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Jay007's avatar
Jay007
Copper Contributor
Jan 10, 2025

Slow Boot - dxgkrnl.sys Not Loading

I know. This has been seen before. I can find the issue all over, but can't seem to find a solution that works for me.

This is on a fresh install of Windows 11. It takes about 4 minuets before I can log in, another minuet to get into the desktop, and another minuet before the taskbar loads. At this point I feel like I can start trying to do things, but everything is still VERY slow for several minuets.

Windows is up to date

I did have a few drivers in device manager that were not found, but that has been taken care of. I honestly don't remember which ones. It's been months.

My boot log has dxgkrnl.sys not loading 6 times. It does load before all the failed loads. Don't know if that means anything. WdFilter.sys is also not loaded once. It does also load before not loading.

My system log shows;

TPM-WMI

Service Control Manager

OneCore-DeviceAssociationService.

I don't think these are part of the issue as my other Windows 11 PC has the same errors present and is quite snappy. I could definitely be wrong here.

I have tried running SFC /scannow and Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth in the shell. Both reported no errors. Which is what I would expect on a fresh install.

I ran Display Driver Uninstaller then installed Nvidia and Intel drivers manually.

Finally I ran Snappy Driver Installer Origin.

Nothing has had an affect.

My system:

ASRock z370 pro4/oem

I7-8700K

16GB RAM

Nvidia GTX 980-ti

Windows is running on a 500GB HDD

I know... not an SSD. I have several PCs running Linux and Windows on both HDDs and SSDs. The HDD boot times are noticeably slower, but this one is WAY slower.

My next step was going to be a fresh install of Windows 10, then maybe upgrade to 11. After that, replace the motherboard. Hoping to avoid this.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

  • EstherMom's avatar
    EstherMom
    Iron Contributor

    This is the primary error you're experiencing. dxgkrnl.sys is the kernel-mode driver for the DirectX graphics component. Its failure is likely causing the slow boot times. There's no clear solution for this issue, as it's usually related to a specific hardware or driver configuration.

    • Jay007's avatar
      Jay007
      Copper Contributor

      Thats crazy that there's no fix for this. So until Microsoft addresses the issue this pc can never run Windows? Since I see posts about this going back several years, it seems Microsoft doesn't really care. That's sad, but that's the mentality of these huge corporations I guess.

      Oh well. Thanks anyways.

  • Jay007's avatar
    Jay007
    Copper Contributor

    So I did another clean install, because why not, it doesn't really take that long. Again with the wi-fi disabled, but this time with the GPU removed. Integrated graphics only. No Windows updates with the wi-fi disabled, and no change. Enabled wi-fi, ran snappy driver installer origin. Still no change. At this point it has got to be some incompatibility with a motherboard driver.

    Either way, I'm done. This thing has been down for months and sucked up WAY to much of my time. I'm clearly out of my league here, and not getting any help on any forums. I reinstalled Linux and all is right with the world again. If I ever regain my patience, and cough up the money to replace the motherboard, maybe I'll give it another shot... probably not. lol

  • Jay007's avatar
    Jay007
    Copper Contributor

    Do I smell bad or something? lol. I doubt I've "stumped" the internet. I have this issue posed on other forums, all with exactly zero responses. Never had that happen before.

    Anyway, I found this interesting. I updated my bios, then disabled my wi-fi and did another fresh install of windows 10 (it seems to be the faster of the two). I disabled all updates (especially driver updates), turned my wi-fi back on and installed the Nvidia drivers for my GTX 980ti. Same issue. I was convinced this had something to do with my motherboard intel drivers. I think next I will try a fresh install without installing ANY display drivers and see what happens, then maybe a fresh install with a GTX 970 I have lying around.

    Maybe I'm diving down the wrong rabbit hole, I don't know. I'm about at the end of my knowledge here. I will keep posting little updates in the hopes that someone sees this.

  • Jay007's avatar
    Jay007
    Copper Contributor

    Just a quick update. I did try a fresh install of Windows 10. Same issue. The boot does seem to be a couple minuets faster, but this is still pretty bad. Without any further assistance, I think the next step would be replacing the motherboard, but that's not really in the budget. I think if I can't get this resolved in the next week or two I will cut my losses and go back to Linux, which was running fine prior to Windows 11. I was moving this machine to Windows for some software compatibility.

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