Member Avatar for kardzzz

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

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

Dani AI

Generated

Given the hardware notes from (AMD 5000 X2, 3GB RAM, 70GB boot volume) and the thread suggestions from others, the next step is measurement rather than guessing. With 3GB of RAM the system is unlikely to be memory-starved at boot; long waits are most often caused by a slow/failed driver, a service that times out, or disk I/O problems. Since defragmentation has already been tried (see ) and the OP sees the long delay even after scheduled maintenance, focus on isolating where the boot stalls.

A practical diagnostic path that has not yet been described in detail here:

  • Compare normal boot time with Safe Mode to see if drivers/services are the issue.
  • Enable boot logging (run msconfig, Boot tab → Boot log) and inspect C:\Windows\ntbtlog.txt to find drivers that fail or hang.
  • Check the System log in Event Viewer for Service Control Manager errors/timeouts (timestamps identify which services delay startup).
  • Perform a clean-boot with msconfig (disable non-Microsoft services and startup items), then re-enable items in small groups to isolate the culprit.
  • Map heavy svchost.exe instances to their hosted services using tasklist /svc or Process Explorer (more precise than guessing). This complements 's HijackThis idea by using safer, modern tools.

Useful commands to run (from an elevated prompt):

msconfig
tasklist /svc
sfc /scannow
chkdsk /r

Also check disk health with SMART/manufacturer diagnostics before assuming the worst. If SMART attributes or chkdsk reveal reallocated/pending sectors, the drive is a likely cause and should be replaced. As noted about prefetch, registry tweaks are risky: prefetch normally helps, so avoid blanket disabling — diagnose first. Document every change and ensure a recent backup or restore point exists before modifying services or the registry.

When logs identify a single problematic driver or service, update or set it to manual. If diagnostics point to failing disk I/O, plan for replacement and image migration rather than a blind reinstall.

Recommended Answers

All 12 Replies

Member Avatar for c-tech

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 . i hope it helps.

Member Avatar for cguan_77

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...

Member Avatar for comp-noob

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

Member Avatar for Suspishio

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.

Member Avatar for jbennet

Run CCLeaner and ATF cleaner
Then defrag

Member Avatar for kardzzz

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)}

Member Avatar for Suspishio

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?

Member Avatar for caperjack

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

Member Avatar for flowerpower_132

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?

Member Avatar for caperjack

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?

hi ,one of the rules of this forum is to not hijack someone elses' post ,please start you own post

Member Avatar for Suspishio

SVCHOST.EXE isn't likely to have been hijacked. But the DLLs being run under SVCHOST may be problematic.

Perhaps you should start a thread in the Virus forum with an accompanying HijackThis log (as described in the sticky post at the top of the forum).

Member Avatar for jbennet

check you have all the updtes
xp sp2 has an issue where svchost eats memory but there were fixes to patch it

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