Very Slow Boot up/windows xp

[jellb]

Hi Every One A Happy and Healthy New Year

 

Boot up has been slowing down over the last couple of months.

its a E-machine with service pkt 3, Intel Pentium 320 ghz, 1.00 Gb ram, disc space 27.9 Gb

E-machine screen comes on, then windows xp screen, 2 mins after welcome screen, desktop come on but no icons untill at least 1 min, then all is normal.

There are about six things on the task bar that I dont want. I delete them but they come back at next boot up.

Is it things loading up in the backround, that I can do without, and how do I or can they be removed them. ?

Hope someone can help.

jellb

[RandyL]

The three most probable causes of a slow booting computer are a failing hard drive, a malware infection or too many startup items.

 

Since you say it's betting getting slower over the course of three months I suspect the drive is failing. Regardless if it is that or not you should play it safe and immediately backup all your data, bookmarks, adress book, etc.

 

There is a possibility that it's malware or startup items but backup that data first.

 

What antivirus and antispyware programs do you have.

 

What are the items that are loading in the taskbar that you keep deleting? When you say taskbar I assume you mean the notification area or system tray at the right of the taskbar.

[jellb]

Hi RL

Thanks for your post to my problem.

Yes I do mean the notification area or system tray at the right of the taskbar. I have (Avast On-Access Scanner: 7 provided total 6 running.) (HP Digital Imaging Monitor.) (Safely Remove Hardware, (which I cant remove)). Volume, (which I cant remove)). and SuperAntispyware 4.24. I will back up what you surgested. Should I use Windows backup or is there a better program?.

Thanks jellb

[BeeCeeBee]

Regardless if it is that or not you should play it safe and immediately backup all your data, bookmarks, adress book, etc. - RandyL

It is important that you backup all the data etc. on an exterenal hard drive or media (DVD-CD) if your hard drive is failing or needs to be formatted you may lose it all if you do not do so.

[jellb]

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[Guest Wolfeymole]

What? :confused:

[jellb]

Bootup

 

Hi RL

I have backed up all my data and files that I can not afford to lose, as you suggested.

Is there anything that can be done to speed up boot time?

Thanks

jellb

[Jack Hackett]

Install WinPatrol, one of it's many features is the ability to manage Startup applications

Disable all but the very necessary applications,

 

necessary applications = AntiVirus, Firewall, Realtime AntiSpyware etc

 

I highly recommend WinPatrol

 

===

 

I would be interested to know how many processes you have running - Open Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and look bottom left corner and tell us what the number is next to where it says Processes.

35 or less is good, anything more than that then you have too many unnecessary background processes running and you should trim them down.

Edited January 13, 2009 by Jack Hackett

[DirtyPolo]

Also, quick question, what do you mean by this?

 

(Safely Remove Hardware, (which I cant remove))

 

:confused:

 

will it not let you remove it? or can you personally not remove it for some reason?

[RandyL]

I would run chkdsk at this point now that your data is backed up. If it finds errors on your hard drive then it could mean your drive is failing and that's why your boot time is slowing down.

 

How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP.

 

After that I would follow Jack Hacketts advice as it could be too many startup items.

[jellb]

Slow bootup

 

:confused: Hi Jack,

I opened task manager like you said and there are 50 processes running. I will downlaod WinPatrol and trim them down, and go from there.

Thanks

jellb

[jellb]

Slow bootup

 

DirtyPolo,

 

"Safely Remove Hardware" its on the task bar at the bottom of screen and I just cant remove it, and I dont want it.

Olso "Volume control" is the same. I am following Jack Hackett advice and downloading WinPatrol and hope that solves some of my problems.

Thanks

jellb

[jellb]

Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply.

[jellb]

Slow bootup

 

Hi Jack,

Sorry I have not back sooner but have had a very bad case of man flu.

Any way I have installed WinPatrol and got my processes down to 35. But it still takes up to 1 min before my icons appear on the desktop. There are a lot of Activex files, IE Helper files and Hidden files. Are there any that can be deleted or disabled that might help the start up?. There are so many differant types that I am affraid to muck about with them.

Hope you can help.

Thanks.

jellb:(

[RandyL]

jell as I said before the three most probable causes of a slow booting computer are a failing hard drive, a malware infection or too many startup items.

 

35 processes is an extremely low amount. A 1 minute boot time is not abnormal even for your system specs depending what is loading at startup.

 

You should still do as I suggested in post #10 to help rule out a failing hard drive since you said this started happening over the course of a few months.

 

Under no circumstance should you go about manually deleting files and folders unless you are absolutely certain you know what you are doing. This could cause programs not to work or even cause you not to be able to uninstall programs properly.

 

Besides there would be no benefit and deleteing hidden files can completely render your computer useless. Microsoft hides many of their files for just that reason.

 

If your computer boots in 1 minute and it isn't slow doing anything else run the chkdsk. If it passes then you're probably ok.

[BeeCeeBee]

1. A boot time of one minute from power up is not excessive by any means with XP. Is that what you mean?

 

2. RandyL has twice suggested that you perform a chkdisk and you have not so much as acknowledged the suggestion.

 

It appears that you are looking for a quick fix to what is possibly not even a problem.

[jellb]

Hi RandyL

Sorry I did not acknowledge your post at No10, but as you suggested I followed Jack Hacketts advice and down loaded WinPatrol, because I had 52 processers running, and I managed to get them down to 35 also had too many startup items. I then ran chkdisk and it came up with no errors.

So I will take your advice and let well alone, and as beeceebee said "perhaps there is no problem".

So thanks to every who has helped me.

jellb