Slow boot up.

[vestan]

Hi y'all.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to solve the problem i have with my pc booting up because it takes aaaaagggeesss. Even after I get the xp welcome the HDD light is still lit for a good 2 mins and nothing will work on screen. I was wondering if it would be possible to post a list of the programmes i have on c: on here and someone can tell me which i need, as i seem to have loads of window update things that never seem to be used, and even more still waiting to be DL'd, but i'm still wary of removing them. I also tried selecting everythng in my program files folder on c: and shifting it over to my d: drive, unfortunately 1 of the 1st programmes that attempted to be moved was AVG (free anti-virus prog) and that got rox dup so i had to re-install it. So i cant even just move the files and clutter off c: apparently, without the risk of making them unable to work.

Anyone got any ideas. Thanks.

[Boris]

Download this piece of freeware, install it and do a "consult"

http://www.windowsstartup.com/startupinspector.php

It'll tell you everything you have starting at boot-up and whether they're needed or not (see below)

Post any you're unsure about here and we'll try to advise on them :)

[vestan]

Do you just unclick the progs you no longer want, then apply and that removes them?

2 files have question marks, SiSUSBRG and AVG8_TRAY.

Thanks V.Much. :)

I meant to mention, I also tried freeing up some space on c: by removing windows progs like games etc. that i don't use. I have somehow lost wordpad prog, and can't find it even on my xp install disk. I dunno how or why it no longer appears in my accessories. Do you know anything about this problem with accidentally uninstalling wordpad? Cheers.

[Boris]

Right clicking each entry gives various options inc, Enable/Disable + Remove.

Just use the disable option and then click "Apply"

Re. your queries

SISUSBRG is a patch for video cards using SiS (Silicon Integrated Systems) chipsets. This file corrects a USB bug on Windows XP based systems whereby systems could crash on sleep/standby/hibernate.

AVG8_TRAY is to do with AVG 8.0 - which I don't yet use - still on AVG 7.5 Pro.

I think you can restore WordPad with this registry tweak.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

See Line 308 column 2

[vestan]

Thanks V.Much. Thats it sorted.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

It also helps to defrag your HD from time to time.

[Dencandy]

There's also an excellent free utility called CCleaner (available from http://www.ccleaner.com/) used by many people on this forum. It will clear out lots of "Crap" - hence the name. Initially I suggest you only use the Cleaner part for cleaning Windows and Applications. I also suggest you uncheck the Empty Recycle Bin tick-box - you can deal with that separately - and don't use the Advanced features till you've got used to it.

First you run Analyse, then Run Cleaner. After using it for 4 years I've never known it delete anything I needed or mess up the system in any way.

[vestan]

Thanks for the info.

Do any of you guys know of a free prog. i can dl to check the health of the pc's system. Ive tried a few that are advertised as free, but they only ever do half a job before asking you for registration fees.

Thanks again.

[CurlyWhirly]

Do any of you guys know of a free prog. i can dl to check the health of the pc's system. Ive tried a few that are advertised as free, but they only ever do half a job before asking you for registration fees.

I don't know of a free programme that can monitor the health of the PC but I know of this which can monitor your hard drive(s)

[Irene]

I wonder if THIS - Windows Live OneCare might be helpful? :)

[vestan]

Thanks V.Much peeps. It's been very usefull stuff to know about. :)

[Dencandy]

PC Wizard (HERE) will give you an enormous amount of information about your hardware (it's free).

[vestan]

Thanks for all these tools, they're proving usefull, if a little daunting to use. Performance has improved slightly on my pc, but it still isn't anywhere near what it was when I first installed xp, which was only about 4 months ago.

I was wondering if any of you peeps have used the reg cure thats advertised on this site?

I dl it and ran it and its saying that there are over 500 problems that need addressing, which can only be resolved by buying blah blah, the usual.

It also has an option to manage the startup which got my interest. I may be wrong, but reducing the number of files that automatically start and run when I boot up my pc should reduce boot up time and conserve processing power.

There are a number of progs. that I feel don't need to be in the start up like Avast and Defender and a few that I aint sure of. Could one of you peeps be kind enough to let me know which could be removed from this list safely.

Program / File Name

MSMSGS / C:\program files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe

ctfmon.exe/ C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe

HTpatch/ C:\WINDOWS\HTpatch.exe

SiSUSBRG/ C:\WINDOWS\SiSUSBRG.exe

AVG8_TRAY/ C:\PROGRA~1\AVG\AVG8\avgtray.exe

Windows Defender/ C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe"-hide

SunJavaUpdateSched/ C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_05\bin\jusched.exe

Cmaudio/ RunDll32 cmicnfg.cpl, CMICtrlWnd

HDDlife/ D:\Program Files\BinarySense\HDDlife 3\HDDlifePro.exe

Hopefully, I'll be able to remove them all as even tho my HD is only 4-5 months old, sometimes on bootup it doesn't load atall and I get the replace system disk message. The Drive is virus free, Defragged once a week and has no errors.

Thanks V.Much for your time. :)

[Boris]

HTPatch.exe is part of the Silicon Integrated Systems AGP patch.

It is required to support hyperthreading and hyperstreaming functions on Pentium 4 systems with processors by SiS.

ctfmon.exe activates the Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (TIP) and the Microsoft Office Language Bar.

This can be disabled from start-up.

jusched.exe automatically checks for later versions of java - if you check manually it can also be disabled

Hddlifepro.exe is monitors the 'health' of your hard drive and reports potential problems. It tracks free space and physical drive characteristics such as temperature. If you like this sort of monitoring, leave this file in place.

DO NOT disable - AVG8_TRAY/ C:\PROGRA~1\AVG\AVG8\avgtray.exe or you'll have no resident AVG antivirus protection

msmsgs.exe automatically starts Windows Messenger - can safely be disabled

SISUSBRG.exe is a patch for video cards based on SiS chipsets. It corrects a USB bug on Windows XP based systems whereby systems could crash on sleep/standby/hibernate.

[vestan]

Cheers Boris m8.

[Dencandy]

Also, do you really want your computer to try to check for Java updates every time you boot up? If not, then you can safely disable SunJavaUpdate Sched and do manual checks for updates once a month or so.

Do you use Windows Messenger? If not then you can safely disable MSMSGS from starting with every boot. If you don't use it at all, you can uninstall it from Add/Remove Windows components. (It has known security flaws).

Do you want HDDlife running all the time? If not you can stop it starting up and just do a manual check on the hard disk once a week.

I have stopped all these programmes from starting at boot up myself with no ill-effects.

[vestan]

Hello again.

I went to switch on my PC yesterday and it refused to boot up, just kept on getting so far through the boot up process, but then would just restart. When I fisrt patitioned the drive and installed XP, I set C: as NTFS and D: as FAT32.

I tried booting from my cd drive abd reinstalling windows but apparently, the format NTFS wasn't recognised so it wouldn't allow me to re-install XP. I had to re-format drive C:, so I formatted it to FAT32.

Does anyone know why it wouldn't be able to recognise the NTFS system and if thats probably what caused the rerason why my PC wouldn't boot up?

I have re-installed XP with sp2 and the machine is now booting up in under 30 secs, great.

I need to know if you guys would advise me to DL all the updates, as I believe DLing all these files caused the slow boot up problems, saying as my machine is neither new nor a top spec machine.

Is there any need for all of the updates, is there any need to DL any if your machine is running fine and your happy with the way it runs?

Thanks for any info. :)

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Keeping your Windows up-to-date will not slow down your machine. In fact, installing SP3 made my Windows remarkably faster. Always keep Windows and other software up-to-date.

P.S. NTFS is the much safer file system than FAT.

[Dencandy]

vestan, if your machine doesn't recognise NTFS something is seriously wrong. What does HDD Health say about the condition of your hard drive? It seems to me you might have to think about replacing it. I hope you are keeping all your important data backed up to external media.

[vestan]

The HD is only about 4 months old, and HDD says thats its in good condition. It must be something I've DL'd thats caused the problem, as I know the drives integrity is fine and that there were no viruses on my PC. I had installed a couple of progs. to allow me to play free on-line games, and some other progs. so I could watch sports, but apart from those everything else was windows updates.

<Keeping your Windows up-to-date will not slow down your machine. In fact, installing SP3 made my Windows remarkably faster. Always keep Windows and other software up-to-date.>

Like I said, the PC was running fine until I started in on all these updates. Praps the fact that my firewall was on whilst I installed these updates was the prob?

Anyway, thanks again. :)

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

As I mentioned earlier, defragmenting your main partition or drive is essential, especially after large number of updates were installed.

[Dencandy]

The HD is only about 4 months old, and HDD says thats its in good condition. It must be something I've DL'd thats caused the problem, as I know the drives integrity is fine and that there were no viruses on my PC. I had installed a couple of progs. to allow me to play free on-line games, and some other progs. so I could watch sports, but apart from those everything else was windows updates.

Like I said, the PC was running fine until I started in on all these updates. Praps the fact that my firewall was on whilst I installed these updates was the prob?

Anyway, thanks again. :)

Personally, I doubt it. With the exception of when I installed SP3, I've never had to disable a firewall while installing Windows updates. On this desktop machine I have every single Windows update & service patch and start-up time is hardly any different now from when I purchased it 3 years ago (about 90 secs). Since you've scanned for malware, etc & your hard disk is only a few months old, I'm sure there's a connection between the fact that your machine doesn't recognise NTFS and the problems you are having. Since HDD Health shows no hard disk problem, my guess is a faulty installation of Windows, especially as you now have boot up problems.

If defragmenting doesn't solve the problem, have you tried a Windows Repair? If that doesn't work, the last option would seem to be a re-installation - otherwise your problems are likely to get worse. Perhaps others would give their views also.

[vestan]

Since I re-installed XP and changed the file system on C: to FAT32, everything seems to be fine. Would there have been a problem partitioning a drive and having one partition as NTFS and the other as FAT32 as I had originally, does anyone know?

Anyway, I'll just back up my current config. and then DL and re-install all the updates again and see what happens this time.

Thanks.

[Dencandy]

Would there have been a problem partitioning a drive and having one partition as NTFS and the other as FAT32 as I had originally, does anyone know?

Anyway, I'll just back up my current config. and then DL and re-install all the updates again and see what happens this time.

Thanks.

I have both NTFS & FAT32 on my laptop machine & have no problems with it, but it came pre-installed (it's part of the Compaq back-up system).

"The Windows NT file system (NTFS) is the best choice if you want optimal hard disk performance since, in most cases,NTFS outperforms both FAT16 and FAT32." So say the authors of a Microsoft book called "Insider Power Techniques for MS Windows XP". That book also says that XP can convert a FAT32 drive/partition to an NTFS one, even if the FAT32 drive contains the Windows system files. However, I'm still of the view that somehow your copy of Windows hasn't installed properly. Good luck.