Member Avatar for flyerorange

I have a Dell Dimension 3000, about 4 years old, and Windows XP. Once the computer boots up, it runs fast and overall well. But it takes close to a half hour to boot up from the computer being off. My virus software is AVG. I have gone to MSCONFIG, and I have all the startup items unchecked, but there's no difference. My WIN ME computer, on the same wireless network, only takes a few minutes to boot up.

I'd appreciate any help, if there's anything I should be doing, or am overlooking. Thanks.

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A few focused checks will find where the cold boot is stalling — that’s more useful than just toggling startup items. , because the machine runs fine after you finally get to the desktop, the slowdown is happening during the OS load phase. Good leads from and point toward a system-level hang and possible security/driver interaction; the steps below aim to isolate the exact component that’s waiting.

Enable boot logging and inspect the driver load list (this shows the last driver or service processed before the delay). After a boot with logging turned on you’ll find C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt; look for drivers that fail to load or that are repeatedly listed. Next, open Event Viewer (eventvwr.msc) and filter the System log for the time of the slow boot — look for warnings/errors about services or drivers failing or timing out. Those two items normally point directly at the culprit.

Check disk/device health and early drivers: run chkdsk C: /r (it schedules on next reboot and can take a while), and review S.M.A.R.T. status with the drive maker’s diagnostic tool. Temporarily disconnect nonessential USB devices and disable the wireless/network adapter in Device Manager to see whether a device or network timeout is responsible. If a particular driver or service shows up in the boot log or Event Viewer, disable that device/service and test again, then update or roll back the driver as needed.

If these steps don’t reveal the cause, use a full autorun/service audit (Sysinternals Autoruns) to see everything that starts at boot, and focus on non-Microsoft entries that initialize early. Keep a note of any changes you make so you can undo them. These diagnostics will pinpoint the bottleneck so you can fix or replace the exact offending driver, service, or device rather than guessing.

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Member Avatar for Xlphos

have you tried entering safe mode? Let us know if it is the same.

It could be corrupt files and not startup programs.

Member Avatar for cguan_77

do as suggested by Xlphos....but better to back-up your files it could be your HDD itself is giving a problem..but i hope it's not.. :)

Member Avatar for mdk2k4

How about your monitor, you said after shutting off, meaning for a while being off maybe nigth befor. Maybe the monitor needs to warmup in order to start working properly. I'm just sayind this cause you said that it runs fast and normal. Also run this utlity have done wonders for me;

Member Avatar for Asphodel

I found that AVG slowed down my computer (XP) a great deal. When I switched to Avira, the problem was gone.

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