B
Bill
Specs:
PC - Dell XPS
OS - Windows XP (SP2) Fully updated.
CPU - P4 (3.0GHz)
HDD - 120GB (80% free)
RAM - 1GB
Internet Connection - Cable
Network - Problem machine plays "host" to one other machine.
Router - Linksys
XP Firewall - On
Problem:
This machine used to take less than 30 seconds from Power-Up, to ready to
use. It now takes over three minutes. This occurs from either a cold boot,
or a restart. No new programs have been recently installed, and SP2 has
been running flawlessly for a couple months.
Sequence:
Dell splash comes up as usual. Goes right into loading Windows, and the
(default) opening music plays as the welcome screen appears. Also as usual.
Now it get's strange.
The welcome screen hangs for 30-35 seconds, then drops out of sight
revealing my desktop with no task bar, no icons, and no start button. About
2 and a half minutes later, everything comes up and the machine functions
normally. (Or at least I haven't noticed anything unusual about it's
performance.)
What Happened RIGHT BEFORE the problem Occured:
Only programs open were OE and AIM. I was IMing with a friend, when
suddenly I heard a 'pop' from my spekaers, and my sound cut out. So I
finished my converstion in "silence", sent and received a few more emails,
and decided to just reboot and see if the sound situation would return to
normal. The machine was working perfectly other than the sound, so I
figured it was just "one of those things", and a simple reboot would solve
the problem. Which it did, sorta. The sound came back, but that's when the
boot problem first appeared, and it's been this way ever since. A couple
other things of note;
- After that first reboot? The system32 folder would appear on my desktop
informing me that "These Files Are Hidden". A problem I resolved by
searching the web, and disabling /L:ENG (whatever that is) in Start-Up, via
msconfig. That had never happened before.
- One of the first things I tried to do in attempt to resolve this issue was
to do a System Restore. Imagine my surprise when I got there to find that
all of my previous restore points were gone?! (The machine usually lets me
go back at least a week, and nobody had messed with the settings.) I'm the
only one who uses this machine, and for the past four days, it's been once
again setting restore points automatically. So that's odd too.
What I've Done To Try and Diagnose and Resolve the Issue:
- Cracked the case and reseated the sound card (SB-Audigy 2)
- Uninstalled and reinstalled the sound card drivers.
- Ran chkdsk and sfc. (All Ok)
- Ran fully updated versions of Spybot, Ad-Aware, HijackThis, Stinger, and
AVG. (All OK)
- Ran "Housecall" by Trend-Micro. (All OK)
- Ran the Disk Cleanup utility and defragged. The defragmenter took forever
to open and close. It seemed to run OK though. By "open and close" I mean
it took a while from the time I clicked on it, to the time it finally
appeared on my desktop. Probably 20 seconds or so. Then it ran normally,
but when it was done, it took another 20 seconds from the time I clicked the
'x' to close it, to the time it actually went away. Don't know if that's
helpful or not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
- Went to the Black Viper site and looked for any services that shouldn't be
running. (OK)
- Used msconfig to check for anything unusual in the start-up list. (OK)
- Unplugged my cable modem and rebooted. (No Joy)
- Shut down the 'client' machine and rebooted. (No Joy)
So now, as I've already informed Doug Knox, (who suggested I post here) I'm
really at my wits end with this. I've been Googling around for days trying
to resolve this issue. And though I've seen a lot of folks reporting the
same problem as me? I've yet to come across a "solution" that doesn't
require a format and reinstall. The bottom line is, I can live with the
slow boot. Unlike a lot of other folks who have this same issue, the
performance of my machine isn't suffering. I'd just love to know what
happened, and if anyone has a 'fix' other than a format. I'll be happy to
try any suggestions you may have and post back with my results.
IF somebody hear can sort it out? I'm sure it would make a lot of people
very happy.
Thanks for your consideration,
Bill
PC - Dell XPS
OS - Windows XP (SP2) Fully updated.
CPU - P4 (3.0GHz)
HDD - 120GB (80% free)
RAM - 1GB
Internet Connection - Cable
Network - Problem machine plays "host" to one other machine.
Router - Linksys
XP Firewall - On
Problem:
This machine used to take less than 30 seconds from Power-Up, to ready to
use. It now takes over three minutes. This occurs from either a cold boot,
or a restart. No new programs have been recently installed, and SP2 has
been running flawlessly for a couple months.
Sequence:
Dell splash comes up as usual. Goes right into loading Windows, and the
(default) opening music plays as the welcome screen appears. Also as usual.
Now it get's strange.
The welcome screen hangs for 30-35 seconds, then drops out of sight
revealing my desktop with no task bar, no icons, and no start button. About
2 and a half minutes later, everything comes up and the machine functions
normally. (Or at least I haven't noticed anything unusual about it's
performance.)
What Happened RIGHT BEFORE the problem Occured:
Only programs open were OE and AIM. I was IMing with a friend, when
suddenly I heard a 'pop' from my spekaers, and my sound cut out. So I
finished my converstion in "silence", sent and received a few more emails,
and decided to just reboot and see if the sound situation would return to
normal. The machine was working perfectly other than the sound, so I
figured it was just "one of those things", and a simple reboot would solve
the problem. Which it did, sorta. The sound came back, but that's when the
boot problem first appeared, and it's been this way ever since. A couple
other things of note;
- After that first reboot? The system32 folder would appear on my desktop
informing me that "These Files Are Hidden". A problem I resolved by
searching the web, and disabling /L:ENG (whatever that is) in Start-Up, via
msconfig. That had never happened before.
- One of the first things I tried to do in attempt to resolve this issue was
to do a System Restore. Imagine my surprise when I got there to find that
all of my previous restore points were gone?! (The machine usually lets me
go back at least a week, and nobody had messed with the settings.) I'm the
only one who uses this machine, and for the past four days, it's been once
again setting restore points automatically. So that's odd too.
What I've Done To Try and Diagnose and Resolve the Issue:
- Cracked the case and reseated the sound card (SB-Audigy 2)
- Uninstalled and reinstalled the sound card drivers.
- Ran chkdsk and sfc. (All Ok)
- Ran fully updated versions of Spybot, Ad-Aware, HijackThis, Stinger, and
AVG. (All OK)
- Ran "Housecall" by Trend-Micro. (All OK)
- Ran the Disk Cleanup utility and defragged. The defragmenter took forever
to open and close. It seemed to run OK though. By "open and close" I mean
it took a while from the time I clicked on it, to the time it finally
appeared on my desktop. Probably 20 seconds or so. Then it ran normally,
but when it was done, it took another 20 seconds from the time I clicked the
'x' to close it, to the time it actually went away. Don't know if that's
helpful or not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
- Went to the Black Viper site and looked for any services that shouldn't be
running. (OK)
- Used msconfig to check for anything unusual in the start-up list. (OK)
- Unplugged my cable modem and rebooted. (No Joy)
- Shut down the 'client' machine and rebooted. (No Joy)
So now, as I've already informed Doug Knox, (who suggested I post here) I'm
really at my wits end with this. I've been Googling around for days trying
to resolve this issue. And though I've seen a lot of folks reporting the
same problem as me? I've yet to come across a "solution" that doesn't
require a format and reinstall. The bottom line is, I can live with the
slow boot. Unlike a lot of other folks who have this same issue, the
performance of my machine isn't suffering. I'd just love to know what
happened, and if anyone has a 'fix' other than a format. I'll be happy to
try any suggestions you may have and post back with my results.
IF somebody hear can sort it out? I'm sure it would make a lot of people
very happy.
Thanks for your consideration,
Bill