PC hangs for minutes right after start-up

hi there,

i hope i am not wasting anybod's time, but my problem is that my Windows XP Home (SP2) has for some time been quite slow at start-up, despite the fact that i upgraded its RAM some little time ago.
i was "sent" here by the guys at tomcoyote forums: my PC is not infected, either by viruses or spyware/malware etc.
still, the issue remains, and i have tried disabling as many start-up entries as i could via mlin's start-up utility.

here is what happens:
at start-up, once i get to the desktop visualization, the avast! icon will go into "non accessible" mode, and return "0 provider(s) total, 0 running" when i hover over the tray icon with my mouse; also, comodo firewall pro will return a "firewall is being initialized" message.
this goes on for about one minute, then avast! comes to life and so does comodo.
during this time the internet is unaccessible, and so is everything else. i can open files and folders (but VERY slowly) but cannot start programs.
i have checked task manager, which registers variable highs for explorer.exe, but nothing else except usage for those programs being initialised, like spywareguard or logitech's setpoint.exe.

is this behaviour normal, in your opinion? maybe some relatively recent XP add-ons or updates that have this effect on PCs?

i'm at a loss and would value your help very highly.

 

I would suggest not trying to connect to the net until afer you see that your a/v and firewall are enabled and running.

Are you using Windows Defender/One Care?

 

hi sultan_emerr, thanks for answering so quickly.

and sorry for not answering before, but i live in germany, so i suppose we are in fornt of our PC in quite different hours...

no, i do not connect to the net during that time, and having a DSL my PC is not connected as soon as the boot starts, i have to connect "manually "; and avast! does not allow me to do that, which i am quite happy with.
actually, whichever program i try to run while the PC is booting up (desktop visible and ready to operate, if i make myself clear: it's just the AV and FW that seem to hang it), it will take ages before i can use it; that is, i give the program the order to work, and it will work only after AV and FW are completely functioning.

i do have windows defender installed, but not one care (never quite understood what that is). do you think that is the "problem "? i'll tell you, there are times when the PC boots fast, and at the beginning i thought it was when nothing had been changed in the registry (no installs, no uninstalls...), but now i believe that is not the case.

 

thanks PeteC, will do right away and post here what i find out.

as a perfect fool i never thought of doing THAT!!!

 

PeteC


tried disabling everything, still can't disable avast!
i used miln's startup control panel and disabled all i possibly could; PC still hangs, and after some 90 secs. taskmanager shows that avast! is initializing.

shall i unistall it to see how it goes without it?

 

ok, uninstalled avast!, nothing has changed.
uninstalled comodo firewall too, nothing changed.
all the time i was keeping windows defender shut down.

the PC starts fine, then freezes for some 90 secs. (stays idle), then reports a loy of activity in taskmanager and then works fine.

any idea if it would be possible to actually monitor what goes on in those two minutes? like an app. to log the activity of task manager?
dunno, just a thought...

 

ok PeteC, it's running now, and it looks quite complivated to use/understand.

i will report back tomorrow.

in the meantime, thanks for your efforts

 

Try disabling your NIC if you have such and don't use it.

Sometimes a nic can stall the boot process while it tries to resolve a connection that doesn't exist. If you don't use networking on your computer, disable it.

 

surferdude2,

i did as you told me and if i disconnect form my NIC i lose the connection to the web.
since i have come to germany (i'm italian, and i believe in italy surfing via a DSL line is easier) i have had A LOT of problems with the internet connection, basically because i'm no expert of this sort of thing and because telecom germany knows even less! DOH!

anyway, at the moment - and the conncetion works a charm - i hcan see three connections, all working. they are:

- t-online, which is connected and is a Miniport WAN (PPPOE)
if i disconnet/disable this i can't surf the web, of course;

- Connection 1394, which is 1394 Adapter, and which is usually connected but i have now disabled, and disabling it has not affected my being able to surf;

- LAN Connection, which is a NIC Fast Ethernet PCI Realtek RTL 8139 Family, and if i disable i lose my connection, to the point that if i try to enable it without prior booting i just won't work, says it is looking for an address but nothing happens.

hope this makes sense? i ask because it doesn't make any sense to me!



PeteC, i have run the program during the boot and it has returned two log files, which are in PML format, and i don't know how to post them here...

 

actually, it's two files, one with 233MB worth of data, the other with 155MB of data...
no way i can copy that anywhere...

 

yep.

i just have no idea at the moment.
maybe i'll format my hard drive and start with a clean installation of my XP, then update the OS and see what happens.

if it's not some windows update, i'll proceed with SW and see what actually causes that.

it's a drastic solution but now i'm really determined to get to the bottom of this

 

try this

in windows services find DNS Client

if running stop it, then set to disabled

reboot if it fixes boot problem try internet

if internet works you don't need dns client

if internet not work set back to start automatically and reboot

bob

 

bob, i disabled the DNS client and the internet works, yet nothing has changed in my PC's behaviour at boot.

thanks for the suggetion, though.

now, should i keep DNS service disabled or re-enable it?

 

thanks for the info PeteC,

i was wondering, is there a reliable source on the net that explains which "services" are needed and which sould be disabled/set to manual?
i'm sure this has nothing to do with my little problem, but i would like to know if there is anything i can do to improve or give more stability/security to my system.


... hold on, i think i found something on that very site you linked...