, FullHD GTX760M) with Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM, bought a few days ago, almost all useless softwares and apps removed and nothing installed yet except for skype desktop version. No swap, energy saving options set to max performance and fast boot option disabled. Local account login and no Microsoft account automatic connection allowed.

With Windows 8 Pro everything was fine, updated to 8.1 and boot took a few seconds more (so nothing important) but shutdown became minutes. Absolutely unexceptable.

After two days of attempts, including the suggested Clean Boot and similar, which was useless and made me install unwanted software, I tried the suggested solution of disabling one-by-one all the drivers. Finally it worked simply switching off the Bluetooth module (Qualcomm Atheros). Now everything seems to work, and these are my times: shutdown in less than 4 seconds, login screen in 11 seconds (from completely switched off computer), desktop in 15 seconds and complete boot in 24 seconds.

A little off topic: it seems that the Intel Graphics driver (10.18.10.3308) it's not working fine since the writings on the screen are a little fuzzy, as well as the icons in taskbar and system tray. Up to today, there are no available Windows 8.1 drivers from ASUS download site for my laptop. Let's hope there will be, someday...

I hope this will help you.