www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

This might be directed to Dave M, as he seems to know all the answers. I am running a 5 year old desk top with Windows XP 3, My problem is that it can take up to 20 mins to load up windows and sometimes just as long to shut down. I have run Crap Cleaner and done all the Microsoft clean ups to no avail. Any suggestions other than getting a new computor ?

Kind Regards to whoever might answer

Dave F

defrag,
check what's running (Unnecessarily) at start up..

-- Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:18 pm --

2nd post down in this thread...start-menu-t29286.html

There's loads of stuff on your problem if you look through the forum since Christmas.

I expect a few of the computer guys will be on later.

I'm no expert but my mate gave me this tip a while back,it works wonders
Click on the start button,then click on run,type msconfig in the box there you will find a start up tab,click the tab then click disable all then restart your pc
this will stop everything except what your pc needs to start up

Sometimes the easiest way is to simply reformat the HDD.

Can be done in 15-45mins - a lot less time than trying to find the cause.

Cannyfixit - don't remove everything listed in msconfig. Your anti-virus will be listed there so you'll have no protection.

Kellys Eye - it takes nearer 45 minutes to do it properly, but it's not the answer to everything and there's usually a lot of data to be backed up and inevitably the user will have installed programs they can no longer find the disks for (usually Office) and it takes hours to get it back to how it was before.

It's also a waste of time reinstaslling Windows if there are more serious underlying problems like a failing hard drive.

Shankalamb, do you know what brand the hard drive is? Can you take the side off the case to look?

Well dude I think your computers RAM is very low , i think might be less than 512mb
And running new applications these days can obviously put your computer slow, i suggest you to buy a new comp and go for a configuration.

Agree with increasing the ram did that on my 6yr old pc also running XP only went from 512 to 2gb but a massive difference in performance
also look for a useful programme called "start up mechanic" which list all your start up progs and also gives you information about each one ie wether you really need them or not!

Good luck
Dave

Make sure that you do not have more than one anti virus running.Such as AVG and Norton or microsoft essentials as they will conflict and cause freezing and slow start ups and closing down.You can only run one. Avg has been know to try to re initialise itself if you do not delete all traces.