Starting Up Takes Forever

[Guest]

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. The hardrive
runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load and then I can
get started.
When I first purchased this pc it was super fast. Any suggestions as to what
is taking Windows so long to load.

Thanks

 

[Bill Sharpe]

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. The hardrive
runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load and then I can
get started.
When I first purchased this pc it was super fast. Any suggestions as to what
is taking Windows so long to load.

Thanks

Search your startup folder to see how many programs are loading when you
start.

Run msconfig from the Run dialog box, select startup, and see what other
programs are loading. You can uncheck those you don't need.

Defrag?

Bill

 

[Malke]

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. The
hardrive runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load
and then I can get started.
When I first purchased this pc it was super fast. Any suggestions as
to what is taking Windows so long to load.

Thanks

Slow or Sluggish Computer:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/slowcom.htm
http://aumha.org/a/health.htm - Take Out the Trash (section 4)

And of course, make sure your computer is virus/malware-free:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

Malke

 

[Plato]

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. The hardrive
runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load and then I can
get started.
When I first purchased this pc it was super fast. Any suggestions as to what
is taking Windows so long to load.

How much free space on C: do you have? MS recommends at least 10 gig
free on C: for users of Windows XP.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Frank

How much RAM memory do you have? Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring Task
Manager and select the Performance Tab. What is the Total, the Commit Charge
and the Peak?

How large is your hard drive? Is it partitioned? How much free space on
each drive / partition. How is the drive formatted -FAT32 or NTFS. To
get this information whilst in Windows Explorer place the cursor on each
drive in turn, right click and select Properties.

What is the CPU?

Look in the System and Application logs of Event Viewer and post copies
of Warning and Error Reports.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Administrative Tools,
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/default.aspx?scid=kb;enus;308427&Product=winxp

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. Double click the button and close Event
Viewer. Now start your message(email) and do a paste into the body of the
message. This will paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report
complete with links into 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 14:40:02 -0800, "Frank"

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. The hardrive
runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load and then I can
get started.

Watch the HD activitty LED during the lag...

1) If HD LED is off

It's rare that pure in-RAM processing will ever take so long that
you'd have to wait for more than a minute, so it's more likely that
something is being waited for, that doesn't happen. Try:
- disconnecting all peripherals and newtwork connections
- disabling any wireless connections
- if no joy, continue as below

2) If HD LED is on, with periodic clicking or no HD sound

This would suggest a failing HD, which is more of a risk with laptops
that get dropped and which have the HD spinning up and down all the
time in an attempt to preserve battery life. If no HD noise, the
heads may be locked in one place while repeated attempts are made to
read a sector on that cylinder. If periodic clicking, the HD may be
making repeated attempts to seek a cylinder. The end may be near, so:
- get your data off, NOW
- get HD Tune from www.hdtune.com
- use that to check SMART info and test the surface (slow test)
- replace HD even if "just one bad sector"

3) If HD LED burbles randomly on and off

This is the pattern you'd expect if there was just too much junk in
the startup axis, including malware integrated there or elsewhere.
- do a formal virus scan and scan for commercial malware
- check Safe Mode; is that better?
- use MSConfig to suppress all startup items, then...
- ...add back one at a time to test-to-break

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

First, the good Customer feedback has
been clear and unambiguous.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

=?Utf-8?B?RnJhbms=?= wrote:

How much free space on C: do you have? MS recommends at least 10 gig
free on C: for users of Windows XP.

Please stop waving this 10G figure around, it's nonsense.

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -

First, the good Customer feedback has
been clear and unambiguous.

 

[xy2z]

Upon starting up my laptop, it takes forever to get started. Th
hardrive
runs, programs take approximately 5-10 minutes to fully load and then
can
get started.
When I first purchased this pc it was super fast. Any suggestions as t
what
is taking Windows so long to load.

Thanks

Try clearing your startup list of unwanted items, cleanout the Har
disk with a disk cleanup or CCleaner and run a defrag. you could als
try clearing the prefetch. Add more RAM if ur running on insufficien
memory