Re: XP Suddenly Slow to Boot [Long/Detailed]

From: Pop (nobody_at_spamcop.net)
Date: 11/21/04 

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:49:23 -0500

Hmm, good descrips & a logical approach; you did things right.
Other than systweak or whatever it was called though, I didn't
notice my in the way of Registry repair.

Whle your machine is working semi-acceptably, manually create a
Restore point so you can get back there if things go too far out
on you. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System
Restore.

1. You said the systweak fixed a "bunch of things" but no joy.
Did you run it more than once? If the Registry is messed up, it
might take running it twice, even three or more times before it
gets everything straightened out. Sometimes "fixing" one thing
in the registry can break another thing but the sys won't know
that until you reboot again. So, run it a few times until it
finds no more errors.

I have absolutely no idea what kind of things systweak does or
how good a program is is or isn't, and I think you mentioned it's
the free version, so it could be missing a lot of things even if
it's a good app.

There is a program called Fix-It I had for awhile that did a
decent job or working with the Registry. I only stopped using it
because I went to Norton SystemWorks from Symantec. See
http://www.v-com.com/product/Fix-It_Utilities_Home.html
for Fix-It and www.symantec.com for SystemWorks, but it's a lot
more expensive app. Worth it though.
Fix-It is $50 but I got it at Sygate.com for, I think, $29.
   Norton SystemWorks is a lot more but worth every penny, in my
opinion, for computer health/security.

2. I know from experience the network functions can sometimes
cause post-desktop delays as you describe. I started there when
I had my 5+ Minute boot problem. Turn it completely off, so that
your machine is ont serving the LAN in any way. Go right to
Network Settings and disable the LAN; a lot of time can be spent
by it trying to and not finding the LAN components and
connections, IP mixups, etc.. See if that helps anything.

3. You didn't mention what AV program you're using. Any chance
it's doing a complete disk scan when it powers up? Check around
the settings for it if you haven'\t already, and anything else
that might be starting.

4. Every time you do a boot or reboot, immediately start Task
Manager and look at the Processor usage and the Processes
running. There might be something in there to tip off where the
problem is.

In my case, which was a strange one, I went all the way to
uninstalling the larger applications, one at a time, and clocking
the boot time each time. If it didn't change by more than a
second or so, I reinstalled but if it did change, especially by
ten or more seconds, I left it uninstalled. Long story short,
and I didn't keep records because I was getting pretty
frustrated, but eventually I jumped right down to a 35S bootup!
   I started reinstalling things, one at a time and
rebooting/checking boot times each time, and it all went back in
and the problem was gone! I think my boot time was something
like a minute 15 seconds at that point.
   From there I just started going thru the startup programs and
killing things that didn't have to be installed at boot time, but
you may not want to go that far.

Last time I grabbed my stopwatch, I was at 47 seconds to Restart,
not too shabby considering the amount of software I have
installed, including some heavy duty video software and codecs.

XP somehow is sometimes self-healing, too, I've noticed, and
others have commented on it, too. Sometimes multiple shut down
power off restarts will make a difference. Something gets
straightened out somehow. Didn't help any with that 5+ minute
boot thing though and it still drives me nuts not knowing what
did it.

Dunno if any of that's any help or not, but that's my two cents,
accounting for inflation.

OH! Kill your passwords while you troubleshoot or you'll go
absolutely nuts rebooting and having to enter a password every
time. And, of course, use an Admin account, turn off AV,
firewalls, anything you don't need to run, and stay off the net
til you put that all back, of course! Keep coffee handy, and a
doodle pad!

G'luck!

Pop

"Bill" <Bill@no.invalid> wrote in message
news:TtGdnSTFC5D76gLcRVn-pw@comcast.com...
| Specs:
|
| PC - Dell XPS
| OS - Windows XP (SP2) Fully updated.
| CPU - P4 (3.0GHz)
| HDD - 120GB (80% free)
| RAM - 1GB
| Internet Connection - Cable
| Network - Problem machine plays "host" to one other machine.
| Router - Linksys
| XP Firewall - On
|
| Problem:
|
| This machine used to take less than 30 seconds from Power-Up,
to ready to
| use. It now takes over three minutes. This occurs from either
a cold boot,
| or a restart. No new programs have been recently installed,
and SP2 has
| been running flawlessly for a couple months.
|
| Sequence:
|
| Dell splash comes up as usual. Goes right into loading
Windows, and the
| (default) opening music plays as the welcome screen appears.
Also as usual.
|
| Now it get's strange.
|
| The welcome screen hangs for 30-35 seconds, then drops out of
sight
| revealing my desktop with no task bar, no icons, and no start
button. About
| 2 and a half minutes later, everything comes up and the machine
functions
| normally. (Or at least I haven't noticed anything unusual
about it's
| performance.)
|
| What Happened RIGHT BEFORE the problem Occured:
|
| Only programs open were OE and AIM. I was IMing with a friend,
when
| suddenly I heard a 'pop' from my spekaers, and my sound cut
out. So I
| finished my converstion in "silence", sent and received a few
more emails,
| and decided to just reboot and see if the sound situation would
return to
| normal. The machine was working perfectly other than the
sound, so I
| figured it was just "one of those things", and a simple reboot
would solve
| the problem. Which it did, sorta. The sound came back, but
that's when the
| boot problem first appeared, and it's been this way ever since.
A couple
| other things of note;
|
| - After that first reboot? The system32 folder would appear on
my desktop
| informing me that "These Files Are Hidden". A problem I
resolved by
| searching the web, and disabling /L:ENG (whatever that is) in
Start-Up, via
| msconfig. That had never happened before.
|
| - One of the first things I tried to do in attempt to resolve
this issue was
| to do a System Restore. Imagine my surprise when I got there
to find that
| all of my previous restore points were gone?! (The machine
usually lets me
| go back at least a week, and nobody had messed with the
settings.) I'm the
| only one who uses this machine, and for the past four days,
it's been once
| again setting restore points automatically. So that's odd too.
|
| What I've Done To Try and Diagnose and Resolve the Issue:
|
| - Cracked the case and reseated the sound card (SB-Audigy 2)
|
| - Uninstalled and reinstalled the sound card drivers.
|
| - Ran chkdsk and sfc. (All Ok)
|
| - Ran fully updated versions of Spybot, Ad-Aware, HijackThis,
Stinger, and
| AVG. (All OK)
|
| - Ran "Housecall" by Trend-Micro. (All OK)
|
| - Ran the Disk Cleanup utility and defragged. The defragmenter
took forever
| to open and close. It seemed to run OK though. By "open and
close" I mean
| it took a while from the time I clicked on it, to the time it
finally
| appeared on my desktop. Probably 20 seconds or so. Then it
ran normally,
| but when it was done, it took another 20 seconds from the time
I clicked the
| 'x' to close it, to the time it actually went away. Don't know
if that's
| helpful or not, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
|
| - Went to the Black Viper site and looked for any services that
shouldn't be
| running. (OK)
|
| - Used msconfig to check for anything unusual in the start-up
list. (OK)
|
| - Unplugged my cable modem and rebooted. (No Joy)
|
| - Shut down the 'client' machine and rebooted. (No Joy)
|
| So now, as I've already informed Doug Knox, (who suggested I
post here) I'm
| really at my wits end with this. I've been Googling around for
days trying
| to resolve this issue. And though I've seen a lot of folks
reporting the
| same problem as me? I've yet to come across a "solution" that
doesn't
| require a format and reinstall. The bottom line is, I can live
with the
| slow boot. Unlike a lot of other folks who have this same
issue, the
| performance of my machine isn't suffering. I'd just love to
know what
| happened, and if anyone has a 'fix' other than a format. I'll
be happy to
| try any suggestions you may have and post back with my results.
|
| IF somebody hear can sort it out? I'm sure it would make a lot
of people
| very happy.
|
| Thanks for your consideration,
| Bill
|
|