Windows XP takes long to start up.

G

Gezza

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OK I know there is a lot of post and forums around the world about people pc's not starting up and so on but in my case its really weird.

I dont know how to search it on google cause im not really sure how to explain it...but here goes it.

Everything from the post towards windows startup is fine...100%. But as soon as the background appears (as normal, with all icons displaying etc.) I have to wait about 5 mins (literally) before I can check setting of my pc. I can go into games fine and open programs fine but opening in example My Computer Properties takes frikkin 5 mins.

Im using riva tuner and that is a problem. Only after the 5 mins past my fans start going faster for my gpu. its a problem because the overclocked thing overheats!

Oh yeah. Speedfan and and "Core Temp" takes 5 mins to load too. but after that first 5 mins my pc is 100%.

Please help guys. and sorry for the long read.
 
Things I would check out:

Overheating, are all fans working correctly?
Are you on a network, have you lost drive mappings?
Create a new user account with admin rights and login, are the issues still there?
Try swopping RAM around.
 
Strange :/

Only things I can suggest are the steps I take to try speed up a PC startup. In no particular order:

1. Go to START/RUN type msconfig and press Enter and under the startup list remove all unnescessary startup items that don't need to start when Windows boots up. But be careful of things like Anti-Virus, VPN clients and other programs that you need to keep running. Don't disable something unless you are sure. Perhaps disabling the OClocking programs once off and performing a reboot to check if they are the culprit?

2. Download a free regcleaner program and perform a full reg scan and clear out any corrupt registry entries that could slow things down. But be careful of these as they can also cause problems so I would recommend you do this only if you have good experience with it.

3. Disable Indexing for your hard drives by right clicking them in MyComputer and selecting Properties and finding the checkbox that says to index the drive and unchecking it.

4. Ensure you have no network drives mapped that are taking a long time to open.

5. Check what Anti-Virus you are running, something like Norton can slow your PC down enourmously.

6. When the PC is at it's slowest and if you can try ALT/CNTRL/DELETE and go to Task Manager. Under Processes arrange them by CPU and see which process is taking up all the CPU other than of course IDLE PROCESS which is the opposite. Also arrange by Mem Usage and see which programs are taking up lots of memory and if the memory usage is constantly spiking or climbing. (eg if it svhost that keeps climbing you probably have a virus).

7. Perform virus and malware scans.

8. Perform diagnostics if your PC has the feature or if you have a diagnostics disc/partition like some Dell PC's do.

9. Check your available HDD space left on your Primary partition. Anything under 2 gig I would say is not good and could cause performance issues.

10. Check your available memory in Task Manager under performance. Make sure there is a significant amount left right after a boot and that it is not just climbing back up again after it has booted up.

I would also look into your overclocking. It can cause weird issues. Not only with overheating.


hmmmm what else...I will think some more :)
 
Last edited:
Hi, i've had a similar problem.
I have a slow pc , and as I kept installing more programs (especially ones that start up when booting the computer) then my computer took longer until i could use it.
I had to wait about 10 minutes.

What i did:
Format the pc.(256mb ram , 1.6GhZ)

What you can do is try "Happy Camper"'s steps and "Jonny Two Shoes"'s instructions.
How much ram do you have?
 
Jonny Two Shoes said:
Strange :/

Only things I can suggest are the steps I take to try speed up a PC startup. In no particular order:

1. Go to START/RUN type msconfig and press Enter and under the startup list remove all unnescessary startup items that don't need to start when Windows boots up. But be careful of things like Anti-Virus, VPN clients and other programs that you need to keep running. Don't disable something unless you are sure. Perhaps disabling the OClocking programs once off and performing a reboot to check if they are the culprit?

2. Download a free regcleaner program and perform a full reg scan and clear out any corrupt registry entries that could slow things down. But be careful of these as they can also cause problems so I would recommend you do this only if you have good experience with it.

3. Disable Indexing for your hard drives by right clicking them in MyComputer and selecting Properties and finding the checkbox that says to index the drive and unchecking it.

4. Ensure you have no network drives mapped that are taking a long time to open.

5. Check what Anti-Virus you are running, something like Norton can slow your PC down enourmously.

6. When the PC is at it's slowest and if you can try ALT/CNTRL/DELETE and go to Task Manager. Under Processes arrange them by CPU and see which process is taking up all the CPU other than of course IDLE PROCESS which is the opposite. Also arrange by Mem Usage and see which programs are taking up lots of memory and if the memory usage is constantly spiking or climbing. (eg if it svhost that keeps climbing you probably have a virus).

7. Perform virus and malware scans.

8. Perform diagnostics if your PC has the feature or if you have a diagnostics disc/partition like some Dell PC's do.

9. Check your available HDD space left on your Primary partition. Anything under 2 gig I would say is not good and could cause performance issues.

10. Check your available memory in Task Manager under performance. Make sure there is a significant amount left right after a boot and that it is not just climbing back up again after it has booted up.

I would also look into your overclocking. It can cause weird issues. Not only with overheating.


hmmmm what else...I will think some more :)
Click to expand...

Did the startup thing. I disabled STEAM. that bloody stupid valve abomonation never runs properly on my pc. I forgot to add. Got a Q8400 3ghz and 4 gig Ram 800hz. Still have 90 gigs free on primary drive. Virus and mallwares come up with nada

Happy Camper said:
Things I would check out:

Overheating, are all fans working correctly?
Are you on a network, have you lost drive mappings?
Create a new user account with admin rights and login, are the issues still there?
Try swopping RAM around.
Click to expand...

Fans working perfectly and I am the admin of my pc. Ill try swopping the ram.
 
When you say it happens when you open MyComputer? Perhaps Explorer is the culprit?

Could be a virus/malware or perhaps something not working correct. If you detect no viruses and you have some spare time try the following as well:

Insert Windows XP CD/DVD
Go to START RUN and type sfc /scannow
This should check that all system file versions and replace if necessary. Make sure if you are running XP SP2 or XP SP3 you have the correct XP CD/DVD.
 
When last did you format the drive?

I do it twice a year.
It's a good thing to do, just remember to backup the entire "documents and settings" folder as that contains alot of your important data unless you're the type to move stuff around.
 
Jonny Two Shoes said:
When you say it happens when you open MyComputer? Perhaps Explorer is the culprit?

Could be a virus/malware or perhaps something not working correct. If you detect no viruses and you have some spare time try the following as well:

Insert Windows XP CD/DVD
Go to START RUN and type sfc /scannow
This should check that all system file versions and replace if necessary. Make sure if you are running XP SP2 or XP SP3 you have the correct XP CD/DVD.
Click to expand...

Not when I open My Computer. When I rightclick it and then properties to check the computer info. And riva tuner doesnt load until that time has past. Can hear my fans speeding up then. I have a SP1 cd but got SP3 installed. damn

gdiza said:
When last did you format the drive?

I do it twice a year.
It's a good thing to do, just remember to backup the entire "documents and settings" folder as that contains alot of your important data unless you're the type to move stuff around.
Click to expand...

Did it 3 weeks ago. really anoying!
 
Forgot to add. Some game like COD5 takes up 100% load on my cpu when starting it up. so it takes long to start up too. even after the 5 mins.
 
Have you disabled any services related to network functions (lan autoconfig)? Try enabling them / setting them to manual startup...
 
Nope. didnt disable anything. I cant even check which processes are running cause that take 5 mins to open too.
 
Whenever I've come across this, it was something to do with network. Try disable your network card and see if it makes a difference on the next boot?
If it does then setting a static ip might help, though I doubt it. Go through the services and see if any are disabled (some program might have done it). Try find the latest drivers for your network card...
What motherboard & network controller is it?
 
got a gigabyte series 2. d-link 10/100 network adapter
 
Have a look in the Event Viewer under Administrative Tools and see what goes wrong under System and Applications round about the time you restarted.

On a few XP machines I have found that the WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) service hangs for no apparent reason. Just go to services and switch it to disabled or manual start.

If it is not WIA causing the delay (I am sure it is) then Event Viewer will help you identify what the problem is.

Are you in a domain with GPO (Group Policy Objects) ?
 
Wga setup, security center, Roxliveshare9, roxio Upnp server9. thats all thats in the event viewer in that time. cant see anything about WIA
 
Those should be under Application ? Anything with a red cross ?

What about System in Event Viewer ? Have a look at the time stamp of each event and see if you can find one that has a time stamp gap of 5 minutes.
 
ok cool. under System the is an error. "Timeout (30000 milliseconds) waiting for the Roxio Hard Drive Watcher 9 service to connect."

about 2.5 mins after startup. sound about right that that is the error. 50 mins after that...same error. WTH is the roxio thing
 
Roxio is the worst CD burning software in the universe - so it does not surprise me. Use Nero or CDburnerXP instead. Just uninstall Roxio and your boot problems will be a thing of past.

Some say using a magnifying class and sunlight is a more advanced way of burning CDs than Roxio :p

Moral of the story, Event Viewer FTW! I have had XP installations that run stable for more than 5 years by simply keeping an eye on the Event Viewer and stopping problems before they turn nasty.
 
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