Slooow booting latop

[FinallyRetired]

My HP Pavilion xt155 (4-5 years old) is getting slower and slooower to boot. It takes up to 20 minutes. Once it boots it runs pretty fast. I got rid of stuff on the hard drive and now have 5.4Gb free on a 30Gb disk but that didn't help. I have 15 icons showing up on the lower right bar (I use XP) so that might be a clue. 7 of the icons and non-windows add-ons. I also use PcCillin Intenet Security as firewall and virus checker. Any ideas to make it regain its pep short of resetting it to its original config and losing a lot of programs?

 

[TromboneAl]

I have an app called Startup Control Panel which let's me see all the apps that start up during booting. You'll probably find lots of apps there that you don't need. You can delete them from the startup lists without deleting the apps themselves.

The free program is available at: Mike Lin's Home Page

 

[saluki9]

who needs a separate app? Just go to start:run:and type msconfig

That will show you everything that loads with windows.

 

[FinallyRetired]

I have an app called Startup Control Panel which let's me see all the apps that start up during booting.

Thanks, Al, I installed the program and disabled about half the apps in my startup panel. That cut my startup time in half. I would disable more but I don't know what they are, so don't want to take a chance.

 

[TromboneAl]

I don't know what they are, so don't want to take a chance.

Right. What I do is google the ones I don't know about, and there's usually plenty of info that will tell you whether you can disable or delete it. I agree that it can be risky/scary to delete something since it might turn out to be a problem down the road. You can also set system restore points before doing these things, in case it does cause problems.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Eh, take them off until something bad happens. Then put whatever you took out back in.

Hey Al, your retirementstatus board is pretty dang slow today...anything you can do about that?

 

[chinaco]

Here are some links that might help.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

Annoyances.org - Solutions to ''Slow System Startup'' (Windows XP Discussion Forum)


Good luck.

 

[TromboneAl]

Eh, take them off until something bad happens. Then put whatever you took out back in.

Well, yeah, but what about two weeks down the road when you get "Error 0x4993" messages, and you have no idea what's causing them. Was it something you removed.

Hey Al, your retirementstatus board is pretty dang slow today...anything you can do about that?

You mean you want a retirementstatusstatus board. Truth is, it's too wild and unregulated over there, so I stay away.

 

[Gworker]

Instead of shutting down your laptop, hibernate it. Then it only takes a minute to start back-up. Hibernation is different than stand-by. Go to start, turn off computer, then hit shift and you will see hibernate. It works great. Every now and then you have to do a total shut down, but I use hibernate 90% of the time.

 

[FinallyRetired]

Instead of shutting down your laptop, hibernate it. Then it only takes a minute to start back-up. Hibernation is different than stand-by. Go to start, turn off computer, then hit shift and you will see hibernate. It works great. Every now and then you have to do a total shut down, but I use hibernate 90% of the time.

Gworker, we must have different systems. My start, turn off computer, doesn't have hibernate, it just has stand by, turn off, or restart. My computer does sometime try to hibernate (if I leave it on without using it), but when it does it takes about an hour or more. So I disabled hibernate in the power options.

It does go into standby and comes back quickly from standby, are you sure you didn't mean standby instead of hibernate? Anyway, I try to not turn it off, but use stand by whenever I can. But standby uses battery power and it eventually shuts down. And periodically I receive XP and other updates that require me to shut down and restart.

 

[TromboneAl]

Hibernate isn't an option for you when choosing Start/Turn off computer because you disabled it.

Hibernate should work fine for you, and it would be worth it to try to fix this. You should upgrade your XP and your BIOS to the latest versions since, at least on Dells, some of the earlier versions had problems with hibernate and standby.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well, yeah, but what about two weeks down the road when you get "Error 0x4993" messages, and you have no idea what's causing them. Was it something you removed.

Oh thats easy. That means you should buy a new core 2 duo machine, which will boot infinitely faster. Come on...$599 for a new lappie? Its almost automatic.

Oh waitaminit...sometimes the 4993 error means you're out of coffee filters.

 

[Gworker]

You have to hold down the shift key to make stand-by turn to hibernate.
I don't have any problems using hibernate and it doesn't use any power when in hibernation.

Gworker, we must have different systems. My start, turn off computer, doesn't have hibernate, it just has stand by, turn off, or restart. My computer does sometime try to hibernate (if I leave it on without using it), but when it does it takes about an hour or more. So I disabled hibernate in the power options.

 

[FinallyRetired]

You have to hold down the shift key to make stand-by turn to hibernate.

As Homer would say... DOH! I held the shift key down and it does hibernate. It still takes a long time but I can just leave it, then it took 30 seconds to come back. I guess what I hated was when it went into automatic hibernation after so much time of not hitting a key, like when I had that option on max battery. It would be idle for a few minutes then kick into hibernation. That's what I disabled, I said "never" for hibernation, but I can still force it with the shift key as you said.

I still need the faster restart, for program upgrades, etc.