XP speed to a crawl (1 Viewer)

[Willi W]

When I installed XP Pro I was drilled how fast it would boot
Now, a few month down the road, I can go for a coffee when I have to restart
I don't have to many apps installed and I use only a few regular. I also defragmented the drives - still very, very, very slow to boot
Any ideas what to do?

 

[nolesrule]

Did you do a complete system level defrag? You need a third-party defrag tool to do it because it defrags at boot.

Took almost a day on my computer, but that's because it's a slow machine. Was certainly worth it when it finished.

 

[Mike LS]

If you reformatted when you installed XP, and it was only a few months ago, I can't imagine that you'd really have a fragmentation issue.......

 

[Jesse Leonard]

If it is only happening on boot, then it is having problems loading a driver or starting a service. You don't happen to have a Compaq USB keyboard, do you?

 

[SteveA]

What's the story with Compaq USB keyboards and XP? My wife has a Compaq with XP and it frequently freezes when booting up.

 

[Willi W]

I installed on a newly formatted hard drive.
What 3rd party defrag program do you recommend?
I use no Compaq USB keyboard, I am still PS/2
The boot process is fine until it hit's the desktop. When the desktop appears is when it slows down. I have a few things like ZoneAlarm, McAfee, PowerStrip, that get loaded but they where there from the beginning on and then everything went fast. Now it can take up to 2 or 3 minutes from the time the desktop appears until everything has loaded.
If it wasn't such a drag to re-install everything I would do it in a sec

 

[Paul E. Fox II]

Willi,
Check out www.tweakxp.com for a couple of tips on how you could possibly speed up your system. I've managed to find a few hints on keeping processes from starting AUTOMATICALLY on that site and you may be in the same boat.
Hope this helps.

 

[Charles J P]

DisKeeper is about the best 3rd party defrager and it does allow you to defrag your boot sector, which is not possible in the OS-included defrag software.

 

[nolesrule]

That's what I use.

 

[Kris Coffin]

What kind of Internet connection do you have? Broadband? DSL? Have they changed in the recent past from one to the other? I have had the same issue since I made the switch from cable modem to DSL. WinXP automatically tries to contact the net when it starts up, with a cable modem, no issue, it is always on the second the system starts. But with DSL, you are not on until you start the dial-up, so you have to wait for the network check to time out, this can lead to what seems like a system hang for a minute or two.

KC

 

[Willi W]

Got cable :frowning:
Thx to all for the info!

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Look into the bootvis program by Microsoft to trace the boot sequence and optimize it.

 

[Chuck C]

Maybe it has to do with programs in the startup....


run msconfig

start ---> Run... ---> type msconfig, press enter (OK)

select the startup tab and uncheck ALL OF EM

 

[Robert_Gaither]

Might also recommend to get a copy of ad-aware and see if any spyware loading up might slow it down, my neighbor's computer had about 60+ spyware and it slowed it down tremendously until they were removed.

 

[Max Leung]

Try disabling the antivirus program, so that it will not run on bootup. Antivirus software absolutely kills PC performance, and might be contributing to your boot problem.

I second running adaware to get rid of other nasties!