Slow start-up and performance

[M-A-G]

My laptop's been in my possession since February of this year and it has been one of the best investments until about maybe 3 or 4 days ago. I noticed that it was starting to take a considerable amount of time (almost 5 minutes) to load up from the second I turn on the power to the moment my Explorer is ready to go. Also I began noticing that when I try opening a program, the CPU devotes almost 100% of its power into opening it thus depriving any other programs from functioning smoothly. I first noticed it when playing music while playing EWR. The music would stutter horribly and skip much like the start-up and sign off jingles. I've checked everything that I'm familiar with when it comes to memory management but I've barely risen above the memory usage that's already in place by the proper Windows files and defragging and disk clean-ups and system restores don't seem to help. Is there something I'm missing? Are there excess background programs I can stop using the Task Manager? And if that's the case, what's the explanation for the slow start-up and shut down? Please help. I'm fearing I'll have to replace this laptop quicker than the old one or do a complete system recovery.

[sadio8]

I suggest getting this program to see what excately is starting up when your computer starts up. You can just disable stuff you do not want to start on startup and see what happens from there:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml


My guess is that many programs are running on startup causing the system to slow down. I'd figure once you disable any programs you do not want to load on startup, then your system should be okay!

[DS]

Check out my "Your Windows Basics" thread and there are some good tips to help improve your start time. It includes turning off services which are completely safe to do if you just follow the recommended service list.

Go to Start > Run > msconfig > Startup > turn off all of the ones you don't want.

That's a good start right there. Also, alt+ctrl+del and see what programs are using the most memory.

[M-A-G]

The problem is none of them are using too much memory if any until I activate a program not running in the background (Internet Explorer, PhotoShop, Paint, even the Start Menu and normal windows). Then the computer devotes like all of its resources to that particular task and everything else gets shunted even Windows itself.

[DS]

Try opening Windows Task Manager and right click on something and go to Set Priority and see what it is set at. It should be set at normal but if it's set ant anything higher then it is using all the resources, or more of them, to work on that program. If that's the case then you probably have a setting changed in the registry somehow and it's screwing you up. But that wouldn't cause a slow start up. Try going to C:\Windows\Prefetch, delete everything, restart twice.

[M-A-G]

Everything's set at Normal except for one called McShield and I'm not allowed access to change its priority. (WTF?) Other than that nothing else is working. I've restarted three times and it's still the same thing.

[M-A-G]

I don't know, guys. Thanks for the help and all but I think as soon as I get my hands on some discs, I'm backing up all my stuff to try a recovery.

[Bad Company]

back it up, reinstall the OS, get the latest drivers, reinstall your apps, restore your data, and call me in the morning.

[M-A-G]

back it up, reinstall the OS, get the latest drivers, reinstall your apps, restore your data, and call me in the morning.

I love it when you talk dirty to me.