slow computer startup

How long should it generally take for your computer to startup and start browsing, etc. Mine takes 5 -10 minutes. What are things I can do to have it startup faster. It seems the last couple of things it waits for is the zone alarm and AVG anti virus to load.

 

That seems an excessive amount of time, are you infected with something nasty?

Here are a few things to look into:
Go through this list http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

Try Microsoft’s new version of Process Explorer. There is an explanation and a link to Microsoft’s site here http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2092881,00.asp

Also, you’ll get a slightly faster start up if you optimise the boot files and applications by running a defragmentation, i.e. click Start > Run, type cmd and press Enter to open a command prompt then type defrag C:\ -b (note the two spaces) and press Enter.

The icons in the system tray are only the 'user interface' part of programs like AVG, which is/are loaded much earlier.

 

I that defrag different than running disc defragmenter from system tools?

 

I went and disabled most of the programs listed on startup (msconfig). I didn't recognize most of them. It seems to have made a difference in startup time. The only ones I left checked were AVG tray, and ZL something or other. Do I need to keep these checked? Or are they just icons for the startup tray?

 

boot up times

Boot-up time would depend on the speed of the drives, the CPU, programs loading up during boot-up etc. Not a hard and fast rule, but generally a minute or thereabouts ought to be okay.

My E6550 XP Pro/Sp3 desktop boots up from a cold start to full usability in about 40 secs. Much of the delay is due to the slow BIOS. I have the following programs loading into the system tray at boot-up: AVG 8 Free, Rivatuner, the NV control panel, Deathadder drivers, monitor calibration software and Nokia PC suite. The drive is a 640 GB Western Digital SATA-II.

My T5450 Vista HP laptop boots up in about just about a minute. It's on a 160GB seagate hybrid drive, and loads way more programs than the XP desktop.

I use Diskeeper 2008 for the drives on both. As for defragmenting boot files, I don't recall when was the last time I ran a boot-time defrag; my page file is static, and Diskeeper automatically defrags the MFT as well as other files online itself, quietly in the background. It's awesome.

Also, if your HDD is excessively slow, you might want to check whether it has been running in PIO mode instead of DMA. Change it back to DMA for better performance. If a HDD is on the verge of failure (CRC errors) it might revert to PIO mode which is dead slow (~1.5 MB/sec transfer speeds instead of 30-40 MB/sec)

 

Also, if your HDD is excessively slow, you might want to check whether it has been running in PIO mode instead of DMA. Change it back to DMA for better performance. If a HDD is on the verge of failure (CRC errors) it might revert to PIO mode which is dead slow (~1.5 MB/sec transfer speeds instead of 30-40 MB/sec)[/QUOTE]

How do you do this?

 

First of all, What are you systems Specks Please ? Processor speed ? How much Ram ?
and hard drive size ?

 

It's a pentium 4, 160g hard drive, 512k Ram. Not sure of the processor speed.

 

Ok, You have enough ram for Xp,but not Vista... It sounds like you need a good cleaning.
Install Ccleaner, and a good regcleaner..I use Abexo regcleaner,But there are some free one's as well..How many items are running in your Taskbar tray next to the clock ?

 

Thanks I'll do those things. I already have ATF.

 

Most of those items were already disabled. Why would I want to disable windows messenger if I use it? Also after I used the defrag tool, now I have a red vibrating line on the borders of some browser windows.

 

have you scanned for Virus ? Is the line there all of the time ? you might have either a video card going bad or your monitor...

 

I'll do a scan first

 

Thanks, I left for work, in the mean time I'm running a full scan with ad-aware

 

How do you do this?[/QUOTE]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472
http://winhlp.com/node/10
a bit long, but useful if that is the problem you are experiencing. You can check if the drive is in PIO mode by examining the 'IDE Controllers' settings in Device Manager. Also, don't edit the registry as suggested in the second link unless you know what you are doing. Backup your registry before attempting any changes.

 

since I disabled alot of the startup items, it's definetly improved, I didn't time it but I'd say it's under 5 minutes now.

 

How can I tell if the video card is going bad

 

how do I remove this auslogics toolbar that was installed when I installed the defrag?