Slow xp startup

This problem just happend all of a sudden. when i start up my computer i can get all the way to the my wallpaper but from there on there is about a 4 min delay till i can get access to my icons and stuff. There is also a slight delay at the initial welcome screen. I'm scanned for viruses and got rid of any spyware detected. I have plenty of stoarge room and plenty of free physical storage... Any suggestions?

go into startup in msconfig, turn things off one at a time and restart the machine until it comes up normally. that should tell you what's bogging you down. leave the last thing you disabled off, turn the rest back on, then figure out what the offender is and if you really need it.

So do you think some malware got into my computer? cuz this literally happend today and i haven't really done much. just school stuff. I'm hoping it is this and not a hardware problem because my soundmax comes up disabled now. i apperciate your response

You didn't mention the disabled hardware in your opening post...it may well be a driver issue. Does hardware manager give any clue why it's disabled?

When i drag the mouse pointer over the tray icon it reads "no soundmax audio present" the device manager just read that it is disabled


(Update) soundmax started up on this reboot... i just have the delay.