My windows XP starts-up very slow, its takes bout 10mins before I can eventually put it to use.
Is this normal after 4 years use? I've ran all types of malware and virus checks and the system is clean.
I do run norton 360, so thats perhaps one reason for the slow start.
Other apps run on startup: Skype.

Do i really need to re-install?

All suggestions welcome
thx

hello,
have you tried to do defragmentation? it could be that your files are defragmented so much as to slow down your computer or the hdd is just wearing out. i know of a good defragmentation utility that is free. please download it from here www.kessels.nl/JkDefrag/index.html . i hope it helps.

hi kardzz, i suggest while you can still access to your hard drive back-up all your precious data...it might be a hard drive going to end of life (EOL)..try C-Tech suggestion but back-up all your data first then do defrag...

I have just about the same computer with the same problem I didn't back up my data but its probably a good idea to do so. Then just go into Control Panel find Performance and Maintenance and that's were you can defrag and change a number of things to speed things up also look in old folders and files for thing you don't need just taking up space

You can go into regedit (google this for the details) and disable the pre-fetch of DLLs. They will then be loaded as eeded not as cahced and learned over 4 years.

Or double your RAM. We don't know your kit so this is all guesswork for your case.

Run CCLeaner and ATF cleaner
Then defrag

Thank you all for your reply. I defrag my drive regularly on a schedule, so I put it down to an old drive, its only 70gb and has a small amount of cache.
I think I'll upgrade to a larger drive with bigger cache.

*CPU AMD 5000 X2, Ram 3gb. {70gb (c), 40gb (d), 500gb (each m and n)}

If the boot drive is a slow drive (seek time and rpm), then boot time will elongate but IMHO not so as you'd alarmingly notice - you'd notice though.

As you've got 3GB RAM, no need to increase memory.

So it's down to what you're loading. Did you tru reducing the pre-fetch list?

just for the purpose of seeing what you got running at start up ,why not get hijackthis and scan and post the log

Hey I'm having a slow startup problem myself..It takes like 15 mins 4 the windows to start after the welcome message.. it wasnt always like this untill I recetly installed DSL.. but i dnt think that the DSl is the problem.. my computer also displays low virtual memory warnings.. i checked it out and after firefox there's this SVCHOST.EXE under the username SYSTEM which takes 18, 900 K of virtual memory and there are 5 other SVCHOST.exe image names coming up but taking less space than the above & under the usernames Network service, local service and system .. i checked it out on the net.. and it seems to be harmful but i'm not sure what to do about it...?? any suggestions?