Very delayed booting up

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Swoyer
  • Start date Start date
C

Chris Swoyer

I am running Windows XP Pro on a Dell Dimension XPS T550 (about 4
year old) computer. When I boot I quickly get the Dell Screen (blue
letters on black background), as usual. It used to display this for
less than a minute but has suddenly started taking ten minutes or
more, which I fear is a harbinger of worst things to come.

I suspect this isn't the best newsgroup for this question, so any
advice on a more appropriate one would be welcome. Also, of course,
any thoughts about my current problem.

Thanks, CS
 
Actually, have you recently formatted or reinstalled Windows? There are
disk utilities included by Dell on some of their older computers (not
sure about newer ones) that make you save a section of the harddrive for
special use. I can't remember the name of it, but my Dell Inspiron 7000
hangs for about 2 minutes while it tries to find this. Contact Dell
about how to fix the issue or look through the user's manual they gave
you ;)

Nathan McNulty
 
I haven't formatted or reinstalled Windows. I did install Norton Utilities,
firewall, etc., but that's it.
I'm not under warranty so doubt that Dell will talk to me. I'll keep combing
through the documentation, but so far nothing's turned up.

CS
 
Take a look in the Event viewer to see where the bottle neck(s) are
occurring. This just happened to me and it was Norton that was causing the
delay. An uninstall and reinstall fixed mine. Perhaps your event viewer
will afford some insight into your problem.

Of course, if this just started to happen and if you have a recent restore
point just before it happened, you can try a system restore to that point.

Good luck>

| I am running Windows XP Pro on a Dell Dimension XPS T550 (about 4
| year old) computer. When I boot I quickly get the Dell Screen (blue
| letters on black background), as usual. It used to display this for
| less than a minute but has suddenly started taking ten minutes or
| more, which I fear is a harbinger of worst things to come.
|
| I suspect this isn't the best newsgroup for this question, so any
| advice on a more appropriate one would be welcome. Also, of course,
| any thoughts about my current problem.
|
| Thanks, CS
|
|
 
Chris said:
I am running Windows XP Pro on a Dell Dimension XPS T550 (about 4
year old) computer. When I boot I quickly get the Dell Screen (blue
letters on black background), as usual. It used to display this for
less than a minute but has suddenly started taking ten minutes or
more, which I fear is a harbinger of worst things to come.

I suspect this isn't the best newsgroup for this question, so any
advice on a more appropriate one would be welcome. Also, of course,
any thoughts about my current problem.

Thanks, CS
Click to expand...
I know this may be obvious but have you done some general housecleaning?
How many programs are loading at startup?
Do you have many Quick Launch items?
Have you cleaned up the registry lately?
Are there many items in recent documents?
Have you used System Properties/Advanced/Performance?
Try XP Performance Tips from PCStats (I have a link on my page)
-max

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I can almost garuntee that it is Norton Utilities. Almost all of
Symantic's products are bloatware that really slow the system down. I
installed Norton Utilities 2003 and had it off within 20 minutes. That
sucker will eat your resources like nothing else. I would suggest AVG
AntiVirus FREE (www.grisoft.com) and Sygate Personal Firewall FREE
(http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm). These are two of the
best free AntiVirus and Firewalls on the market and they are FREE :)

Nathan McNulty
 
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