Very Odd Slow Windows 11 Bootup Today & Slow Support Assistant

[steamship]

This morning I had a very odd experience when booting up. With the SSD, it normally takes about 4-5 seconds from pressing the power button to get to the Windows login screen. Today, I had a black screen for about 10 seconds, followed by the black Omen splash screen. That lasted for about 5 seconds, during which I had a spinning icon, which I've never seen before, and finally the Windows login screen.

Logged in and everything seems to be running fine, so far. Out of curiosity, I went into Windows Update to see if there were any items needing updated. There were none listed, so I clicked 'Check for updates'. That took around 30-40 seconds and returned one item, which seemed slow. I then went into the HP Support Assistant and checked for updates there, and there wasn't any. Finally, I clicked on 'Device specifications' and that took 11 seconds to populate, again with the spinning icon. Normally, it displays everything immediately. I've used the laptop for about 20 minutes and tried the HP Support Assistant again, and it again takes 11 seconds to populate the data.

This is the first time I've ever experienced this since getting the laptop. The only thing installed recently was Hard Disk Sentinel trial about a week ago, as someone suggested it when trying to isolate what caused my very first BSOD when shutting down the laptop. The only other main concern is that this has started happening just as I've had the laptop for exactly one year - I had another post recently about why the Support Assistant was showing my warranty as expired.

[WAWood]

That spinning circle means that Windows was finishing an update -- even though it did not show any.  It could have been doing something like a Defender update or a Driver update, and those don't show up unless you scroll down through all the updates to see them.

I would get rid of the hard disk sentinel program as it is likely to be running all the time in the background, monitoring your drive actions, and that will slow down the PC.

[steamship]

I've had the laptop for a year now, with Windows Update always present, and I have never seen this spinning circle on the Omen splash screen. I've seen it where I've applied an update and it requires a reboot, where it finishes the update, but NOT on the Omen splash screen.

As for the updates, there weren't any that needed applying. To confirm that, since posting, I've done the Windows Update check again, as well as the HP Support Assistant, Omen Gaming Hub and NVidia updates, and there none. I've shut the laptop down, with no prompts about updates needing applied, left it for two hours to visit someone, and get the same thing on bootup. I had also removed the HD Sentinel after my original posting, even though it wasn't even running in the background.

[WAWood]

OK, then my guess is that it did a BIOS update.  But, I don't have access to an Omen to confirm that.

[steamship]

Not a BIOS update either. Two reasons I know this. The first is that it is still happening on every bootup.

The second is because I have now updated the BIOS, although the HP Support Assistant is less than helpful in this respect. Normally I just click on the 'Updates' icon to see what updates are available to install, and a previous firmware update has appeared there. That hasn't been showing anything recently. I then decided to go into the 'Fixes & Diagnostics' tab, and in there clicked one the 'Run hardware diagnostics'. That opens up another program, and in that I clicked on the 'Check for BIOS update', and lo and behold, it tells me there's a new BIOS. I ran through that yesterday afternoon, including several reboots. It has been shut down and restarted twice since then, last night and again this morning, and on both occasions, the same long delay on bootup.

I may consider logging a support call about this, although I don't fancy having to send the laptop away for a week or more.