Slow Bootup is annoying

  • Thread starter Thread starter tjdarth
  • Start date Start date
T

tjdarth

For the past month almost, my system has been starting up at a real OLD
snails-pace. From the time that I login thpe overall process takes about 30
mins. Way too long for the type of software that I have in here.

1) Office 2007
2) VS 2005/2008
3) VS SQL 2005/2008
4) Norton 360
5) ZoneAlarm
6) SpyBot S&D 1.62; etc . . .

Is there some type of program that can log progra-name, starttime, etc that
can give a clue as to what is actually going on?
I realize this may be a tall order since my Win-XP SP3 environment is
staring from MS-DOS.

Thanks in advance if someone might know of a possible appl.

Tom J.
 
One big problem you have is that you are using multiple redundant
security programs (Norton 360, Zone Alarm, Spybot, "etc."). Not only
does this grab enormous amounts of system resources, it compromises your
security -- makes you less secure, not more.

You haven't told us anything about the age of your system.

If you want to find out what is using your system resources, open Task
Manager.

Malware will often slow a computer's performance.

BTW: Window XP does not start from DOS. Millenium Edition was the last
version of Windows that did.
 
Thanks Leonard for your quick response. I kind of suspected the security
programs and am in the process of determining which appl., is geiving me the
most bang for the buck. Strange, I have had no problem out of any of these
applications for the last 6 to 7 years, but realize someone wants to be
boss. As for my system I have an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.08Ghz w/1gb memory.

My next test is to remove each application one by one and see which one of
these culprits is actually causing me grief.
So if XP is not in 16-bit DOS mode when I choose my OS from the start menu,
then 32-bit has taken over at an earlier point in the startup process? This
is news to me.

Thanks again Leonard.
Tom J.
 
Tom

Norton 360!

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?


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Thanks Leonard for your quick response. I kind of suspected the security
programs and am in the process of determining which appl., is geiving me the
most bang for the buck. Strange, I have had no problem out of any of these
applications for the last 6 to 7 years, but realize someone wants to be
boss. As for my system I have an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.08Ghz w/1gb memory..

My next test is to remove each application one by one and see which one of
these culprits is actually causing me grief.
So if XP is not in 16-bit DOS mode when I choose my OS from the start menu,
then 32-bit has taken over at an earlier point in the startup process? This
is news to me.

Thanks again Leonard.
Tom J.
Click to expand...

Some time ago I came across this discussion regarding slow boot times
and the bootvis application from Microsoft:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...+windows+xp+startup&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=36&gl=us

I ran it once and it was interesting and can't say it helped me or not
- it was more of a curiosity thing.

Maybe somebody will say it doesn't help at all, or it is dangerous or
somewhat helpful... I will just call it interesting.

There are other good ideas above.
 
Glad to help.

No, it's not in DOS mode. White letters on a black background is
reminiscent of the way DOS looked...but it's not DOS.
 
tjdarth said:
For the past month almost, my system has been starting up at a real
OLD snails-pace. From the time that I login thpe overall process
takes about 30 mins. Way too long for the type of software that I
have in here.
1) Office 2007
2) VS 2005/2008
3) VS SQL 2005/2008
4) Norton 360
5) ZoneAlarm
6) SpyBot S&D 1.62; etc . . .

Is there some type of program that can log progra-name, starttime,
etc that can give a clue as to what is actually going on?
I realize this may be a tall order since my Win-XP SP3 environment is
staring from MS-DOS.

Thanks in advance if someone might know of a possible appl.
Click to expand...

Norton 360 has been known to cause the "snails-pace" behavior you are
describing. I would imagine it's scanning everything during those 30
minutes. And I'm sure it's hogging CPU cycles, too. (Perhaps a recent
update has mucked up things further.) If I were you, I would uninstall
it *and* use their Removal Tool:

http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

and use a superior antivirus product like Avast, Avira, or NOD32. Since
you already have a firewall and an anitspyware program, you don't need a
"suite" like Norton anyway. Actually, unless you want to monitor and
block outgoing traffic, you don't even need Zone Alarm beacuse Windows
Firewall is fine. I also understand that the Tea Timer function of
Spybot S&D is problematic for some, so you may need to disable that.
 
Norton 360 has a option to not load all programs immediately at boot. Try
blocking all but Norton and then add one at-a-time. About 3 years ago I
stopped ZoneAlarmPro Pro and Spybot and a number of other similar programs
are not set to load at boot. About once a month I run them for further
checking.

Frank
 
Thanks Gerry, my Task Manager Performance (Commit) is as follows as of
8:52pm. this evening
TOTAL: 1487048; LIMIT: 2521648; PEAK: 1523816;
Exactly what does this tell us?

Thanks again . . .
Tom J.
 
Thanks Jose,
I followed your link to the helpful Tweak Guide for XP. I'm going to walk
thru these items and see what effect I get from the results.

I will keep you guys posted.

Thanks again . . .
Tom J.
Thanks Leonard for your quick response. I kind of suspected the security
programs and am in the process of determining which appl., is geiving me
the
most bang for the buck. Strange, I have had no problem out of any of these
applications for the last 6 to 7 years, but realize someone wants to be
boss. As for my system I have an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ 2.08Ghz w/1gb memory.

My next test is to remove each application one by one and see which one of
these culprits is actually causing me grief.
So if XP is not in 16-bit DOS mode when I choose my OS from the start
menu,
then 32-bit has taken over at an earlier point in the startup process?
This
is news to me.

Thanks again Leonard.
Tom J.
Click to expand...

Some time ago I came across this discussion regarding slow boot times
and the bootvis application from Microsoft:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...+windows+xp+startup&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=36&gl=us

I ran it once and it was interesting and can't say it helped me or not
- it was more of a curiosity thing.

Maybe somebody will say it doesn't help at all, or it is dangerous or
somewhat helpful... I will just call it interesting.

There are other good ideas above.
 
Thanks Frank.
I presume that I can find out how to use this feature in Norton 360 help
guide. I'll look and see what happens.
Will stay in touch . . .

Tom J.
 
It tells us you don't have enough physical memory. Your problem can be
solved by purchasing/installing more RAM and/or cutting down on
memory-hungry programs like Norton. As long as you normally don't use
memory-intensive programs (like graphics or video editing, etc.), 1 GB
is actually plenty of RAM. Of course, it's not enough at the moment. ;-)
 
Thanks Dave for your feedback. What made me go to Norton 360 in the first
place was the fact that when I purchased my laptop, Norton 360 came packaged
with this and other applications. I was akready using Norton Ssytemworks
2005 and felt it was a good way to upgrade to the latest product version for
both platforms. I am giving serious consideration to taking it off my
desktop, along with several other apps.

Thanks again . . .
Tom J.
 
Thanks Dave. I'm going to see about investing in some more ram as well as
clean up my system as others have suggested on this thread.

Tom J.
 
Tom

Daave has already answered your question. The system is making excessive use
of the pagefile. The solution is increase RAM or reduce unwanted memory
usage.

Norton 360 is a known resource hog. However, you have another potential
cause, VS 2005/2008. In this case it is not the programme but the products
resulting. Research produced Ants Profiler:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/ANTS_Profiler/ANTS_Profiler_USD.pdf
and
http://blogs.msdn.com/mahuja/archiv...g-and-inspecting-jitted-code-with-windbg.aspx

You could be creating memory leaks with VS 2005/2008. The justification for
programmes like Ants Profiler is the problems that users can create and a
need to to eliminate them.

Closing programmes does not release memory where there is a leak. Restarting
the computer does. Where there is a memory leak usage builds up during a
session. However, Norton 360 could obscure a memory leak, as like all
security programmes, it will be very active as the boot completes and
immediately after.

I suggest you need to look at what is loading during the boot process. Many
programmes assume the user wants them to load when booting when they are
often better loaded on demand later.

Many programmes are set to load on StartUp when they this is not
necessary. You should look within the programme to see if you can change
it so that they load on demand when needed. To identify what loads when
you boot use Autoruns (freeware from Microsoft).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx

With Autoruns you can uncheck an item, which disables it from
starting,or you can right click an item and then delete it. If you
uncheck youcan recheck to re-enable the item. It is a much safer
approach than editing the Registry and better than using msconfig..
Another useful feature of the programme is that you can right click an
item and select Search Online to get information about the item
selected.

Memory usage is not the only area you should examine. Errors occurring
during the boot process can cause over long boot times.

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.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

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.

Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? Right click on
the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties,
Hardware,Device Manager. If yes what is the Device Error code?

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to Empty
your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also select Start, All
Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp, More Options, System
Restore and remove all but the latest System Restore point. Run Disk
Defragmenter.


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Have you run disk cleanup lately?
tjdarth said:
Thanks Dave for your feedback. What made me go to Norton 360 in the first
place was the fact that when I purchased my laptop, Norton 360 came
packaged with this and other applications. I was akready using Norton
Ssytemworks 2005 and felt it was a good way to upgrade to the latest
product version for both platforms. I am giving serious consideration to
taking it off my desktop, along with several other apps.

Thanks again . . .
Tom J.
Click to expand...
 
Gerry,
Thanks loads for the input and reference links. I have already downloaded
arun and will look to it for further useage & evaluation.
I will probably go shopping at my local Fry's this wknd for some bargins on
RAM. I'll keep you all informed.
Thanks . . .
Tom J.
 
Yes, I try to go thru and do Disk CleanUp from the properties page of all my
partitions at least twice a month, and also Defrag
monthly. Once I am done with software cleanup, I'll probable spring for some
more RAM.

Thanks . . .Tom
 
Back
Top