Slow Boot up

[Air Guzzler]

Im sure someguy's get payed a fair few quid for fixing Pc's but my laptop is like me old and needs a good service

but for a while it has taken anything upto 5 mins to boot up from the start of the power button being pressed.

OS = WinXp

Ive heard that you can get the pc to work quicker by altering some of the settings but its just not my bag can anybody give me some help to try to speed it up.

[ratcliffe]

1. If you have any large files or folders stored on your desktop they will slow down the boot process, move them somewhere else and put shortcuts to the new location on the desktop.

2. Do a full defrag.

3. Do a full check of your system for viruses and adware, there are plenty of free Adware detectors on the net.

4. Make sure that your hard disk isn't nearly full. If it is nearly full it will be "file swapping" like crazy so will slow it down. Delete internet files, cookies etc and generally just do a good housekeeping on your PC.

Hopefully they will help.

[big_si]

I'd recommend asking Shiny Dave. He's full of knowledge and loves helping people with PC repairs

[Air Guzzler]

Originally Posted by big_si

I'd recommend asking Shiny Dave. He's full of knowledge and loves helping people with PC repairs

I thought of asking Him as he seam a nice sort of guy and as i love looking a diving pictures i could bore the sh1t out of him with my own SH1t pictures

[Arfie]

Get a program called ccleaner and run it. It will delete lots of unneeded files and registry entries.

Next click on Tools and Startup and it will give you a list of programs that are started every time you switch your machine on, any you don;t want you can delete. BE CAREFUL THOUGH do not delete something if you don't know what it is or you could mess things up. You will often have programs from Adobe, Real, Quicktime and others that you don't need or use starting up just so they can run quicker IF you need them.

Next I'd do a full virus scan and a spyware scan (or two) just to make sure there is nothing nasty behind it being slow.

Then I'd uninstal any software from AOL, Norton, McAfee and replace them with things that help you rather than hindering you.

Then onto a defrag and as Ratcliffe said, if you can reduc the number of files on your machine that could help too.

Last resort, get some more RAM in it. Actually last resort do a reformat and reinstall Windows and only the programs you need

Arfie

[JAG]

From the Start -> Run box type msconfig

This will open the system configuration utility. Click on the startup tab, this will give you an idea of all the startup items. Remove any unneccessary items. If you are not sure what they do I advise going to this page and typing in the startup item, it will let you know what it is, if it's critical or not etc.. Make a note of any you change, just in case

Clear out all temp files/folders
Run a virus/spyware check - a good free online one is here
Run a defrag

Once all this is a done, a little tip to improve overall performance is to go to
My Computer
Properties
Advanced
Performance -> Settings
Adjust for best performance (takes all the fancy visuals from XP but definately improves performance)

Add more RAM if possible.

[fatlaz]

Quite often, the number of applications you have set to open will cause a slow down. I only know this because my bro told me, not massively of help I know sorry but may be something to look in to