Slow Startup/Shutdown and Slow Application Load Times

I have an HP machine that is about 6 years old, but which has had many
upgrades over the years. It is currently running 1gig of memory, two hard
drives with plenty of available space remaining and a 1.2ghz Intel processor.

I plan to upgrade very soon, but I need this one to run decently in the
meantime.

The computer is left on all the time and rebooted at least once weekly.
Over the past year or so, the boot time has increased to around 5 minutes.
Additionally, in the last couple of days I have noticed a significant delay
in the load time of all applications. Once they load, they perform fine for
the most part, but any heavy processing that takes place within a given
program takes longer. I can hear the processor crunching away a *LOT* more
than it should given the task at hand.

I ran Spyware Doctor last night and all it found was tracking cookies. I
removed all those and things are still slow. I'm guessing that I probably
need to run Spyware Doctor and Adaware as well. I run an up-to-date Symantec
anti-virus program.

Are there any other suggestions? Should I look at what's running in my task
manager? I don't recall the exact number, but I seem to recall that there
were *many* things running -- at least 56 and very likely more than that.

Rob

Any recent Norton Anti-Virus is too much for a computer of your
vintage. Go for a freeware anti-virus such as AVG 7.5 as this will
place far less demands on the system. Most anti-virus programmes scan
as soon as the desktop appears. If you have Norton Internet this makes
the situation far worse..

An out of date BIOS and third party drivers needing updating can often
affect boot up times but should not impact on the time after the
desktop appears.

Look for any Error or Warning Reports in the System or Application
logs in Event Viewer and post copies.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you
should double click for further information. You can copy using copy
and paste. Often the link will, however, say there is no further
information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event Viewer.
Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of the
message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from Event
Viewer.

For the slow shutdown download and install the User Profile Hive
Cleanup Service
Download details: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
http://snipurl.com/5b61

UPHClean v1.5e readme.txt
http://snipurl.com/ko8m


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Rob wrote:
> I have an HP machine that is about 6 years old, but which has had
> many upgrades over the years. It is currently running 1gig of
> memory, two hard drives with plenty of available space remaining
> and a 1.2ghz Intel processor.
>
> I plan to upgrade very soon, but I need this one to run decently
> in the meantime.
>
> The computer is left on all the time and rebooted at least once
> weekly.
> Over the past year or so, the boot time has increased to around 5
> minutes. Additionally, in the last couple of days I have noticed
> a significant delay in the load time of all applications. Once
> they load, they perform fine for the most part, but any heavy
> processing that takes place within a given program takes longer.
> I can hear the processor crunching away a *LOT* more than it
> should given the task at hand.
>
> I ran Spyware Doctor last night and all it found was tracking
> cookies. I removed all those and things are still slow. I'm
> guessing that I probably need to run Spyware Doctor and Adaware
> as well. I run an up-to-date Symantec anti-virus program.
>
> Are there any other suggestions? Should I look at what's running
> in my task manager? I don't recall the exact number, but I seem
> to recall that there were *many* things running -- at least 56
> and very likely more than that.