PC Running Slow on Start up

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Feldman
  • Start date Start date
M

Michael Feldman

Can I have some advice in getting my PC to start up more quickly? Also,
possible causes too would be useful too.
For example and despite much memory installed, whether the abundant quantity
of programs installed might be one cause.


Thanks


Michael
 
You have not provided any details that might explain why your startup is
slow. Without any help from you, we're just taking guesses, so here's
mine: Malware infection can cause a computer to start slowly.
 
Michael said:
Can I have some advice in getting my PC to start up more quickly?
Also, possible causes too would be useful too.
For example and despite much memory installed, whether the abundant
quantity of programs installed might be one cause.
Click to expand...

Make and model of PC? Size of hard drive? Amount of free space on hard
drive? Amount of RAM installed? Flavor of XP? Service Pack level?
Malware status? What antimalware programs do you run and are they up to
date?

Here are the typical causes of sluggishness:

1. Malicious software (malware). You need to rule this out first! This
page has excellent information:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware

2. Certain programs that are designed to combat malware (e.g., Norton
and McAfee). Ironically, they can slow things down because they simply
use way too many resources. Sometime they cause conflicts with other
programs. And their default mode is to scan your entire hard drive each
time you boot up. Fortunately, there are other antimalware programs
available that use far fewer resources (e.g., NOD32, Avast, and Avira).

3. Too many of certain types of programs always running in the
background -- with or without your knowledge.

Use these sites to determine what these programs are and to learn how to
configure them not to always run at startup:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php#THE_PROGRAMS
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

Sometimes it is recommended to use msconfig to configure the programs to
not run at startup. A better, more thorough program is Autoruns:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

But before you do this, you should use the preference settings of the
program in question. Otherwise, for some programs, they will return to
the startup list anyway!

4. Not enough RAM, which causes the PC to overly rely on the pagefile. A
quick way to determine if this is happening is to open Task Manager
(Ctrl+Alt+Del) and click the Performance tab. Then note the three values
under Commit Charge (K): in the lower left-hand corner: Total, Limit,
and Peak.

The Total figure represents the amount of memory you are using at that
very moment. The Peak figure represents the highest amount of memory you
used since last bootup. If both these figures are below the value of
Physical Memory (K) Total, then you probably have plenty of RAM.
In case you want to explore this further, you may run Page File Monitor
for Windows XP:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

5. You might also want to check that your hard drive's access mode
didn't change from DMA to PIO:

http://www.technize.com/2007/08/02/is-your-hard-disk-cddvd-drives-too-slow-while-copying/

and

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
 
Can I have some advice in getting my PC to start up more quickly? Also,
possible causes too would be useful too.
For example and despite much memory installed,
Click to expand...


How much memory?

whether the abundant quantity
of programs installed might be one cause.
Click to expand...


No, never. What you have *running* is a factor; what you have
installed is not.

One possibility is that you are infected with malware. What anti-virus
and anti-spyware software do you run? Are they kept up-to-date?

Over and above that, here's my standard post on the subject:

My personal view is that the attention many people pay to how long it
takes to boot is unwarranted. Assuming that the computer's speed is
otherwise satisfactory, it may not be worth worrying about. Most
people start their computers once a day or even less frequently. In
the overall scheme of things, even a few minutes to start up isn't
very important. Personally I power on my computer when I get up in the
morning, then go get my coffee. When I come back, it's done booting. I
don't know how long it took to boot and I don't care.

However if you do want to address it, it may be because of what
programs start automatically, and you may want to stop some of them
from starting that way. On each program you don't want to start
automatically, check its Options to see if it has the choice not to
start (make sure you actually choose the option not to run it, not
just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily and best be stopped
that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run
line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to
start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of
running the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell
you, you should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs
you run, but *which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but
others have no effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do
is determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what
the cost in performance is of its running all the time. You can get
more information about these with google searches and asking about
specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.
 
it is unclear if you have been
keeping your disk and file
system tuned up.

but in any case you might try
booting into the safe modes
and see if startup performance
is better.

if so, then you can initiate
a clean boot from safe mode
by running msconfig

then disable all your startups
and disable all non microsoft
services.

you might want to jot down
which ones they were so
that later you can figure
out which, if any were
inhibiting performance.

also, you can delete
"all" the prefetch files
from the folder.




--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @hotmail.com
"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
db said:
it is unclear if you have been
keeping your disk and file
system tuned up.

but in any case you might try
booting into the safe modes
and see if startup performance
is better.

if so, then you can initiate
a clean boot from safe mode
by running msconfig

then disable all your startups
and disable all non microsoft
services.

you might want to jot down
which ones they were so
that later you can figure
out which, if any were
inhibiting performance.

also, you can delete
"all" the prefetch files
from the folder.
Click to expand...

But NOT the config file and NOT the prefetch folder!
Also, deleting the prefetch entries will actually slow the computer down
until it can rebuild the prefetch files list. When the list gets rebuilt
after a few days, then performance may return to pre-deletion times but
in general it accomplishes nothing.
If you feel you have to delete them, NEVER delete the layout.ini
file! If you do, your machine will be permanently slower!!

What you CAN do, and which is logical, is LOOK AT the entries in the
prefetch and delete the ones that are old and never run or no longer
exist on your system. That will avoid the necessity of rebuilding the
prefetch folder. And of course, leave that layout.ini alone!
It's unlikely to have many files you want to delete. Just for grins,
I took a look at mine just now; everything in it is current with the
exception of 4 files which I don't know what they are.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=331072
http://digg.com/software/Once_again_Do_not_delete_the_Prefetch_folder_on_Windows

HTH,

Twayne`
 
I agree, in part.

some people like
to pick and choose
which prefetch files
to delete.

but deleting them all is
safe, because as you
state windows will rebuild
them

"and" only rebuild those
for programs that the
user actually uses.

but the slowness you
mentioned is marginal
and temporary by
comparison to what
the posting suggests.

outdated prefetch files
which may number in
the dozens or hundreds
will consumer computer
resources.

so wiping the slate clean
with the exception of the
ini file you mentioned, is
best in my opinion.

but to each his/her own.
--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- Microsoft Partner
- @hotmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen
 
Thanks guys for the posts.

That MSConfigue appears my best starting point. Short of furnishing a print
screen version of the programs running under MSConfigue, I remain at loss
what programs I could deselect safely.

Is it possible to furnish me with some examples that I could deselect under
the 'Service tab' without slowing my PC further? .

Thanks



Michael
 
you are looking
at it from the inside
out instead of outside
in.

disable "all" of the
startups and "non"
microsoft services.

after you confirm the
system is running better.

then you will pick
which ones should
be re- enabled or
skipped,

which one(s) are
vital or not

which ones slow down
the system and which
do not.

we cannot choose for
you, sorry.

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- Microsoft Partner
- @hotmail.com
~~~~~~~~~~"share the nirvana" - dbZen
 
Michael


Is your system error free?

Have a look in the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for
Errors and Warnings and post copies here. Don't post any more than 48
hours ago.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

What are your anti-virus and anti-spyware arrangements?

Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete to select Task Manager and click the Performance
Tab. Under Commit Charge what is the Total, the Limit and the Peak?

You should be able to gather more information from Task Manager. With
the Processes tab open select View, Select, Columns and check the boxes
before Peak Memory Usage and Virtual Memory size. What are the figures
for the 6 processes using the largest amounts?

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Delete programs from the startup folder. Examples: Don't load Internet
Explorer or Outlook Express. (Click on them when you want them, from an Icon
on your desktop) What programs do you have in the startup folder?
 
I have Microsoft Current Version. This said, I guess that I have to go
ahead and disable to prevent any relevant files from starting up. In
particular if my PC gets any slower than it is now on Start up.


Michael
 
I cannot delete all of those in the start up menu. If I do, then I get a
message appearing. However, I have so far managed to disable the non
microsoft services. Following on, I continue to find that over 45 seconds
from the blue start up screen to 'Reloading your Personal Settings' is too
long. Also, by deleting the Non Microsoft features has made little or no
difference during the whole 'rebooting process.'

Unfortunately, the relevant settings in MSConfig and the Registry are 'Grey
areas' to me. I took the chance with MSConfig without causing any harm to
my PC.

With the remaining solutions, I guess that must troubleshooting these
further. After all, you guys are still a help and maybe my PC Vendor could
come up with the best alternative that I could try with the advice given so
far.
Meanwhile, I have AVG on my system to check for any virus's. Is this any
good for the Malaware Virus's? As mentioned in passing.

Michael
 
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