Why is XP taking so long to reboot?

February 2, 2006 2:28 PM

How can I determine what is causing my computer to take so long booting up?

Ask MeFi has, so far, been great at helping me with computer stuff. So I thought I'd tap this resource one more time.

My computer is about a month old. It's an Athlon FX-57 with 2 gb of ram. At first, it would reboot in maybe 30 seconds. That's just a guess, it could have been less. It was FAST. All of a sudden it is taking an absurdly long time to reboot. It sits on the "Windows XP" logo screen for several minutes. I don't mean I have an impression of it being longer, I mean it is clearly taking ten times as long as it used to, or more.

Apart from that, it appears to be working flawlessly. I'm fairly computer literate and have checked (with multiple applications) for viruses, spyware, hardware problems, and anything I can think of. Ad-aware, spybot, several AV programs, diskeeper to defrag the hard drive, and more.

It really is working flawlessly, and the speed is perfectly normal once I get to the Logon screen. It's just the "Windows XP" boot screen sits there endlessly before moving on. I have tried doing a system restore back a few days and it does the same thing. I'm kind of at a loss because I don't want to reinstall the OS for a variety of reasons, especially considering that it seems to be in perfect working order otherwise.

posted by Justinian to computers & internet (14 comments total)

How long does a safe boot take? Have you stepped through the boot process? Perhaps third-party driver-to-device negotiation is taking awhile.

Depending on your network, perhaps it is taking awhile for your router to give your computer a dynamic address and your computer is timing out.
posted by Rothko at 2:34 PM on February 2, 2006

You need some sort of bootlog. I can't vouch for this one but it's a start. Just do a search for "bootlog" on the intarnet.
posted by JJ86 at 2:40 PM on February 2, 2006

Another thing, once you find out stuff you don't want running, under the start menu, run "msconfig" and get rid of the things that are not needed.
posted by JJ86 at 2:42 PM on February 2, 2006

Try going to the start menu, clicking on "Run" and typing "msconfig" this will bring up a list of programs that are starting when your computer boots up. You can then uncheck programs that you don't really want booting up.

Here's a linky to a tutorial.

My laptop came loaded with McAffee Suite, which I don't like. So I installed my own antivirus (AVG Antivirus free edition) and firewall (ZoneAlarm free edition). I then ran msconfig and turned off all of the McAffee programs that were insisting on starting up along with some other preloaded programs that I didn't like (AOL?!?) and I cut my startup time down significantly.

If you're not sure what it is, play it on the safe side and leave it alone.
posted by jerryg99 at 2:43 PM on February 2, 2006

Most times I've had a stupidly long boot time like that it's been from some poorly set up network connection that it kept trying to connect to when Windows started.

I'd head to Start -> My Network Places -> View network connections and check in there. Or go to your device manager and see if there's anything funny in the network adapters section. Try disabling things and rebooting and see if that speeds you up.
posted by frenetic at 2:53 PM on February 2, 2006

I'll try a third party bootlog and see what shows up.

I've already customized the startup with MSCONFIG and gotten rid of all the crap. I did that right when I got the computer; The weird thing is this horrendous delay in booting started all of a sudden without me doing anything in particular, so far as I can remember. One day it was lightning fast, next day it was taking five minutes to reboot.
posted by Justinian at 2:54 PM on February 2, 2006

Quicktime loading into the system tray doubles my bootup time. I hate quicktime so, so much.
posted by 517 at 3:32 PM on February 2, 2006

Quicktime loading into the system tray doubles my bootup time. I hate quicktime so, so much.

Get rid of it and install Quicktime Alternative.

And replace RealPlayer with RealAlternative.
posted by essexjan at 3:45 PM on February 2, 2006

A lot of the things people are suggesting, like Quicktime, and anything else under the Startup tab in msconfig, aren't going to be the cause of the OPs problem because they all run after the user logs in. He says things are slow to reach the login screen, and normal after that.

XP is supposed to do special optimization of files required at startup. Maybe this mechanism has gone awry.
posted by Good Brain at 5:53 PM on February 2, 2006

Microsoft have released a utility called BootVis - it logs the order and timing of drivers loading during boot-up (and lets you know what they are incase you want to uninstall some), and then optimizes the system so that, for instance, two drivers that don't rely on each other can load at the same time, rather than one having to wait for the other to finished. Something like that. In any case, it got my boot times down from 1 minute to 30 secs. More on how to use it here.
posted by Jimbob at 6:29 PM on February 2, 2006

Regarding BootVis:

About Bootvis.exe
Bootvis.exe is a performance tracing and visualization tool that Microsoft designed to help PC system designers and software developers identify performance issues for boot/resume timing while developing new PC products or supporting software.

Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system.

—Microsoft.com
It's also no longer available through them.

Just sayin'.
posted by disillusioned at 7:04 PM on February 2, 2006

A few things to consider:

• Having a lot of fonts installed tends to slow down boot time dramatically.
  
• Try disabling non-essential device drivers; network cards sometimes hang while waiting for an IP address from a DHCP server.
  
• I second the BootVis suggestion; if there's a driver loading problem, it'll help single out what's going on. While it's no longer on Microsoft, it is on MajorGeeks.
  
• Turn off excessive services. TweakXP has a rather good list.
  

While that may not solve the actual problem, it'll at least get you at a running start.
posted by Hot Like Your 12V Wire at 8:53 PM on February 2, 2006

Yes; Things are bog-slow to reach the login screen and normal after that.

I am now trying BootVis. Not to optomize but to see how long it takes each driver to load, since if it is hanging on one driver I can pinpoint the problem. Crossing my fingers.
posted by Justinian at 9:10 PM on February 2, 2006

I'm having a similiar problem. Just out of curiosity, what's type of hard drive and motherboard chipset are you using?
posted by Gamblor at 10:43 AM on February 3, 2006