Boot time increased after changing graphics card

Pimpom

Distinguished
May 11, 2008
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I recently changed my graphics card from an ancient HD 2600 Pro to a slightly more modern GTS 250. It works fine but my computer's boot time has increased by nearly 10 seconds. Previously it took about 25 secs from the time I push the power button to the moment the desktop appears. Now it's nearly 35 secs.

I uninstalled the previous driver before installing the new one. In any case, it doesn't appear to be the driver because most of the delay occurs before Windows starts loading. With the old card, it took exactly 10 secs for the motherboard logo to appear briefly just before the Windows logo appears. Now it takes about 18-19 secs.

I can't find anything in the BIOS settings that could cause the delay, but I'm not an expert at this. I've cleared the BIOS and everything's pretty much at default setting, as it was before the change of graphics cards. Does anyone have any suggestions?

My configuration:
AMD Phenom II x4 955
MSI 970A-G43
8GB DDR3 1600MHz
Samsung 830 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD
PNY GTS 250 1GB
OS = Windows 7 Ultimate x64
 
Not many things during bootup and POST that would affect that.

The only thing I can think of off hand is to disable the Splash Screen in the BIOS if that's been changed from off to on.

POST (Power On Self Test) shouldn't increase due to a new graphics card. There are OTHER settings related to USB (scanning USB-connected devices so there's a quick-boot that is faster on some mobo's but some USB connections don't work until you get into the OS) but if those weren't changed that shouldn't matter.