Computer slow to boot. I have reinstalled?

Given that you reinstalled and you still have this problem, I suspect that it is one of two things:

1) Your hard disk is faulty or failing.

Run Scandisk to check this: Open "My Computer" and right click on your main partition (listed as a "Local Drive"). If you have more than one, it's probably "C:". Select "Properties" at the bottom of the menu. When the disk properties dialog appears, click on the "Tools" tab. Click the "Check Now" button in the "Error Checking" section near the top. Scandisk will appear. Tick the two boxes near the top and then click start. It will prompt you that it needs to run when your computer next restarts. Click OK. Scandisk will disappear. Click OK again on the properties dialog, and then reboot your PC. Scandisk will run during the booting process and may take a while - if it finds errors, you may want to back up your data (if you haven't already), and get it checked by an IT support company/person, although not all errors mean the disk is bad - some are just logical errors, for instance left over files if the PC wasn't shut down properly.

2) The other potential reason is that a setting in your BIOS (usually accessible by pressing Delete on bootup) is telling the machine to not run at full speed. You should consult your machine or motherboard's manual - if you aren't sure about changing anything, you should seek help from someone knowledgeable in IT as it is possible to make your machine unusable if you set a wrong setting in the BIOS.

hi neil

most computers get slower to boot but 20 minutes must be a record!

i would recommend a reinstall of windows but as you have allready done this then i reckon you have a serious hardware issue somewhere in your p.c

my guess is its either your hard drive or memory,or it could even be you need a bios update,but even with a old bios this boot up time is still much too long

also certain bios settings can be ran during boot up such as passwords and hardware configuration,but again 20 minutes is still too long

checks:if you have 2 memory modules then take one out(allways make sure there is one in the "dimm 1" slot),and try each memory module during a start up,for example if you have 3 memory modules then try one at a time,dont worry if you are only using 256mb,even a p.c with just 256mb running windows should only take a minute to load windows

then when you get a 20 minute(or very slow) start up then put that memory module to the side and check the next

the aim of this is to locate the memory module thats causing the slow start up(if it is !)

next is your hard drive,although we cant run any tests with the drive(unless you can get hold of another hard drive and install windows on it) then the only test you can do is to listen for drive faults

does the drive make a grinding or whirring sound,or worse still does the hard drive click,whirring is ok and so is the odd bit of grinding but clicking is a sign of your drive failing and this would also indicate the reason for the slow start up times

theres a utility called "seatools" avalible from http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads... is used by booting from a floppy disk and it runs various tests on your hard drive to check its condition and usability,if theres any bad sectors then it will mark these unusable and disable these

i had a so called "unworkable" 120gb seagate pata hard drive and after running seatools it worked fine and has since been installed in a p.c of mine

also try booting up in "safe mode",if your p.c boots up in a normal time then this will indicate a driver issue(as safe mode doesnt load any drivers)

if it loads safe mode in a decent time then your task is then to locate the driver thats causing the slow start up,and its a good chance its either the audio or video driver,so a updated(or even a older if needed) driver should sort the problem

you will be suprised how many times a problem is caused by a driver,sometimes invaild drivers may work on your p.c but it causes other problems that only surface a few months later

try these and let me know if you need any further advice

good luck mate !

Did you install the SATA drivers during the OS installation? An SATA hard drive will boot and run configured as IDE but will run very slow like you are seeing. An Sata drive without drivers will make the computer go into a reboot loop if its configured as AHCI(SATA) in the bios. If your rigs been running slow ever since you reinstalled the OS then it probably wasn't installed right. If it ran fine when you first installed the OS then you may have picked up a bug, especially if you went online before you put the anti-virus software back in. Should see SATA controller under "Storage controller" in the device manager. Can also go into bios and see what the hard drive is configured as. Ifs its set at IDE and you configure it as AHCI and it does a reboot when starting up you need to put SATA drivers in.

Hey,

You can download for free Ccleaner here http://j.mp/UrAzbX

Ccleaner is the best solution if you want to remove from your laptop dangerous files in a fast and easy way.

Computers can get slower due to programs running in the background.

They get worse over time, you need to stop all those things loading in the background.

Start, run "msconfig"

Go to startup and un-check as many of the processes as you can. (you only really need your anti-virus/security software running at startup)

Be brave as you can always re-check any that cause things to stop working.

You will be surprised how many useless programs are started by software you have installed.

do an advanced re-install not a fix re-install, we had the same problem and that is what fixed it. we took a lot of background programs we weren't really using off as well, and stuck a lot of info on another hard drive's memory. our computer about normal now. keep up with updates too as these help rid your computer of program glitches. hope this helps.

Too less information to guess.

What is your system specifications.

Did you install some memory reisdent program recently which is slowing down the startup process.

Give more details so that we may be able to help you.

Check the memory chips - you may have one that's gone bad or needs to be re-seated.

Reinstall using FULL format; not quick. You prolly got a bunch of crap hanging around ur HD

How much stuff do you have to load on start up If you have alot of things this makes it much slower