Very slow start up-Help

[reflexboy]

When I turn my PC on, I get the XP screen straight away, as normal, then I get a black screen for about 5-6 mins before the cursor appears for about a minute, then the background pic appears, then about another 2 mins later the icons appear on the desktop. So it is taking ages to boot up, but once booted, it runs as normal. Any idea oh clever ones?

 

[robert.saunders]

certainly worth a run through with ad-aware and spybot, before investigating your start-up files, plus usual virus checks

you may have issues with hardware however

 

[gurpz]

What sort of hardware specification do you have ?

Hav you tried things like:

Disk Clean up
Disk Deframentation

 

[reflexboy]

I have looked in add/remove programes and can't see anything untoward. I have run a de-frag, a virus scan and run CCleaner, which fixes any registry issues. I'm not too technical with regards to computers and I have done all I can. What now??!!??

 

[reflexboy]

What sort of hardware specification do you have ?

Hav you tried things like:

Disk Clean up
Disk Deframentation

It's a Dell Dimension 2400,40Gb hard, Pentium 4, 3.06Mhz, 512Mb RAM and about five years old.

 

[grober]

If you have a system restore point for a time before this happened you could try going back to that to see if the problem goes? you could also try starting in safe mode. http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

 

[reflexboy]

If you have a system restore point for a time before this happened you could try going back to that to see if the problem goes? you could also try starting in safe mode. http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

Yup, tried system restore-It made zero difference. The funny thing is, once it has started up , it runs perfectly.

 

[Sp!ke]

How fast does it boot in safe mode?

 

[reflexboy]

How fast does it boot in safe mode?

To be honest, I haven't tried. Shall I give it a go? and what does safe mode actually do?

 

[fabes]

I'll just chip in here as a friend just had same problems over the weekend with a similar spec system

Ran the usual checks which did pick up a few bits, but it seems the AVG, Zone alarm and recent XP security update, along with a couple of other bits was too much for 512mb ram - according to a forum or two as well

For £14 I stuck in another 512 and alongside some cleaning, its back to its best behaviour

Would recommend more RAM

Fabes

 

[gurpz]

I'll just chip in here as a friend just had same problems over the weekend with a similar spec system

Ran the usual checks which did pick up a few bits, but it seems the AVG, Zone alarm and recent XP security update, along with a couple of other bits was too much for 512mb ram - according to a forum or two as well

For £14 I stuck in another 512 and alongside some cleaning, its back to its best behaviour

Would recommend more RAM

Fabes

Agree 512mb is very low however, I am guessing by the age of the PC it is Socket 478 and that would mean the best ram you could get IIRC is PC2700 333 DDR and that is surprisingly more expensive then the newer DDR 2 ram sticks.

 

[MikeL]

Hard drive capacity - make sure the hard drive isn't too full - this will slow the system down.

Anybody feel free to correct me but a minimum of 10% free and ideally 15-20% if poss.

Mike

 

[KillerHERTZ]

As said above, have you defragged it recently?

 

[robert.saunders]

according to post #4; yes

 

[reflexboy]

Yes-A dfrag has been run last night and I have well over half my hard drive free-about 21Gb...It's still doing it!!??!!

 

[gurpz]

The only thing I can really suggest is consider adding more RAM, reformat the hard drive and install a clean copy of Windows or the backup/restore disk given with dell. Backup your important files first and ensure downloading all the updates if decide to go down that route.

 

[fabes]

Agree 512mb is very low however, I am guessing by the age of the PC it is Socket 478 and that would mean the best ram you could get IIRC is PC2700 333 DDR and that is surprisingly more expensive then the newer DDR 2 ram sticks.

Crucial is £13.47 for 512mb plus P&P (free off some sites)

Best way to save you this frustration

 

[Benzowner]

I would certainly support the Ram theory, Had a similar problem with the works computers, more memory, problem solved.

 

[daveuj]

Hi I think more RAM is the answer but you should go for 1x1GB stick about £35 on e-bay look in your user book for the Ram speed .you may have 2 x 256 fitted and you would have take 1 out giving you 768 GB and no room for further upgrade you could leave 1 stick of 256 in plus 1GB this will be a good upgrade and make your M/C much faster.
hope this of use Dave

 

[daveuj]

Typo768 mb not GB that would be fast
Dave