Takes too long to boot up

Kirei Blossom

Posts: 172   +1
Hello,

I have a laptop running Windows Vista home basic. It's only a year old, and suddenly it's taking a really long time to boot up. Like it takes around 40 seconds on the Welcome screen, and then a black screen comes up with the cursor and that stays around for a minute before I can get to the desktop.

I've ran CCleaner, and tried to find what's causing it, but don't have any idea. I don't have a lot of software/apps or anything in general which could cause this.

There's nothing in the minidumps either. Please help.

When I first noticed the problem yesterday, I tried to run Ad - Aware, and that took so so long even to load and update, so I uninstalled it. Then I tried doing a system restore. When I click on 'System Restore' in the Start Menu, it took a minute for the window to pop up. Nothing fixed after the Restore, and even now if I click on System Restore it doesn't appear till a couple of minutes.

I also received a message saying: "Microsoft Windows Search Indexer stopped working and was closed." Help.
 
That type of problem (which might be due to any number of things) can be a challenge to track down. And only made worse if you can't even install and run the tools needed to track it down because things are so slow :(

I'd suggest you try booting into SAFE mode. If the problem still occurs when booting into Safe mode i think your best option at that point is a backup and then a clean reinstall. If it's OK booting into Safe mode, you can try troubleshooting using msconfig

/* edit */

One other option, you might see if you can use your Vista install CD do to a "repair" vs. a full reinstall if that might also help (if you should want to avoid a reinstall). A "repair" would only if help if this might be a Windows issue
 
It's booting okay in safe mode.

Aren't there any options to troubleshoot other than doing a reinstall? Mostly the people on this forum ask for a variety of diagnostic results - wouldn't none of those work this time? Like isn't there anything in Event Viewer or HijackThis or.. well you guys are the experts. :)
 
disconnect from your modem or router and then boot; any change?

how many programs are started when you login?
look in \Users\yourLogin\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
also look in the All Users for the same tree

anything in these directories will be launched when you login; the more you have, the more work to be done.

Lastly, many applications have an AutoUpdate feature; guess what? they all start at boot time and try to find updates. Personally, running from a laptop, I much prefer to be responsible for myself and run updates when I chose. To solve this we need Spybot Search & Destroy - - but let's see how far we can get before we approach AutoUpdates.
 
Aren't there any options to troubleshoot other than doing a reinstall?

Yes :) But my point earlier being that if you couldn't get it to boost decent in SAFE mode THEN you're best bet was a reinstall. However, since you say Safe Mode boot works OK it presents you with other options

you can start with the options jobeard mentions in prior post
 
Okay, I switched off my wireless router and turned off the ability for the laptop to receive internet and bluetooth signals. Did a restart - the same lag of a minute came before the desktop.

I looked in minidumps, nothing there. I looked in Event Viewer, and there are a few System errors from today and yesterday:

The Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service service hung on starting.

Unable to initialize the security package Kerberos for server side authentication. The data field contains the error number.

And this next one is strange: It shows my brother's laptop name on here... We have one wireless router and both my laptop and his connect at the same time using it. This showed up from yesterday:

"The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer [*My Brother's laptop name*] that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport NetBT_Tcpip_{D3ED3A64-AD7A-4C5F-A219-8854D22A72E8}. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced.

What does it all mean?
 
"The master browser has received a server announcement from the computer [*My Brother's laptop name*] that believes that it is the master browser for the domain on transport NetBT_Tcpip_{D3ED3A64-AD7A-4C5F-A219-8854D22A72E8}. The master browser is stopping or an election is being forced
.
Don't worry about that. It may happen on occasion typically after another computer is turned on / rejoins your LAN.

As to other network related events, just reinstall the drivers for now.

Other then that would suggest you look at
> Optimize Windows Vista for better performance
> How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
> Also look at your startup programs (reduce what you don't need) How to remove unwanted Startup Programs in Windows Vista?
 
correct; every system that attaches to your router can compete for being the "Master Browser" - -
Windows needs one on the subnet (ie on your LAN).

Mac OS X and even Linux compete - - now isn't that a hoot!

There is a technique to insure that the system that's running most frequently Wins,
but the polling still occurs; fuss with that later.

Did you delete all existing network shares mapped by this system to other machines on your lan? this frequently delays accessing the desktop.
 
"Did you delete all existing network shares mapped by this system to other machines on your lan? this frequently delays accessing the desktop. "

Please let me know how to do this.

Also, how do I reinstall the drivers? I went to the Dell website and typed in my service tag, and it gave me a list of drivers. On there, I see a WLAN 1347 minicard driver, but its dated June last year, and I got my laptop in September, and when I tried to do "update driver software" from device manager it said "the best driver is already installed on your machine."

You guys will have to walk me through what to do, as I'm quite technologically challenged.
 
"Did you delete all existing network shares mapped by this system to other machines on your lan? this frequently delays accessing the desktop. "

If there are any, you can see them by opening My Computer. You get a list of
Drive letter assignments C: D: ... Z:

For a Network Drive, it will say 'xxx on 'system' (x: )
right-click on it to get the menu and close to the bottom, select Disconnect.
 
The Dell Wireless WLAN Tray Service service hung on starting.

If this error message continues to reappear, this is how to reinstall the wireless stuff from Dell
> Look in Ctl Panel->Programs and Features
> I'm going to guess you'll find an entry in there for Dell Wireless LAN (or some similiar name)
> And then you'll need to Uninstalll it from Programs and Features (uninstalling from Programs and Features will also install the driver you see in Device Manager)
> Then download the driver package from Dell and install it

Note you'll probably need to reset your WLAN info again to reconnect (like network ID and password again)
 
jobeard - All I have is the C: drive (harddrive), D: drive (recovery) and E: DVD RW drive. Nothing else

LookinAround - I will do the steps you mentioned and let you know the progress.
 
Update - the startup lag problem is fixed!! I reinstalled the Dell WLAN drivers, and it seems to have fixed that pesky problem.

There is one other thing that I was hoping would go away but didn't. It's taking a long time for system things to come up. For example, when I click on "System Restore", takes about a minute for the window to pop up. I right clicked on My Computer and clicked Manage, took 15 seconds.

I noticed this in the Resource Monitor - sometimes the Disk was running at 98%, 99% or 100% Highest Active Time, even when I wasn't doing anything. Is this normal?? Please help me streamline my laptop, because today my brother's laptop's harddisk died, and Dell is not responding to any troubleshoot calls (thats another story), and I don't want the same thing to happen to me.

I've also disabled unneeded Startup programs (quicktime, adobe reader, adobe flash, etc)
 
1) I'd also keep any eye on % Used Physical Memory when you see Disk Activity is high. At some point, if mem usage is high, Vista will increase it disk read/writes to the pagefile (the pagefile is a Vista system file stored on disk). (This may or may not be part of your problem. just an fyi about pagefiles)

2) Also take a look at How To Identify Disk Activity And Bottlenecks In Windows Vista to help track things down
 
Thanks. Right now, the Disk activity is 0%, but my CPU is at 57, and Memory at 46. Is this normal??

I'll see what causes the Disk activity to be so high, and then is it okay if I post about it in this same thread?
 
I noticed my laptop making a sound as if it were processing something, and I opened up Resource Monitor. The disk was going at 100%, and CPU was around 90%. I checked the CPU, and the highest portion was allotted to svchost. And in the Disk, the resource was highest for some microsoft office WORD.OLB file. And then, next in line, I noticed that a video file in my own folders was listed under the Disk. Why would that be listed there when I wasn't watching any video or had quicktime open?? A few seconds later though the processing sound stopped, and the disk returned to running at 0%. Is this strange?
 
On the one hand, i don't know what WORD.OLB file is or particulars of what you saw, but in general, doesn't sound like anything worth investigating
> Spikes of 100% CPU are normal either when starting up programs
> As well as may occur time-to-time.

Unless you have an extended period of time with 100% CPU usage or you see CPU spikes that seem to happen/repeat often or regularly due some unknown software, i wouldn't worry about it.
 
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