Why does my computer take so long to boot up?

I assume by the word "hanging" you are actually referring to the machine pausing for a length of time when the Dell logo appears. If this is true, I don't know if your aware that while the logo is being displayed there is diagnostic tests occurring in the background as well a quick virus scan if you have anti-virus software installed. You can speed up the boot time by going into the BIOS setup and enabling the Quick Boot option which will skip over some the post tests. The link below is for the document on your BIOS setup and the Quick Boot option.

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

The standard disclaimer.... I don't work for Dell nor am I associated with Dell. I'm not even related to Michael Dell, although there are times I would like to be the first born
son to Bill Gate$.

If Windows was perfect, Bill wouldn't
be trying to sell you the next version.

All opinions expressly contained herein are subject to more opinion.

How much memory do you have installed? The more you put in, the longer the boot time - the system needs to check it.

PD

XPS t750
PIII 750 to PIII 1000
384 Mb RAM
27Gb Ultra ATA (IBM "Deathstar")
40Gb WD Caviar
ATA 100 Controller
GE Force2 400
Santa Cruz
Fire Wire card
Cable connection
Win XP (Yes Dell, it works.)

I do have 768 megs of ram, and I always have quickboot on. However, I am running Windows XP, so their shouldnt be any programs running under DOS or during startup.

768 megs is a lot of RAM, but with Quick Boot enabled you should be skipping over the memory testing. The next time you boot you might want to press the ESC key to minimize the Dell logo and see what is running that takes so long. Another thing is to go into the BIOS setup and double check that Quick Boot is enabled. If you have done any BIOS upgrades since enabling Quick Boot, the upgrades may have changed the Quick Boot option back to it's default setting of disabled.



The standard disclaimer.... I don't work for Dell nor am I associated with Dell. I'm not even related to Michael Dell, although there are times I would like to be the first born
son to Bill Gate$.

If Windows was perfect, Bill wouldn't
be trying to sell you the next version.

All opinions expressly contained herein are subject to more opinion.

By a long time, what excactly are we talking? At run type in msconfig to see what is running at start-up, unclick anything that you do not need. Run a disk clean-up(beware what you check) and defrag your harddrive. This should speed things up.