Very slow startup

[Jack Mc Kenna]

My daughters Dell 4700 P4 2.8 ghz takes over 20 minutes to load Windows XP
Home. Looking to solve the problem I have tried the following:

Checked Bios settings- All OK
Ran anti- virus program - none found
Ran anti- spyware - none found
Ran Ad aware - removed 60
Ran disk cleanup
Ran disk check
Defragmented drive
Ran system repair from CD

After that I started up in Safe Mode and sat and watched each driver file
load with a 30 second delay for each one. Also there are blank screens for
long periods of time where nothing seems to happen. Do I have to do a format
and complete re-install of Windows to correct this problem?
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My daughters Dell 4700 P4 2.8 ghz takes over 20 minutes to load
Windows XP Home. Looking to solve the problem I have tried the
following:
Checked Bios settings- All OK
Ran anti- virus program - none found
Ran anti- spyware - none found
Ran Ad aware - removed 60
Ran disk cleanup
Ran disk check
Defragmented drive
Ran system repair from CD

After that I started up in Safe Mode and sat and watched each driver
file load with a 30 second delay for each one. Also there are blank
screens for long periods of time where nothing seems to happen. Do I
have to do a format and complete re-install of Windows to correct
this problem? Any help would be appreciated.

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 20 minutes is an *extremely* long time, and it's probably worth
addressing in this case. 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.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Jack

Please check Event Viewer for Warning / Error Reports in the System and
Application logs for when the error occurs and post copies.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, 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/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&sd=tech

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you should
double click for further information. You can copy using copy and paste.
Often the link will, however, say there is no further information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

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?

Try Start, Run, type "sigverif.exe" without quotes and hit OK. What drivers
are listed as unsigned? Disregard those which are not checked.



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
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