Slow boot up - icons take forever to appear!

Question

Hello,  I have a Dell Dimension 2350 deskyop PC with Windows XP and SP2 installed.  I've noticed lately that it is taking forever for my computer to boot up.  For like 2 minutes I see my screen with no icons, then they finally do appear.  Overall it seems to take almost 4-5 minutes for my PC to boot.  Reminds me of my old 8088 desktop from years ago.   Any ideas on what could be causing the slow boot? Why does it take forever for the icons to appear?   Thank you!   Patrick

BowaDoyle · Answer

Thanks for your comments. I apprecaite it VERY much! I've done everything you've suggested already. Though there may be more programs I can delete from Start up. I have 1gb of ram so memory is not an issue. Could there be a bad driver? If so how do I find this out.

Hey I like that Startup link you suggested. Thank you!

Message Edited by BowaDoyle on 11-12-2004 07:59 AM

dunedin · Answer

Could be many reasons for this.

Do you have enough RAM. 256 MB is a bare minimum for XP

Here are some things to check

1. Disable unneeded programs from running at start up
Start/Run/ msconfig, keep the page open then go to link below.

http://www.sysinfo.org/startupinfo.html

Read the Key at foot of page, then click on “Here” at top. Use the Search box to check all your entries. You will see which items you can safely disable and which ones must be left running

2. Run trojan/virus scans Set them to fix all problems.

Trojan Scan http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/

Panda http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm

3. Spyware check
Download the following free programs and remember to get them to update themselves before running
Spybot Search & Destroy http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2471.html
Get it remove all RED entries it finds

Ad-aware SE http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/#free
Get it to fix all

Try these things first and see if any better.

BowaDoyle · Answer

I think part of the problem is that I have the following programs running at start up: Though I have turned off a few:   System Mechanic 4 Window Washer SpyBot Norton Anti-Virus   As far as it being slow before SP2, I can't honestly remember.  I am seriously thinking of clearing the hard drive, reformatting and loading everything from scratch.  It's funny how much PC's slowq down over time.  I can handle that, but this is really slow.   Thanks for the info on what to do with the driver.  I thought that may be the problem because I have seen the blue screen of death twice in the past 2-3 weeks.  Which is unusual for Windows XP.   I am also wondering if the registry is corrupt.  I had some issues deleting all the junk I had when I was using Earthlink DSL.  (I now use Comcast!)   Thanks again!   Pat

dunedin · Answer

You are welcome.

I think a bad driver would cause worse problems like BOSD or freezes but you can check here

Right click My Computer / Properties / Hardware / Device Manager.
Look for "Yellow" errors

Have you got anything running in the background such as Virus checker ( at boot up) or Auto Updates?
Do you defrag regularly?

Was it slow before SP2?

dunedin · Answer

If you feel you have a few problems it is probably best to reformat and reinstall as it might take ages to troubleshoot all of them.

When you get a BOSD you should take note of the error

eg "Stop 0x0000000A or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"

and post it. This is the best way to troubleshoot the error

In the meantime if you want to try to fix
Control Panel / Performance and Maintenance / Admin Tools / Event Viewer / System.
Look for "Red" errors. If there are a lot, some of them will be duplicates so just post one of each.
Double click error, take a note of the Event ID and also the Source and post them back.
OR
Check the errors here yourself.
http://www.eventid.net/search.asp

I have to say though that these errors can be hard to pin down unless a definite fix is posted at that site.

Norton is a candidate for causing a slow system, but if you should know if you were using it without that problem before.

If you are going to reinstall, make sure now that there are no yellow splats in Device Manager as in my last post. If you have a hardware problem it might cause trouble when trying to reinstall so check you are all clear first.

VCraig · Answer

You could try this first:    Click on Start, then Run, then type [msconfig] - without the brackets - in the Run box and press Enter, then click on the Startup tab and uncheck everything listed and reboot. If your system starts up normally (quickly) then repeat the process to get to the Startup tab and then check one application box and reboot, and continue adding back the applications one line at a time until it hangs again, which then identifies the program/application that's hanging your system.

Windows General

Slow boot up - icons take forever to appear!

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