Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
23639
March 6th, 2008 18:00
Startup time and power icon issues
Inspiron 9300
Windows XP sp2, Home Edition (all Windows Updates installed)
For about a month now the startup time has changed. It loads normally until I get to the "Windows is starting up" - "Welcome" screen. From the welcome screen it takes about 5 minutes until all activity stops and the computer can be used. Once the wallpaper loads it takes about 15-30 seconds for the taskbar to appear (no icons in system tray/notification area), then desktop icons (all look like generic icons, then slowly by twos and threes they change to their proper program icons), and finally the system tray icons appear next to the clock.
At the same time that startup times have changed I noticed that the power icon is sometimes missing from the system tray. For a few days it would appear or be absent at random, but after about a week it took on this pattern: it's missing from the system tray every other time after shutting down/powering up. Restarting sometimes brings it back; logging off then on always brings it back for that session, as does going into power options and unchecking the "always show icon..." box, hitting apply then rechecking the box.
In the three years that I have had this computer the power icon only ever went missing about 2 or 3 times, and now it is missing on a regular basis for the past month.
Here are steps I took to try to resolve the issue: ran disk cleanup, defragmented, checked my startup and services lists (everything that is there used to be there before, when startup times were normal), ran CCleaner (registry cleaner), ran antivirus and anti-malware scans on the machine and online (nothing found), and ran dell extended diagnostics (all tests passed) - none of them helped.
I noticed that a number of users had similar issues but did not find any instances were the power icon and startup times issues coincided; also, none of the fixes mentioned in other threads worked for me.
Thanks for reading my long post, any thoughts on this are appreciated!
Windows XP sp2, Home Edition (all Windows Updates installed)
For about a month now the startup time has changed. It loads normally until I get to the "Windows is starting up" - "Welcome" screen. From the welcome screen it takes about 5 minutes until all activity stops and the computer can be used. Once the wallpaper loads it takes about 15-30 seconds for the taskbar to appear (no icons in system tray/notification area), then desktop icons (all look like generic icons, then slowly by twos and threes they change to their proper program icons), and finally the system tray icons appear next to the clock.
At the same time that startup times have changed I noticed that the power icon is sometimes missing from the system tray. For a few days it would appear or be absent at random, but after about a week it took on this pattern: it's missing from the system tray every other time after shutting down/powering up. Restarting sometimes brings it back; logging off then on always brings it back for that session, as does going into power options and unchecking the "always show icon..." box, hitting apply then rechecking the box.
In the three years that I have had this computer the power icon only ever went missing about 2 or 3 times, and now it is missing on a regular basis for the past month.
Here are steps I took to try to resolve the issue: ran disk cleanup, defragmented, checked my startup and services lists (everything that is there used to be there before, when startup times were normal), ran CCleaner (registry cleaner), ran antivirus and anti-malware scans on the machine and online (nothing found), and ran dell extended diagnostics (all tests passed) - none of them helped.
I noticed that a number of users had similar issues but did not find any instances were the power icon and startup times issues coincided; also, none of the fixes mentioned in other threads worked for me.
Thanks for reading my long post, any thoughts on this are appreciated!
No Events found!
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
March 6th, 2008 19:00
You could try running a windows system file check (sfc).
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 6th, 2008 21:00
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 7th, 2008 19:00
This is quite a mystery... :smileyindifferent:
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
March 7th, 2008 22:00
You might consider going to the HijackThis forum and follwing the red link at the top to read all the FAQs. Then grab a free copy of HijackThis and post the entire log on that forum for experts like bugbatter and bamajim to review in case you've got some malware lurking under the hood.
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 11th, 2008 02:00
I updated my HJT and did a scan. I compared the log to the last one (which was declared clean on GeeksToGo) and things look the same. Hopefully there isn't some sinister thing lurking beyond the reach of all the scanners I tried so far.
Thanks for your help!
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
March 11th, 2008 03:00
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 30th, 2008 14:00
It's been a long time since I responded (apologies!) because I was trying to figure out how this issue started for me. I think I have narrowed it down to Dell QuickSet. I used it a few days before the windows power meter/icon started disappearing (but have never used it before that, it just sat there in my system tray but I didn't run it). I haven't tried uninstalling quickset because I'm not sure how I could get it back. The windows power meter is still missing 5 times out of 10.
I noticed that QuickSet also affected the "hide inactive icons" feature. When I clicked on its icon, the chevron/arrow that indicated hidden icons disappeared and all the icons were visible (despite all of them being set to "hide when inactive" ).
Hopefully this might be helpful to someone in figuring out where the glitch started.
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
March 31st, 2008 00:00
Run msconfig and go to Startup tab. Uncheck all boxes related to QuickSet. Exit and reboot. Put check in 'Don't show this again" box that appears on rebooting.
Does that solve it?
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 31st, 2008 01:00
Hahaha, of course they always work! :smileywink:
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
March 31st, 2008 01:00
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
March 31st, 2008 01:00
I only give you fixes that work!
And if you believe that... :D
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
April 6th, 2008 19:00
RoHe
12 Elder
•
45.2K Posts
•
172.6K Points
0
April 6th, 2008 20:00
The next time all the icons appear the way you want, go to this site and copy/paste the entire, exact text including blank lines into a new Notepad doc. Save the files as "save.reg" (without the quotes).
Close all open apps and log off the net. Double-click on the file you saved and accept the offer to modifiy the registry. Reboot afterwards.
This should force XP to save the settings when you log off/shut down, so hopefully things will be correct on next boot.
Ron
AnotherUser249
1 Rookie
•
68 Posts
0
May 1st, 2008 17:00
Ron,
Thanks for the tip. I'm a bit hesitant to try it right away simply because I did not actually do anything consciously (installing, uninstalling, changing system settings or something like that) before the problem started appearing. It's not that much of a bother, I'm just very curious as to how/why it started. So I don't want to fix it by editing the registry until I figure out the cause. :smileyhappy:
As update on the situation: For about five days in a row (about a week or so ago), the icon was loading at startup every time. Still haven't figured out if it was something I did or if it's just glitching in a different way.
I have bookmarked the link you sent me and will definitely try the fix at some point.
Thanks for your help and suggestions!