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XP Home - Suddenly Very Slow Boot 2

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royalmail

royalmail

IS-IT--Management
Jan 16, 2002
283
US
I bought a brand new DELL Dimension 2400 (I think) about 7 months ago, and all has been well apart from about 3 freezes. It used to boot up to the log on screen in about 30 seconds or so - let's just say fairly fast.

About 2 weeks ago it suddenly started to take over 2 minutes to boot, and has done ever since. I ran the boot management tool that Microsoft provides, and reorganised boot files to speed things up, but this only made very minor improvements - it is still a dog. Not only that, after the XP splash screen it sits there with a black, blank screen for what feels like ages.

I read that network cards can be an issue, so I deleted it from XP and let it reinstall it, but no difference.

The only software I have on there that changes frequently is Norton Internet Security 2003.

Any ideas? Why the sudden, dramatic change? After logging on, it works as usual with no performance issues.
 
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To remove a scan from startup

1 In the left pane, double-click Startup Scans, and then right-click the scan you want to remove from startup.
2 Press Delete, or select Edit | Delete.

this should turn off a start up scan if that is the problem.

 
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Thanks for all the links.

Looks like the groups.google.com is the most relevant, but there is no solution there - just someone with a similar issue. Fortunately my PC doesn't sit at the black screen for 8 minutes. I think the 1 minute mark is closer.

I will run a chkdsk but I don't think this is a disk issue and all normal operations other than the boot are fine.

Other than that I am going to tweak msconfig and see if I can't narrow it right down, although I am starting to think that it may just be registry corruption somewhere.
 
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I just put the Google one in to make you feel better.

I was also thinking something along the lines that if you boot up with a "new date", stop the machine at the logon screen, when it finally gets there. Reboot and go into the bios and TEMPORARILY change the date to "new date" + 1 and and reboot as per normal. Then you can use Search to find out what files are being written (if any) to your hard drive on the "new date".

I wasn't going to post that either but I thought you could do with a laugh.
 
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I just put the Google one in to make you feel better.

Thanks. I was starting to wonder if maybe I was going crazy :)

I wasn't going to post that either but I thought you could do with a laugh.

It raised a smile. Might not be a bad idea though. I will give it a try if the msconfig efforts fail.

 
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Hi,

I'm facing a similar problem: Boot up is suddenly slower. However, I feel that my system is also slower after logon.

I found a hint in another forum and will try it tonight. That software cleans up the registry and it helped someone else. It may interest you as well. Use the deep clean option.

(reg supreme 1.1)

Cheers and good luck.

PS: It's a shareware with a 30-day trial. If it helps, rewarding the author is a good idea :eek:)
 
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The registry repair tool didn't change matters, even though I fixed all problems at each of the 3 scan levels. It found a lot of errors, but none were the cause of the boot problem.

Messing around with MSconfig didn't help much either, but I did create an ntbtlog.txt after a boot, and found some things that may be unusual:

I have edited out all of the 'loaded driver' entries..

Service Pack 1 6 3 2004 21:39:50.500

Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\lbrtfdc.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\sfloppy.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Changer.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Cdaudio.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\serial.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\p3.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\PCIDump.SYS
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\afd.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\rdbss.sys
Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb.sys

Anyone know of anything I can/should fix here?
 
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My wife called me yesterday at work and reported that our XP Pro computer shutdown with no warning. I told her to leave it alone till I got home. When I powered it up last night, it booted, but VERY SLOWLY. I didn't get a chance to troubleshoot it last night, but will do so tonight, and let you know what I find.
 
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Hello,

I have a question about Windows XP Home Edition SP1. I had to reinstall it a couple of times because the system froze during the boot up process. As soon as it tries to load windows, I receive an error that it has stopped due to an error. It then gives me the optionn menu, the same one when you press F8, Boot Normally, Safe Mode, etc. However, when I tried to use any of these options, the option is highlighted and it simply freezes up. Even if I don't select anything and let it count down and then it selects the highlighted option, it still freezes.

The only thing I did was add more memory, from 128MB to 256MB. The system was working fine when this was added in that it recognized it DDR RAM. The performance did improve.

Currently, I reinstalled Windows XP Home in another directory and it boots up fine for now. But does anyone know why this occurred? Although, it works now, I would like to know what I should be looking for so that this will not happen again. Also, how do I remove the other windows installation?

Thank
KJ
 
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Hello,

I made a mistake in the last message. I was ment to be a new thread rather than a reply.

Sorry about that.

KJ
 
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I always do the other steps, defrag, clean out temp files, etc, but I only stop processes as a last resort.

I did the following and it boots faster now.
Start
Run
%temp% (type this in the window)
This brings up your local user's folder with all tmp files in it. There may be some hidden files. Mine was shown in
C:\DOCUME~1\NC66E~1.JAC\LOCALS~1\Temp

Just do this to remove these files
Hold down the Control key and press "A" (selects all files)
Hold down Shift key and press delete key (bypasses the recycle bin) or just press delete if you want them to go to the recycle bin

I hope this helps. I know some will probably give some negative responses but it worked for me.
 
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kjspear,

This thread will help you remove your extra Windows installation.

2 copies of windows XP installed on my system
thread779-846333

Before you delete anything in the soon to be removed installation, if you browse to OLD C:\WINDOWS\system32\config and then locate the SysEvent.evt file (with your current Event Viewer using your new installation of Windows, you have to right-click on the folder labelled Event Viewer to get the browse option). You should be able to read that file with your current Event Viewer. You can repeat this for AppEvent.evt too. That might help you answer the why. When you know that you might even be able to fix the original problem.




 
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You can't read too much into drivers not loading. For what it is worth some systems I checked here didn't load those same drivers. It would depend on your system configuration as to what drivers load or don't load.

833721 - Available switch options for the Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 Boot.ini files

127970 - Load Failures Listed in the Bootlog.txt File



Some other considerations.

831426 - Chkdsk.exe or Autochk.exe starts when you try to shut down or restart your computer

275735 - Ntbtlog.txt File Not Written When Boot Logging Is Enabled

The registry entries used by Autochk to determine which volumes get checked at boot time are:
Hkey_local_machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\ BootExecute:REG_MULTI_SZ: autocheck autochk *


chkdsk
thread779-747277


SFC Scan at Startup.

222473 - Registry Settings for Windows File Protection



The booting process.


Also see this one.
 
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Nelljack - you get a star! Running the following improved things a lot. Still not like it was originally, but much better.

I did the following and it boots faster now.
Start
Run
%temp% (type this in the window)
This brings up your local user's folder with all tmp files in it. There may be some hidden files. Mine was shown in
C:\DOCUME~1\NC66E~1.JAC\LOCALS~1\Temp

Linney also gets a star for a constant supply of suggestions.
 
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Problem has returned. That fix only worked for one, maybe two reboots.

Temp folders are completely empty now but problem persists...
 
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Thanks, but the only USB device attached is a USB2 connection for a digital camera. I have also tried removing that and it makes no difference.

I am now almost 100% convinced this is a flaw in the OS, and that a clean install is the only thing that is going to fix this.
 
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Before you try that lose everything Norton for a couple of boots. Thoroughly remove it including any registry remnants and add-ons.

But, yes, a reformat and re-install may be your only salvation.
 
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