Slow Boot Before GRUB

Support and Help
,
1

Hi everyone. I’m having a strange issue that I’ve been trying to fix for the last month or so and I can’t seem to get anywhere with it.

My laptop is experiencing seemingly random slow booting. When turned on it sometimes sits at the Acer logo for 30 seconds to a minute before going to GRUB. Once GRUB loads then the OS boot goes normally. Other times it boots up without any delay.

Xubuntu 24.04 LTS
Acer Nitro AN515-54
Intel Core i5-9300H CPU
GeForce GTX 1050 3 GB Max-Q
12 GB RAM
Bios Version 1.33

I’ve searched around for solutions and tried a few things with no success. I tried disabling secure boot and enabling fast boot in the BIOS which didn’t do anything. The BIOS is the latest version. Xubuntu is the only item in the BIOS boot order list. I’m not really sure where to go from here.

$ systemd-analyze time
Startup finished in 1min 12.990s (firmware) + 6.408s (loader) + 2.725s (kernel) + 11.115s (userspace) = 1min 33.240s

It seems to me that “1min 12.990s (firmware)” is the issue so maybe it’s a firmware problem.

I saved the result from journalctl -b for the same boot if it’s any help to anyone. I can paste a section of it, it’s quite long.

1 Like
2

Have you installed the drivers for your Nvidia card?
Here’s some info:- Install Nvidia Drivers

Also, there have been recent updates for linux-firmware
Do you have the latest (20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.14) for 24.04?

1 Like
3

Do you have network boot on in UEFI settings? Not sure if it goes to Internet every time or only if first boot option does not work.

If not making changes to system, you can turn fast boot in UEFI settings back on. That assumes no changes and automatically boots based on previous configuration. You do need to know how to get back into UEFI. You may need a “cold” boot or full power down, so boot does a full check for configuration which gives just enough time to press a key to get into UEFI settings or one time boot.

4

I have Nvidia driver 550.144.03 installed.

I do, it mentions that there is 1 additional version, I’m not sure if that makes a difference.


nicolas@xubuntu:~$ apt list --installed linux-firmware
Listing... Done
linux-firmware/noble-updates,noble-security,now 20240318.git3b128b60-0ubuntu2.14 amd64 [installed,automatic]
N: There is 1 additional version. Please use the '-a' switch to see it

I’m pretty sure that network boot is off but I will check.

Fast boot is still on. I tried turning it off and on.

5

Do you have external devices attached sometimes?
Or an entry in /etc/fstab to an unavailable disk/partition?

If you boot into a previous kernel (Grub > Advanced Options for Ubuntu), does the random
slow boot still happen?

6

I have a mouse, keyboard and monitor connected. disconnecting them didn’t change anything.

I tried the earlier kernel and that didn’t seem to do anything. I’m back to the newer one and the last few reboots have went normally. I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s unpredictable.

7

That’s encouraging

Yes, look on the bright side - Unpredictability is the cradle of creativity.
It affords us the chance to think laterally,

You mentioned firmware in your first post and this may include TPM.
Is TPM (or any similar Trust setting) enabled in your UEFI options?

8

me too few restarts and everything came back

9

There is yes. I remember having to do something regarding to TPM when I first installed my Nvidia drivers.

So far everything is working again. I think what did it was resetting the UEFI secure boot setting to factory default. I’ll let it go for a couple more days to make sure.