View Full Version : comp startup is getting longer
TwistedMike
2009-02-05, 20:25
i have recently reinstalled windows xp updated with all SP's and its has been about a month and the startup is taking about 3mins compared to 30 secs any suggestions? any help would be appreciated and i have done virus and spyware scans just to inform you.
msconfig-click start-run. Type msconfig and click ok. go to the startup tab and check for any programs there that you do not want to start with your system. You could also use spybot in advanced mode, and check the startup list. (spybot is a safer way versus msconfig for a average user.)
Also, make sure you check your hard drive using disk defrag. You can find that by going into my computer-right click the drive, properties, tools-under disk defrag click check now. Then click analyze on the window that pops up. :) It will let you know if a defrag is needed.
Some other things to check, would be going into safe mode and seeing how long it takes to load that. Try then by disabling some programs on startup and see if windows starts any faster.
If you need any more instructions, or have any more questions; feel free to ask.
Hope that helps :)
drragostea
2009-02-06, 03:17
One possible problem is the startup entries (a lot of them) like stated by 129260, or... it could be the accumulation of temp. files and that such. Give ATF Cleaner by Atribune a run. (This is just a brief tip, not much researching yet.)
Safe surfing.
TwistedMike
2009-02-06, 20:25
ok thanks for the help guys ill give them both a try and i will tell you the results.
TwistedMike
2009-02-06, 22:55
here is a list made by spybot can you pleases take a look at it and give some feedback.
drragostea
2009-02-07, 01:53
'ctfmon.exe' you do not need unless you are using an International Language on your machine. Same goes for Java because there won't be another update in a while. Disabling them might not make a noticeable difference in performance means but I disable them to keep my Startup Manager organized.
The only optional ones (you can leave it or disable it based on your preferences) are Google Updater and the HP Software Update. Just my opinion, but it is up to you to decide what should remain and what should/could go.
I'm sure you heard about stories about torrents and P2P? Just be careful.
I went to reply.........and realized my bud drragostea said everything i was going to say ha. Anyways, one thing i can provide is why you should not use p2p programs (torrents).
See here: http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=282
TwistedMike
2009-02-07, 17:50
Ok guys thanks for the info and i already know about what risk i am taking when using torrents.
Norm@Home
2009-02-09, 20:19
Hi Mike:
This is a difficult question to answer, if I understand you correctly after you reinstalled Windows and updated it with all available service packs your system took 30 seconds to start and now after a month it's taking more than three minutes?
If your system scans clean with SpyBot and whatever Anti-Virus you use it's always possible that maybe you have some type of Root Kit virus that these can't detect. In the last three months I've run across four computers with that type of thing where my anti-virus of choice (NOD32) and SpyBot 1.6.0 couldn't detect the problem and only running ComboFix fix (which I read about in a thread here) fixed the problem.
If that fails to find any problem I would then check your System Event Log to see if you see any problems there i.e. services that fail or are slow to start up, any warnings regarding your hard drive.
After that I would use whatever hard drive diagnostic software is appropriate to your hard drive to check the SMART status to see if you're possibly starting to have a hardware failure. Possibly a bad sector or something with the drive. I mainly use Western Digital and Seagate hard drives and both companies have their own diagnostic software to read the SMART status and test the drive. If the diagnostics don't turn up anything you can always try and have Windows check and repair problems on the drive and do a more extensive "Scan for and attempt to recover bad sectors".
Next you could try and download PageDefrag:
SysInternals PageDefrag (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426.aspx)
by Mark Russinovich, this handy little utility will defragment your page file as well as a bunch of other system files. When you set it to run on boot up it will tell you how many fragments the various files are currently in.
Hope this helps,
- Norm
TwistedMike
2009-02-09, 22:24
yes that is what i am thinking i will try combofix and report back here.
TwistedMike
2009-02-09, 22:51
i have scanned with combofix and it found nothing i also used page defrag there is still no difference in loading time. thought that i would still post the log for further inspection by the Spybot team.
TwistedMike
2009-02-09, 23:11
here is a sysinternals log and the combofix log that didn't post before
You should try to de-activate all those updaters ... especially the HP one!
Hello everyone,
Please do not post/attach combofix logs in here, thanks. :)
FYI, ComboFix is not a tool that should be used without supervision, please see: Do NOT run 'fixes' before helpers have analyzed the HJT log (http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=16806)
Best regards.
TwistedMike
2009-02-10, 03:16
sorry for posting the log here
TwistedMike
2009-02-12, 22:08
hey just thought i would let you guys know that i have fixed the problem all i needed to do was restore the default settings in the bios.
hey just thought i would let you guys know that i have fixed the problem all i needed to do was restore the default settings in the bios.
I did not think of that sooner.....I had no idea however it was the time between turn on and loading windows, we all probably thought you meant about windows start up time. Anyway, Glad its fixed! :)
Hi guys, having slow machine issues too...will try some of the stuff you mentioned (drragostea).
Thxs, take care!
Kramer
Oups, just saw these other threads...
Hey, TwistedMike, how do you go about restoring the default settings in the BIOS?...