Windows XP - Sluggish

[ttraider]

I have 2 PC with Windows XP Home with boot up problem. I did disk recovery and both are running.
PC#1 took about 5 to 6 minutes to boot up. After that it runs great. What do I need to shorten the boot up time. There is practically nothing in the start up options.

PC#2 takes about 4 minutes to boot up, but runs real sluggish after that. Looks like it is running some programs in the background. I disable the anti virus and it is still runs the same. It also appears that the pc is accessing the hard drive too much after it boots up. 5 or 10 minutes later, it is still accessing the drive for brief periods of time on and off.

Both PCs have 1 GIG RAM and 2.0 GHz.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I thought about reformatting the drives and re-load eevrything but that is very time consuming.

 

[xit]

have you run anti-virus & spyware programs? If not, try more than one program on each to be sure.

xit

 

[ttraider]

Yes, I have run both of them a couple of times.

 

[CBasicAsslember]

Download BootVis to see where the time is going. {You will have to scroll down the page a bit).

 

[linney]

What do you mean by "disk recovery"?

How does it boot in to Safe Mode?

FAQ779-4784 may help.

windows XP running very slow
thread779-796508


Disable, not uninstall, any unused network adapters.

Is either Event Viewer telling you anything? Look for anything that mentions "timeout".

 

[cdogg]

Check the FAQ that linney posted. It's full of suggestions that might help. Even though you don't see much of anything listed in the startup options, there are services that load in the background (Start->Run ype services.msc and hit enter). The registry is another place that can become congested with orphaned entries or infected with spyware.

Beware that searching for a magical fix or trying a list of troubleshooting ideas can be much more time consuming than just starting over. It is easier than you think to waste many hours, weeks or even months...

Keep in mind too that a failing hard drive can cause all kinds of problems including slowness. However, a clean install after formatting the drive should always be tried before replacing it.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[ttraider]

Thanks, I'll read up on the FAQ

Recovery Disk - the one provided by HP.

 

[linney]

A free program like "Autostart Viewer" will show you everything that is loading at Startup.

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=asviewer

 

[Santiago88]

When you say boot i asume you mean within your OS aswell.

Within windows. go to start/run type in "ms config" then select the tab "startup" untick anything you dont need.

As for bios boot, you should go into your bios and disable anything your system doesnt use, e.g sata or pci sockets also network hardware. That worked great for me when i had similar problems.

to see what is making your pc run so slowly you should keep task manager open, sort out the processes in order of CPU usage, then you *should* see what processor is messing things up.

Hope i helped at all.

- Santi