Resolved Very slow boot-up - XP-SP3

I've read through the multitude of posts on the subject but don't find anything I can use.

I have two machines in a LAN, both with the same configuration. My desktop is an e-machines T3256 with an Athlon 3200 processor, a 160GB hard driveand 512MB SDRAM. It is ethernet connected to the LAN. The other machine is an ASUS netbook with an Atom processor, connected by wi-fi.

The desk-top box is taking 24 minutes for a cold start and about 20 minutes for a re-boot. The netbook is up and running in about 4 mnutes.

I have run Window Cleaner and Registry Mechanic, and have done scans with McAfee and SpySweeper. The only programs in the start menu are McAfee, Spy Sweeper, my Lexmark printer and a couple of dormant HP routines for my photo printer, not connected.

Any ideas?

 

Do a backup of anything doccuments etc. you have and if you then can wipe off and do a clean start, sometimes you have that facility in the computer , a partition for recovery by pressinf F11 or simmilar you are warned everything will be wiped... otherwise you should have original XP disk, and other software on it, B4 you embark on this... try to save drivers if you have a folder called that way, if no recovery available, othewise you will have to get them some how, or leave it t o a computer know-how!

 

Type "msconfig" in your run box and hit enter. Then you will get one window. And select "Start up" tab from the window. There you can see some start up application list. remove unwanted from the list. And restart you computer. that's all...

 

You could maybe increase your RAM? 512 MB is rather minimal.

 

Disconnect all peripherals and pull the NIC card if such exists, otherwise disable it. If no joy, unplug the CD/DVD drive/drives and try again.

Check the Event Viewer for any errors or clues.

Does that also occur in Safe Mode?

Also please See this

 

Good idea! When my very first computer started forgetting what time it was, after 2 weeks!, I took it back to the shop. The man had nothing special to do, so he opened the case ..... and I watched in amazement as he dropped his screwdriver in, several times, pulled here, pushed there and finally decided it had to be the battery. He put in a new one, closed the case and tried to boot my machine. It took forever! He then accused me of having too many programs, which was rubbish, I was totally computer illiterate and still trying to get to grips with what I already had! When I got my computer home it took even longer to boot up. I opened the case, looked around, not really knowing where to look or what to look for, and saw that one of those funny flat things (the floppy disk drive cable as I found out later) was more out than in. I gingerly pushed it into place, pressed the start button and the computer booted up in what seemed like an instant. This is how I came to lose my awe of computers, not half as mysterious as I'd thought!
The same sort of thing happened some time later when I had a new motherboard put in. When I got home my computer wouldn't boot at all. Open up the case, floppy drive cable alright, CD drive that time, unplugged totally. Haven't been back to the shop except to buy spare parts. Have done all my own upgrading, replacing and setting up of new machines.

Lesson learnt: Any loose connection anywhere, and machines won't work properly, if at all.

 

Always check for the simplest thing first. Learned that one the hard way.

 

Thanks for the replies, folks. I've been sidelined a couple of days (switch-over from MSN to Comcast on Tuesday and a colonoscopy today).

I'm leaning towards problems with hardware (specifically the Lexmark printer I have). I always get a "Printer Transfer monitor Card" error at start-up, so I'll try yet another uninstall/reinstall.

The other possibility is a very slow McAfee security start and similarly with SpySweeper. They're part of "Verizon with MSN Premium" which goes away next week.

I'll mess around a couple more days and report back.

 

We had a similar thing happen to us and it was because one of our drivers wasn't updated, after we updated it the boot up was back to normal. Good luck!

 

Son-in-law's magic wand did the trick!

 

To be absolutely honest, I'm not sure what all the things were that he did. It seemed mainly to be deleteing programs I don't use, cleaning out the start menu and sorting out a few programs that were trying unsuccessfully to communicate with each other and waited about 15 minutes before they gave up trying.

There are now only four icons in the bottom RH corner instead of about 9. We left too much out of the Office 2003 reload and some things didn't work, but overall, both my AIO Lexmark machine problems (Printer Card Monitor fault) and the very slow boot are fixed.

 

A quick follow-up. Based on Roncesvalles comment, I plan to put in more RAM. SIW said I had 512 MB in one of the two DIMM slots and could go to a maximum of 1GB.

I got switched to a Crucial website, entered my machine's make and model and they say I can go to 2GB, so that's the plan.