PC very slow to start - I've run out of ideas!

[Julianne]

Ever since I got my PC it's taken ages to load to the desktop. My work PC is half the spec, yet it takes just seconds to load. My mother's PC is almost identical in spec to mine yet hers takes around 12 seconds to get to get to the desktop - mine takes about 3 1/2 minutes!

Here's my spec:

Fujitsu-Siemens PC
Pentium 4 3.06ghz hyperthreading processor
1gb ram
1 x 120gb hard drive
1 x 160gb hard drive
256mb graphics card (this is new, the PC was just as bad with the old one)
500w power supply

Not only does my PC take an absolute age to start but it's quite unresponsive in general and very noisy in comparison to my mother's Dell which is almost silent. To try and get the PC to load in a reasonable time I've:

*Disabled a load of services (services.msc)
*Disabled almost everything starting in the background (msconfig) - I even disabled absolutely everything, but there was no difference in start-up time
*Reduced the time to display list of operating systems/recovery options (unnecessary, seeing as I only have XP Pro anyway)
*Done a full virus scan
*Run Ad-Aware, CCleaner and SpyBot
*Defragged both hard drives
*Run a health check on both hard drives
*Enabled/disabled the hyperthreading in the BIOS

I've run out of ideas now. Before I end up chucking the thing and buying a Dell, is there anything else I could try?

Many thanks.

Ice hockey nostalgia at:

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Aussie2]

Had the same problem that you are having tried many of the above options changed my drive reinstaled windows which made no differance two days latter my primary ide controler failed changed drive to secondary controler system now loads in seconds.
Maybe you could be lucky and have a bad ide cable as Grenage has suggested

 

[BadFrog]

Please pardon me if it's been mentioned. Have you checked the event log? It sounds like your system is looking for something that is no longer where it thinks it should be. If so the event log will usually have some info in it to point you to the culprit. May be a bit late now after all the other stuff you've done but worth a look anyways.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein