XP Suddenly Slow to Boot [Long/Detailed]

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
 
P

Patty MacDuffie

Just a suggestion. Check Dell's site to see if there are any updates for
the machine, particularly any that they suggest are for SP2. Also might
check for BIOS upgrade.
 
D

Dusty

This happend to me about a month ago. Went from a 1 minute boot to a 3 (or
more) minute. Then after boot it ran very slowly for a few minutes then
everything was normal

I talked to alot of folks and read alot of articles. I got Advanced System
Optimizer (from Systweak). Ran the registry defrag & optimizer and it booted
in under a minute again. It's still slow for a few minutes after boot but it
boots semi-quickly again. I have no idea if this pertains to you, just
sharing my similar experience
Dusty
 
B

Bill

Patty MacDuffie said:
Just a suggestion. Check Dell's site to see if there are any updates
for the machine, particularly any that they suggest are for SP2. Also
might check for BIOS upgrade.

According to the Dell site, I'm all up to snuff.

Thanks,
Bill
 
B

Bill

Dusty said:
This happend to me about a month ago. Went from a 1 minute boot to a
3 (or more) minute. Then after boot it ran very slowly for a few
minutes then everything was normal

I talked to alot of folks and read alot of articles. I got Advanced
System Optimizer (from Systweak). Ran the registry defrag & optimizer
and it booted in under a minute again. It's still slow for a few
minutes after boot but it boots semi-quickly again. I have no idea if
this pertains to you, just sharing my similar experience
Dusty

Downloaded, installed, and ran the free version. Said it found and fixed a
bunch of stuff, but the problem remains.

Thanks though,
Bill
 
P

Pop

Hmm, good descrips & a logical approach; you did things right.
Other than systweak or whatever it was called though, I didn't
notice my in the way of Registry repair.

Whle your machine is working semi-acceptably, manually create a
Restore point so you can get back there if things go too far out
on you. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Restore.

1. You said the systweak fixed a "bunch of things" but no joy.
Did you run it more than once? If the Registry is messed up, it
might take running it twice, even three or more times before it
gets everything straightened out. Sometimes "fixing" one thing
in the registry can break another thing but the sys won't know
that until you reboot again. So, run it a few times until it
finds no more errors.

I have absolutely no idea what kind of things systweak does or
how good a program is is or isn't, and I think you mentioned it's
the free version, so it could be missing a lot of things even if
it's a good app.

There is a program called Fix-It I had for awhile that did a
decent job or working with the Registry. I only stopped using it
because I went to Norton SystemWorks from Symantec. See
http://www.v-com.com/product/Fix-It_Utilities_Home.html
for Fix-It and www.symantec.com for SystemWorks, but it's a lot
more expensive app. Worth it though.
Fix-It is $50 but I got it at Sygate.com for, I think, $29.
Norton SystemWorks is a lot more but worth every penny, in my
opinion, for computer health/security.

2. I know from experience the network functions can sometimes
cause post-desktop delays as you describe. I started there when
I had my 5+ Minute boot problem. Turn it completely off, so that
your machine is ont serving the LAN in any way. Go right to
Network Settings and disable the LAN; a lot of time can be spent
by it trying to and not finding the LAN components and
connections, IP mixups, etc.. See if that helps anything.

3. You didn't mention what AV program you're using. Any chance
it's doing a complete disk scan when it powers up? Check around
the settings for it if you haven'\t already, and anything else
that might be starting.

4. Every time you do a boot or reboot, immediately start Task
Manager and look at the Processor usage and the Processes
running. There might be something in there to tip off where the
problem is.

In my case, which was a strange one, I went all the way to
uninstalling the larger applications, one at a time, and clocking
the boot time each time. If it didn't change by more than a
second or so, I reinstalled but if it did change, especially by
ten or more seconds, I left it uninstalled. Long story short,
and I didn't keep records because I was getting pretty
frustrated, but eventually I jumped right down to a 35S bootup!
I started reinstalling things, one at a time and
rebooting/checking boot times each time, and it all went back in
and the problem was gone! I think my boot time was something
like a minute 15 seconds at that point.
From there I just started going thru the startup programs and
killing things that didn't have to be installed at boot time, but
you may not want to go that far.

Last time I grabbed my stopwatch, I was at 47 seconds to Restart,
not too shabby considering the amount of software I have
installed, including some heavy duty video software and codecs.

XP somehow is sometimes self-healing, too, I've noticed, and
others have commented on it, too. Sometimes multiple shut down
power off restarts will make a difference. Something gets
straightened out somehow. Didn't help any with that 5+ minute
boot thing though and it still drives me nuts not knowing what
did it.

Dunno if any of that's any help or not, but that's my two cents,
accounting for inflation.

OH! Kill your passwords while you troubleshoot or you'll go
absolutely nuts rebooting and having to enter a password every
time. And, of course, use an Admin account, turn off AV,
firewalls, anything you don't need to run, and stay off the net
til you put that all back, of course! Keep coffee handy, and a
doodle pad!

G'luck!

Pop




| 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
|
|
 
R

Rex

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.
<snip>

I had this problem.
Then replaced the motherboard, CPU and memory. Still slow to boot.
I solved the problem by replacing the cable between the motherboard and hard
drives.
No idea why, but it worked for me.

Rex
 
B

Bill

In
Rex said:
<snip>

I had this problem.
Then replaced the motherboard, CPU and memory. Still slow to boot.
I solved the problem by replacing the cable between the motherboard
and hard drives.
No idea why, but it worked for me.

Rex

Thanks to all who replied. Unfortunately the computer made the decision to
format for me last night, when it finally just wouldn't boot "normally" at
all.

Format and a clean reinstall, a trip to the Windows update site, and I'm all
set.

Problem solved. Boots like a champ. Sure wish I knew what the hell
happened though. :-(

By the way? The supposedly "updated driver" for my Radeon video card
suggested for download by the Windows Update site, completely broke my
display. Set it to bare minimum, and crashed the machine when I tried to
change the settings. Good thing I set a restore point before I install
*anything*, from anywhere, anymore. :)

Thanks again, everybody.

Bill
 
P

Patty MacDuffie

Bill, I've seen this a couple of times. The first time it was clearly a
case of where SP2 failed to install; upon reboot an error message was
displayed saying so, and instructing the user to go to Add/Remove programs
and remove the service pack. User didn't have a clue and so dismissed the
message. When the next Windows Update came down, installed and rebooted, her
machine was fried. This is because her machine was in some hybrid state
between SP1a and SP2, it was corrupted beyond repair.

The second machine there was no known reason for the failure, but it was
simply an SP2 issue. It was a laptop, totally clean of viruses and spyware,
no odd programs in there, just very standard stuff like Office. A very
clean machine. We went to the manufacturer's website, they had no patches
for SP2. But everytime we tried to install it, the machine crashed big
time. We were, in this case, able to uninstall it via the Recovery Console.
At this point, we're waiting to see if the manufacturer comes up with
anything.
 
G

Guest

Patty MacDuffie said:
Bill, I've seen this a couple of times. The first time it was clearly a
case of where SP2 failed to install; upon reboot an error message was
displayed saying so, and instructing the user to go to Add/Remove programs
and remove the service pack. User didn't have a clue and so dismissed the
message. When the next Windows Update came down, installed and rebooted, her
machine was fried. This is because her machine was in some hybrid state
between SP1a and SP2, it was corrupted beyond repair.

The second machine there was no known reason for the failure, but it was
simply an SP2 issue. It was a laptop, totally clean of viruses and spyware,
no odd programs in there, just very standard stuff like Office. A very
clean machine. We went to the manufacturer's website, they had no patches
for SP2. But everytime we tried to install it, the machine crashed big
time. We were, in this case, able to uninstall it via the Recovery Console.
At this point, we're waiting to see if the manufacturer comes up with
anything.
Ok folks i have ben reading with interest since i have the same problem. A
few more details. My computer is set up for me and the kids to use. About
three weeks ago this happened, but returned to normal the next day. Now it
has happened again.
-slow start up
-after logging on to my screen i will get the background picture, but no
icons and no toolbars
-I can some time log in on one of my kids names and there will be icon and
and the start bar at the bottom of the screen.
- a message sometimes appears saying i may be running out of resources or
memory

Where do i start?
 
B

Bill

In
Patty MacDuffie said:
Bill, I've seen this a couple of times. The first time it was
clearly a case of where SP2 failed to install; upon reboot an error
message was displayed saying so, and instructing the user to go to
Add/Remove programs and remove the service pack. User didn't have a
clue and so dismissed the message. When the next Windows Update came
down, installed and rebooted, her machine was fried. This is because
her machine was in some hybrid state between SP1a and SP2, it was
corrupted beyond repair.

Don't think that was the case in my particular situation. I know it's been
long-since snipped, but in my initial post I *did* say that SP2 had been
installed and running like a champ for a couple of months before the problem
developed.

It happened very suddenly, starting with a "pop" from my speakers, and loss
of sound. Every reboot after that, got progressively slower and slower
until it either stopped booting altogether, or I just got tired of waiting
for it. I can't honestly say for sure which occured, because by the time it
started taking 10+ minutes to boot, I gave up all hope of ever recovering,
and formatted. So I guess I'll never know what the heck happened.

Did a clean install of XP. Turned on my Automatic Updates, within a half
hour I was prompted to install SP2, did so, all's well. Boot problem
resolved.
The second machine there was no known reason for the failure, but it
was simply an SP2 issue.

<snip>

SP2 isn't really my problem. (Or at least, not now.) This is:
ATI Technologies Inc. - 128MB DDR ATI Radeon 9800

It's not *that* big a deal. The original driver works fine, but I like to
keep this thing fully upgraded.

Here's something else I find odd. A visit to the ATI site indicates that I
already have the most current version of the driver installed? So why is
Windows Update "suggesting" I update it?

Is there some place I can report this problem? I thought I might have just
gotten a corrupted download at first, but it's happend three times.

Thanks,
Bill
 
B

Bill

In
Bob H said:
:

Ok folks i have ben reading with interest since i have the same
problem. A few more details. My computer is set up for me and the
kids to use. About three weeks ago this happened, but returned to
normal the next day. Now it has happened again.
-slow start up
-after logging on to my screen i will get the background picture, but
no icons and no toolbars
-I can some time log in on one of my kids names and there will be
icon and and the start bar at the bottom of the screen.
- a message sometimes appears saying i may be running out of
resources or memory

Where do i start?

Kids huh? First thing I'd do is make sure your Anti-Virus software is
up-to-date, and run it.

Then for starters, if you don't already have them? Download, install,
update, and run;

Ad-Aware and Spybot. (Both are free)

Let those two programs 'take out the trash', and reboot. It might just be
that simple for you.

Good luck,
Bill
 

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