Very slow boot

foreright

foreright

foreright

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Joined
19 Jan 2005
Posts
459
Location
Romford, Essex
This morning I found that my PC takes an eternity to boot up. After 15 minutes or so the PC is ready to use but executing any function similarly takes forever.
Any ideas please as the PC is unusable but I hope is is something simple - no chance.
 
What are the specs of the system and operating system being used.

Have you scanned for any spyware ect.
 
AMD 7750 dual core and 4 Gb Ram running XP SP3. I have had this a couple of years and it has been OK. I am attempting CC cleaner and hope to run Spybot after but they will take some time.
When I first turned it on this morning it was OK but then went really slow. On reboot the initial boot takes some time before you even get to windows. If the MB battery is low can that cause this problem?
 
is the hdd the first device in the boot priority? if not, it might be waiting for a disc or something and when that times-out, it will boot windows
 
I cannot check that right now as I'm scanning. Surely if that was the case that would only affect the boot up and not the slow execution of the programe when windows is up an running (albeit after 15 minutes)
 
foreright said:
I cannot check that right now as I'm scanning. Surely if that was the case that would only affect the boot up and not the slow execution of the programe when windows is up an running (albeit after 15 minutes)
Click to expand...

Correct. Even if your CD drive was the first boot priority, it would realise in seconds no disc was there and proceed to boot to HDD.

Anyway. If it's taking an entirety to load... even before the desktop appears, this would indicate a hardware problem, most probably the HDD.

If the slow downs don't start until you're in Windows, then it may well be a virus of some sort. I've seen viruses in the past designed to max out cpu and ram to 100% and cause a complete shutdown of other operations.

Have you tried booting into safe mode to see if the slow downs still occur. This should eliminate a few possibilities?
 
Scan for malware, look what registry entries are being used on startup. I saved a stupidly slow computer just by doing that. It booted for about 10 minutes and took a year to do anything and it was much faster when removed.
 
Have you checked how many processes are running? msconfig? maybe the event logs? If there is a hard drive fault it will show up in there or check the health of the drive using a disk checker of some kind. Maybe run a checkdisk from windows or a defrag :P

If all else fails or a fault does not present itself then a format may be in order :)
 
Other options:
1) Check the SMART status on the HDD to see if its physically failing
2) Assuming the HDD is ok then a fresh install of XP would run faster (last resort I know)
 
Cr416 said:
If all else fails or a fault does not present itself then a format may be in order :)
Click to expand...

this is one of the first things i do whenever computer start to slow, the amount of unessessary garbage that builds up is attrotious - i try to format my machine every 6-9 months to keep it running good :)
 
Check cpu usage via taskmanager and see if anything is eating up the cpu.

Also check the hard drive speed using hd tune. If it is very low or erratic then could be the hard drive on its way out.

If not then prob time for a clean install as stated.
 
foreright said:
This morning I found that my PC takes an eternity to boot up. After 15 minutes or so the PC is ready to use but executing any function similarly takes forever.
Any ideas please as the PC is unusable but I hope it is something simple - no chance.
Click to expand...

Well, strangely enough i had a problem just like this, but with no virus and my hard drive running perfectly it made me wonder, in the end i just cleared the cmos and it worked fine again, it was very strange though.
Not sure this has ever happened to anyone else
 
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