Windows 11 Lengthy Boot

I'm back. Dog on a bone. Over the last several weeks have replaced the video card, uninstalled the NVIDIA driver then reinstalled the latest version, updated the BIOS firmware to latest version, checked and updated all drivers if necessary., and upgraded from Windows 10 to 11, first using the MS update process which downloads stuff, then a repair/upgrade from an ISO image.

I have confirmed that using msconfig to disable all non-MS services, and no loading of startup apps, and disabling all startup apps in Task Manager that the problem persists. So it's not a third party app.

The problem becomes more noticeable as the cpu load increases. It also becomes more noticeable as the GPU utilization rate increases. So the GPU utilization is affected by the CPU which makes sense anyway, but some process is spiking several of the CPU threads, which then dramatically affects GPU utilization. Most of the threads are not affected.

I'm at a loss of how to proceed. Hopefully you are not.

I also replaced the CPU and RAM, and ran manufacture provided diagnostics on my SSDs . I disconnected my SATA drives. So I've done virtually everything you could possibly do hardware and driver wise except replace the motherboard and power supply. But yesterday somehow I was able to get the problem to go away with some combination of msconfig and TM startup parameters. I cannot duplicate that today. But with the msconfig and TM testing I did this morning this implies that it is system software related. But since I did a multiple Windows upgrade and/or repairs I don't see how that is possible. The mystery continues.

I will not do a clean install as I have too many very complicated third party apps and huge amounts of data that would require an enormous amount of work to re-install and configure. I'd rather live with the problem than go through that perilous and time consuming work, with somewhat low odds that it would fix anything.

Have you eliminated everything that's enabled in Task Manager > Startup and Settings > Apps > Startup Apps, then also in msconfig > Services after checking Hide all MS Services (critically important!) Finally clear out Windows 11 Startup Folder: https://beebom.com/how-find-windows-11-startup-...

Then restart and test again. Check also if anything sneaks right back into any of those lists.

One way to confirm whether the issue is hardware or software is to unplug the hard drives/SSD's and boot a Linux live disk or USB to see if the issue happens. If not then it will means the problem is with Windows, the hard drive/SSD, or anything on the HDD/SSD.

A good Linux live disk or USB flash that can also test the hardware is here:

https://www.pcsuggest.com/best-linux-live-distro/

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Alright - now we're getting somewhere!!! I noticed that monitoring my Ethernet utilization at the time the freeze happens there is a large spike in in Receive utilization, and a large decrease in Send. Disconnecting the ethernet cable the problem goes away, reconnecting it comes back.

Don't even know how to begin to troubleshoot that. Baseline Send is around 4 Mbs, Receive is close to zero. The drop off from Send is down to 1 Mbs, the Receive goes up to maybe 1 Mbs. Neither of these are huge numbers so it's not that the Ethernet card is getting pegged. But regardless the pattern is indicative of the problem. Unfortunately this computer does not have a wifi card so I can't check to see if the problem goes away with using that.

But now we have narrowed the issue down. I think that will be helpful but no idea where to go from here.