Very slow laptop startup

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Hello everyone. Happy Tuesday to you all.

As you know I've not studied, but I've been asked to sort a problem and I'm 99% sure of the solution but want to be sure, but thought I'd ask the professionals first before I end up with a big, shiny paperweight.

A friend has a laptop (sorry, don't have the spec of it) which is excrutiatingly slow at startup, even more so when you attempt to open IE. This has 512MB RAM, running on XP, and looking in task manager, about 330MB of this is being used before even manually opening any applications. She also has about 20 items in her system tray on startup. Speaking to her, she has over time installed a lot of freeware. Am I right in the conclusion that she probably has a lot of background crap running totally unnecessarily? Looking in MSCONFIG, there are about 30 or so apps running,

So my plan is to try and disable as many programmes as possible, then do the ScanDisk, Disk cleanup, virus check etc. I'm hoping to use this link as a guide

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

Have any of you used this guide before? If so, have you found it accurate, or have you subsequently disabled things it recommended to do so which caused big problems?

Thanks very much chaps and chapesses

Peace and stuff

 

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Sh!t, happy Wednesday I mean, I wrote this yesterday and saved it

 

Not used that guide before or any but it seems useful.

Your diagnosis seems to be correct, thats what I would thought of if a freind told me theyd got loads of freeware and their comp was slow on start up.

Happy deleting

 

I think you are right about the 'background crap'.

My first move would be to bring up 'Add and Remove programs' and go through it with her for items that she doesn't really want, and de-install them. That way the de-installers *should* handle a lot of the detail for you.

Also run a copy of Adaware over it.

If there are still problems after that then you can go a bit more detailed on startup stuff.

Note that MSConfig misses quite a lot of startup items, but it is a good start!

Harry.

 

Thanks chaps, MSCONFIG was my first port of call, but you're right, I should go for the more simpler Add/Remove programmes, guess I like the complicated route!!!

If anything, hope that list comes in handy, it does seem very concise and has tons of variants

 

I would strongly recommend running Adware, Spybot search and destroy ( www.safer-networking.org ), anti-virus in safe mod rather then user mode. Also if you know what your doing i would suggset having a look at http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

Hijack this is a very very good tool!! make sure you update everything before starting to scan. Good luck!

 

Cheers dude!!! Are these all free downloads or software to purchase?

 

Yes they are all free! I suggest you post your Hijack this log, if your not sure about it before actually making any changes...

 

How slow is slow?

My partner's sometimes just has the taskbar freeze for anything up to five minutes, but it's intermittent. 'Course, it's not my machine, so I just say, 'oh sweetheart, no! not again.... why don't you go and have a cup of tea or something...'

It has to do with the wireless networking trying to start up when the network is unavailable, or it has to do with one of Bill's 'phone home' programs getting all worked up 'cos it can't get through. I turned off Windows Update and it improved for a time. I've malware-tested and anti-virused it to death without effect, now, well, I settle for the 'cup of tea' solution....

 

Ah, you could be onto something there. We're looking at a good 3-4 minutes Windows startup, then launching IE you're looking at a good 2-3 mins. This is a laptop on Wireless, connects at startup, along with Skype, MSN messenger and various other things like that. Could it be then the combintation of all these programmes relying on the wireless network all causing the freeze?

 

Everything you install on a computer that it has to load up during startup will cause the computer to take just a little bit longer and a little bit longer and a little bit longer to get logged on and running. That's why computers tend to "slow down" over time. Wipe it clean and start over fresh, and watch the computer go blazingly fast... until you start loading it down with crap again.

 

Yeah, that would certainly do it, I've finally got my XP SP2 at home to do that to mine. Problem is, I think she bought the laptop with XP already installed so doesn't have the OS discs though. Unless I can convince her to part with a bit of green to buy them (cos I certainly ain't bloody paying for it) I'll just have to work with what I've got (along with Adware and that, of course).

Thanks for all the input guys, I'm off to sort that out now, so I may be back in an hour or two pleading again

 

Cockles - although there is some sound advice given I would back up her data just incase the system locks up before attempting to remove or add things!!

Second I would start again, format the HD and re-install the OS. Chances are there's still some broken s/c in the registry and some junk stored in temp folder, cluttering the HD.

You could try system Mechanic Version 6 on Personal Computer World Magazine August 2007. It's Free!!! yes that's right Free!!!

I was so impressed I upgrade to the new version. It's like Nortons Disk utility, but beside freeing up HD and Memory as well as fixing the registry.

 

Just found the link for PCW website and free download for system mechanic version 7

 

Morning folks

Thanks for all the advice yesterday, got the laptop working a lot quicker than it was. I took Harry's suggestion of going to Add/Remove Hardware first and removing a lot of unused (mostly) freeware. I then checked the MSCONFIG and found a total of 38 programmes running at startup, which I managed to bring down to about 20 going through that list in that link I posted. Finally ran Diskcleanup etc. I think the main culprit was Skype and MSN Messenger loading at startup which took ages so disabled them both. Freed up over 100MB of RAM too which is a bonus

UCM, thanks for the links mate, I took a look at them but didn't use the tools as by the time Iwas finishing it was gone 11 and I'd had a few gins by them. If he laptop slows down any more I'll use them next time.

Thanks again

 

A bit late to add to this thread now you've sorted the problem, but a couple of things.

Windows Update is a bitch! I'm forever having issues with computers running slow at start up, and it's usually due to Windows Update. I tend to turn it off and download the updates manually. But if your friend is not too savvy with pc's then she may not be confident enough to do this and leave her pc vulnerable. I do find that turning the updates off, restarting the pc and then turning them back on usually helps.

And secondly. This little fella is free from Microsoft and is called AutoRuns
It shows all the processes that run at startup, whether they be in the startup folder, run, run once, or registry keys. Very useful because it not only identifies what is running on your machine but also where it is being called from.

HTH

 

Hello Stoney, never too late for help dude. Thanks very much for that, I always did wonder about Windows Update to be honest, left it on to be on the safe side but that may help even more

I'll take a look at Autoruns too, seems like a very useful tool.

Cheers