Slow windows xp home startup / boot - how to track?

[DC]

Hi,

the startup time of my notebook gradually increased and it now takes
about 5 minutes from the login screen until the machine is responding
well. Other than that the performance seems to be allright.

I saw a lot of advise and also downloaded a program to check what is
being started. I also checked the event logs to maybe find something
that takes very long. All to no avail.

I wanted to check if maybe there is a tool that will measure the
actual time or accumulated processor consumption of the progams and
services starting after login?

TIA for any hint,
Regards
DC

 

[Gerry]

DC

The only tool I am aware of was discontinued by Microsoft so I do not
recommend it.

Have you tried this approach?
How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/en-us

Also look for Error Reports in the System log in Event Viewer.
Please post copies of all Error and Warning Reports appearing in
the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for the last boot. No
Information Reports or Duplicates please. Indicate which also appear in
a previous boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? Right click on
the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties,
Hardware,Device Manager. If yes what is the Device Error code?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[windmap]

Use CCleaner to cleanup your computer
www.ccleaner.com/

Dont use very old programs.Always use latest versions of programs.Update
Hardware drivers.Uninstall unwanted programs.Run disk Defragmenter.

 

[Daave]

the startup time of my notebook gradually increased and it now takes
about 5 minutes from the login screen until the machine is responding
well. Other than that the performance seems to be allright.

Five minutes isn't too bad as long as all is fine afterwards. My guess
is some program is scanning your hard drive for malware or perhaps
something is being updated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi,

the startup time of my notebook gradually increased and it now takes
about 5 minutes from the login screen until the machine is responding
well. Other than that the performance seems to be allright.

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how long it
takes to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the computer's speed is
otherwise satisfactory, it may not be worth worrying about. Most
people start their computers once a day or even less frequently. In
the overall scheme of things, even a few minutes to start up isn't
very important. Personally I power on my computer when I get up in the
morning, then go get my coffee. When I come back, it's done booting. I
don't know how long it took to boot and I don't care.

However if you do want to address it, it may be because of what
programs start automatically, and you may want to stop some of them
from starting that way. On each program you don't want to start
automatically, check its Options to see if it has the choice not to
start (make sure you actually choose the option not to run it, not
just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped
that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run
line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to
start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of
running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell
you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs
you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but
others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do
is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what
the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can get
more information about these at
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it there,
try google searches and ask about specifics here.

 

[PD43]

Five minutes isn't too bad as long as all is fine afterwards. My guess
is some program is scanning your hard drive for malware or perhaps
something is being updated.

Good catch.

OR maybe the OP has Indexing enabled and it's playing catch up.

 

[DC]

Hi,

the startup time of my notebook gradually increased and it now takes
about 5 minutes from the login screen until the machine is responding
well. Other than that the performance seems to be allright.

I saw a lot of advise and also downloaded a program to check what is
being started. I also checked the event logs to maybe find something
that takes very long. All to no avail.

I wanted to check if maybe there is a tool that will measure the
actual time or accumulated processor consumption of the progams and
services starting after login?

TIA for any hint,
Regards
DC

Thanks for everybody for the hints. I decided to take the advice to
give up hunting the startup hogs (my guess is that Norton 360 and the
ITunes software contribute quite much btw) since looking for a
solution has probably already taken longer than the accumulated time I
will save when I get my machine to start up within a minute.

However, the envy when looking at a fresh system that starts up in
less than a minute is substantial, and while I usually not even boot
my laptop once a day (but rather suspend to ram) the waiting becomes a
pain in the neck when installing / upgrading software or
troubleshooting, which will easily cause me to start up 15 times per
hour (because that, of course, is the limit, now wouldn't it be
something to be able to reboot 60 times per hour...)

Regards
DC

 

[Gerry]

DC

You can disable iTunes as a start up item using Autoruns:

Have a look at Autoruns (freeware) which covers ALL not SOME startup
items and is generally safer to use than msconfig.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx

You can the place a shortcut on your desktop to enable you to start
iTunes on demand.

Many users here would recommend dumping Norton for something which is
less of a resource hog!

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~