XPS 8700 - Black screen before getting to Windows 7 screen. Help plz.

Power off, remove the MSI GTX 660, put our video card back in, power on. If it boots faster, the culprit was the retail video card. If it doesn't boot faster, power off, put the MSI GTX 660 back in. Disconnect all devices from the XPS 8700 except the monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Power on. What happens?

Thanks for the respond first.

I contacted the dell support and got help through the remote access control before I checked your reply.

It did seem the boot time was a bit reduced after the fix, but when I turned it on after about 3 hours, the boot up time came back to slow state.

I also followed your instructions. It was the same slow boot up time with the original video card as well.

So I put the Gtx660 back in, disconnected all devices except the basics, and booted it up.

I still get the black screen with the mouse pointer that slows down the whole boot up time.

Note: The tech rep said the black screen with the mouse pointer was just a boot up process, which I still doubt since the black screen takes up more than half of the boot up time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks

Thanks. I disabled the USB boot support. It seems the boot up speed slightly got better, but it still has the black screen with the mouse pointer delay.

The total boot up time takes about 1 min and 30~40 sec now.

 I can't figure out what went wrong anymore. I'm kind of frustrated since the boot up takes longer than my previous 5 year-old pc with similar hard disk spec.

If you have more solutions, I would gladly follow. I really appreciate your help.     

What video out ports are on the MSI GTX 660? Using what cabling connected to what port on the monitor?

It has 2 DVI output.  I'm using one of them and DVI port on monitor as well.

Time to start pulling the ram sticks and checking them one at a time to see if you can see if they are causing the slow boot.

Thanks again for the attention and help.

I pulled them out and checked one at a time, but the result was the same slow boot.

I really don't understand why it hangs on so long to the black screen before it switches to the windows screen....  

Please let me know if you have more suggestions.

Thank you very much for the attention. I rebooted in safe mode. Guess what happened. The black screen delay is gone!!  

At this point, what could be the problem causing the black screen delay in normal windows mode?

That sounds like it's a driver problem.

First off- update your video driver...

Thanks for the suggestion. I updated it to the latest version, which is Nvidia driver version 344.75.

New updates: As you mentioned about the antivirus program, I tried uninstalling it.  After the uninstallation, the boot up speed significantly improved. I didn't realize the program would cause this much trouble. I can just live with the speed now. 

I really appreciate for all the attention and help. It was very informative. I believe many people would find it useful if they run into the slow boot up problem.       

But you still need to have antiviral protection!

Not sure what you were using, but at the very least turn on Microsoft Security Essentials (Win 7) or Windows Defender (Win 8) and the Windows firewall.

Is it possible whatever you were using was set to scan at boot? That would certainly cause a delay. I believe McAfee has that option as do others like SUPERAntispyware.

So all you'd really need do is find and disable the "scan at boot" option in whatever software you were using.

Sure thing. Right after I removed that program, I realized I should've just managed the setting instead of deleting it. So I ended up reinstalling it. By the way, the program I've been using is Bitdefender total protection 2015.

Thank you again for the advice.