XP Home - Suddenly Very Slow Boot 2

[royalmail]

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.

 

[mrscary]

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

Ooof. NIS, or any kind of firewall, if not configured correctly can prevent services from doing what they need to do. Clear the event log and reboot. See if anything is timing out. I would disable NIS and see what happens there.

M.

Hollingside Technologies, Making Technology work for you.

http://www.hollingside.com

 

[royalmail]

Nothing timing out, and the analysis of NIS and NAV reveals no issues.

It is still a dog! Any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

Unplug any non-necessary USB devices and test again.

 

[linney]

Bootvis can be used to diagnose your Boot loading sequence besides just optimizing it. Have a look at the options in Bootvis and use the one that produces a graph of how and when drivers and programs are loading.


WinXP Pro slow bootup
thread779-675714

Very Slow boot when networking

http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/display.asp?id=954

Slow bootup
thread779-832730

Try Safe Mode (Do you have this problem in Safe Mode?) .

Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking.

 

[royalmail]

I disabled the NIC and unplugged all USB devices but it is the same.

For MSCONFIG I unchecked all startup taksks, rebooted, and it is the same.

As for safe mode, it is a lot faster booting in safe mode when compared to normal boot...

No errors or timeouts in Event Viewer.

 

[linney]

Take the hint from Safe Mode and start checking third party drivers which are perhaps causing your problem by loading slowly.

Again I refer you to options in the Bootvis tool which will display in a graph format how long drivers are taking to load.

HOW TO: Verify Unsigned Device Drivers in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/5/14.asp

 

[royalmail]

Sigverif only found 4 unsigned drivers - 3 of which were related to bootvis. The other is omci.sys(?).

Could you give more detail about how to read the bootvis results please - it tells me that various processes are taking a long time, but I know that already. What should a normal boot graph look like? What about average times?

 

[royalmail]

For Driver Delays the major culprit is SYMEVENT.SYS, which has two entries - one taking 29.6 seconds, and a second taking a further 15.4 seconds. SYM being Symantec?

Beyond that qshelf.exe (KSecDD.sys) takes 14.1 seconds, spoolsv.exe (mrxsmb.sys) takes 12.7, and atapi.sys takes 10.7. The rest all take less than 10 seconds.

If you uninstall NIS and reinstall, what happens in regard to the update subscription? Do you have to re-register?

 

[papa1]

Regarding NIS;
In my frequent reinstalls ( I'm a tinkerer ) I would have to register again. However on the good side Symantec then gave me another full year of updates.
papa1

 

[bfralia]

Try defragging the hard drive. I've had several 2K Pro machines that got really slow boots until I defragged. Same thing with XP Pro, if you've had the computer for seven months and haven't defragged, it's probably a mess.

 

[royalmail]

I have defragged, and the disk wasn't too fragmented beforehand either.

This is definitely something caused by a sudden change, and I am almost certain that it is NIS that is the cause. The safe mode boot (without networking) is pretty quick - much quicker than a standard boot. Like I said, for months it was fine with a pretty fast boot, then one day everything suddenly changed, and the boot takes about 3 times as long. In addition, I never used to get a black screen for about 20-30 seconds after the Windows XP Home splash logo.

Can't seem to find any related stuff on the Symantec site. Will probably try uninstalling NIS...

 

[Wishdiak]

royalmail,

You could go into System Restore and look at the restore points from ~2 weeks ago. I'd try to pinpoint the date that things changes and see if any new software/hardware was installed at that point. You could try restoring to a point, say, 3 weeks ago...but that doesn't really help find the culprit.



Wishdiak

http://www.wishdiak.com

 

[linney]

omci.sys" see -

http://xfiles.erin.utoronto.ca/pub/Dell/OpenManage Client Instrumentation/6.1/2000/Guide/comp.htm

On the Driver Delay graph you can right-click and bring up a detailed chart of start and end times and more importantly duration times. The duration time of loading should be well less than 1 second in all instances (that said, I am not familiar with Symantec programs). What sort of duration times are you having? If "one taking 29.6 seconds, and a second taking a further 15.4 seconds" applies to duration times then that is a problem.

As to what is Normal, I would say boot up completing before about 30 seconds and drivers and processes by about 40 seconds.

 

[royalmail]

If "one taking 29.6 seconds, and a second taking a further 15.4 seconds" applies to duration times then that is a problem.

That is exactly what is happening. Thing is, SYMEVENT.SYS is listed in the table hundreds of times, and on two of those entries it is taking 29.6 and 15.4 for duration.

In addition - it isn't NIS 2003. I wasted a lot of time uninstalling this, and it made no difference.

Maybe I will do a repair install...

 

[UKYoyo]

Try downloading HijackThis. It will list all those programs which run at boot-up and those which remain running.

You can then delete those you dont need, or which should not be running (eg spyware). Hope this help, it did me!

David

 

[linney]

Part of the reason your virus program is listed so often might be because it is checking everything that is loaded or executed and Bootvis picks this up as other things load.

Do you have any software like PGP loaded?

Hanging Services (services that are listed as Starting as opposed to Started are something to look out for).

Whenever you start removing Symantec, to do it thoroughly this link is handy to have.

http://service4.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nsw.nsf/docid/2001101612274407

Errors When Uninstalling Norton AntiVirus Software

http://www.bl.com/moshe/text/quiddities/norton_errors.html

Unable to remove program
thread779-436044

Another quote from the web (some time ago), but it might be relevant to your problem.


"Bascially they think it is some sort of timing issue when Windows loads up and NPF conflicts with some other program.

It's solved basically by changing when NIS loads up by moving it from the registry into the startup folder. The problem is explained in detail here:"

http://service4.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2000040412261536?OpenDocument

 

[royalmail]

No PGP installed and no hanging services.

A couple of services that are started when they are set to manual, but I don't think that is uncommon.

I changed the NIS settings so that it started from the Startup folder but it made no difference.

I then repaired XP Home and the first boot after the repair was pretty much fine, then subsequent boots were back to their normal, incredibly slow self.

I tried updating the BIOS (Dimension 2400C) from A03 to A06 but again it didn't make a scrap of difference.

The thing that bugs me is the completely black screen after the XP logo and before the logon screen - it sits there for about 30 seconds with no display, no mouse pointer or anything. The enitre time the HDD LED is on constantly. I am starting to think that it is writing data to the HDD at this point rather than reading it.

Anyone else got any ideas - I am close to losing hope and I don't want to do a fresh install simply becuase the boot is slow.

 

[MagnusC]

Can you hear the hard drive hanging?, is the hard drive making any struggling sounds when you boot?, also disable nortons boot scan if you have not already done so.
have y ou had this problem booting into safe mode?

 

[royalmail]

This isn't a technical problem with the HDD. I also tried turning HDD accoustics to 'performance' in the BIOS but it didn't speed things up, just made the drive noisier

Can you remind me where the Norton boot scan settings are please. Either way, I have almost ruled Norton out as the cause because I uninstalled it and still had the problem.

As for safe mode, no, it is much, much faster booting into safe mode..