extremely slow startup

[Steve]

My Grandad bought a new PC a while ago, just over a year. It was a budget model, E systems or somesuch running XP home. I put norton internet security on it.

It is VERY SLOW to startup. It takes it a good 4-5 minutes to get to the desktop (no passwords or anything). And then it is still working, unable to do anything for another minute or 2!

I have been into MS config. Disabled all startup programmes. Nothing in startup menu. I even disabled norton, see if that makes a difference - it doesnt!!!

I cannot seem to get to the BIOS. The big E-systems logo comes on at boot up, then goes, no scrolling text and "press f8 for bios" etc as on standard motherboards. There are no instructions how to access the bios. Though what would I do in the bios to speed up startup?

I have run out of ideas. I cant even seem to find a recovery disk!

 

[Estrella]

From memory E-sys PC's require you to create your own recovery media, allthough i havent supplied any e-sts units for 12 months or so.

For BIOS entry , try f1 , f2 and the del key, although there isnt anything in there that I can see improving your startup speed. Obviously the easiest thing to do would be back up important data and reinstall. If you arent happy doing this try using the following app's to give the system a bit of a spring clean. Also check that your RAM is being reported in system properties correctly , If you have two sticks one may have died. You could also run mem test.




Crap Cleaner - http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Reg Scrub XP - http://www.sofotex.com/RegScrubXP-download_L7528.html

I know you checked Startup items , but uninstall Norton (replace with less resource hungry free alternative) , check for Google toolbar and desktop search , Itunes helper , Quicktime , MSN Messenger . All are common and really slow up the startup.

Good luck

 

[Igorian]

Tampering with the BIOS is unlikely to achieve the results you are expecting. In this respect, I would say leave that bit alone. FYI, I think E-Machines generally use F2 to access the BIOS.

I would start by removing (completely) NIS. Use the removal tool, it's more likely to remove it all.

Reboot the machine

Now go and get something like Avast, just to give you some protection for the moment. It's actually quite a good product as it goes.

Reboot the machine and do a general cleanup. Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Cleanup. Tick all the boxes with the exception of Office Installation Files and Compress Files, if present.

Now download something like Spybot, do the updates and perform a scan. Remove any unwanted spyware.

Next perform an error check of the drive. Right click on the drive in Explorer and click Properties. Click the Tools tab and then select the error check option. You will have to reboot for this to begin.

Finally, defragment the disk, if required.

Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmenter. Analyse the disk(s) and defragment if required.

One question, how do you access the Internet on this machine? Modem or Router?

 

[Steve]

Modem, Igorian. He's just signed up to broadband but I cant see him getting the full benefit of this until the computer is sped up. It seems every comptuer he gets slows right down after a year or so. I'll do the stuff you suggested and report back.

OOI, I dont recall seeing a restore disk, is this likely to be on a partition accessed on boot up?

 

[Igorian]

All computers running Windows will slow down to some degree over time. Disk cleanup and defrag should be performed regularly.

Norton Internet Security is know to slow machines down.

I would recommend replacing the modem with a combined modem/router, such as one of the Netgear 834 series. You can then forget the software firewall and just have a good combination a/v and spyware packages.

 

[Estrella]

My previous post must have been in that special 'invisible text' I have heard about

 

[gcol]

Don't worry, it's a Welsh thing.