Windows takes forever to load.

A

Acaid

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 22, 2005
Messages
83
My computer loads excruciatingly slow following the Windows splash screen. It goes black for a while, then hangs on the blue welcome screen for a while, then shows nothing but my wallpaper for a while before finally loading. Once in Windows accessing My Computer takes forever: it seems to be searching for drives. Opening iTunes also takes forever. Everything else is fine.

I am clueless. I initially thought my HD was on the way out and purchased a brand new one, but the issue persists no matter which I boot from. I think the issue began when I started using an iPod with this computer. Don't know if that makes sense.

Help!

Let me know if this is the incorrect forum. Thanks.
 
Did you do a fresh install of windows on the new drive, or just clone the old install.

The first thing I do when I suspect a hard drive issue is to go to the manufacturers web site in the support area, download their diagnostic utility (DOS version, preferably on CD) and run the long/complete test on the drive. If it gets through that with no problems, chances are it is not your drive.

Don
 
I did do a fresh install. Same prob. It happens no matter which I boot from.

If not HD, what?
 
Well, if it is doing it with 2 different drives with fresh installs of windows, then it is prolly not the drives. Did you try a different cable with the second drive?

Uhm, could be a memory problem. If you have 2 sticks, try it with just one, then swap them out and try with the other one to see if there are any differences. You can also find Memtest86 on the net and run that.

Try resetting your bios back to the default settings. Make sure you have the latest bios available for your mobo.

Anyone else?

Don
 
Do a search for Bootvis and run it to see what is hanging up on boot. May help you troubleshoot what the non-boot issues is too.
 
How much memory do you have and have you tested it? Also, did this problem occur also on a fresh copy (aka nothing plugged in and nothing installed other than the bare os)?
 
Thanks for responses.

Tried running Bootvis without success. It gives me an error.

I have 2GB of RAM. I've tried running on either stick alone and also rearranging them on the MB. Made no difference.

Different SATA cables didn't make a difference.

BIOS is default.

I don't have the ipod in on boot. Plugging an ipod in causes itunes to freeze.

Help help help :(
 
Fairly obvious, but done any virus/malware scans? Maybe you can post your processes list and we can scan through that.
 
I have Bitdefender 09 & Ad-Aware. Clean according to them.

Here's my process list:

firefox
ad-watch
svchost
thunderbird
aim6
explorer
vsserv
ituneshelper
ccc
spoolsv
seccenter
svchost
svchost
taskmgr
svchost
svchost
rundll32
svchost
ipodservice
starwindserviceae
csrss
ati2evxx
msndsreponder
livesrv
mom
services
aolsoftware
ati2evxx
ctfmon
applemobiledeviceservice
hpzipm12
lsass
winlogon
smss
system
system idle process
 
2 months have gone by and it's still happening? Why didn't you reinstall again when the problem cropped up? (Just curious, don't flame me... Windows isn't the same every time you install it, seriously)
 
I've been using a different PC. :)

If I didn't clarify, when this originally happened I bought a new HD and did a fresh install of Windows. Didn't make any difference.

So this computer has two HDs. One with Vista, one with XP. Both perform the same: SLOW.
 
Well that does not look like a clean install but when you say its slow, do you mean you have to wait a few seconds or like the system is unresponsive.

In the BIOS set the sata ports to IDE mode

What drives to you have?
What mobo do you have?
 
download a ultimate boot disc.

First thing I always do is run memtest for about a good hour or more. If the system holds its not your hardware. (its a simple test...its not always the case, but its good enough)
 
When it was clean it still performed like molasses. When I say slow I mean this: Windows takes ~10mins to load from splash screen to desktop, refreshing My Computer causes it to search for many minutes (sometimes freezing), itunes takes ~10mins to load and then freezes when I plug in an ipod, various other programs fail when I attempt to access my HDs (such as opening a movie in mpc).

Drives:
hds722516vlsa80
wdc wd5000aaks-75a7b0

Mobo:
MSI K8N Neo2 Plat
 
Well take the 500gb and do a clean install of XP on there install the chipset drivers.
Only have the drive plugged in, take the out the Hitachi 160gb take out everything except for your video card, cd rom, and the 500gb drive see what happens.

Was this computer always like this? I assume at some point it was fast(normal)
Did something happen, did it get dropped, lightning, brown out, etc?
 
A thought - How many laguage packs do you have installed? (I found out the hard way they really slows down boot).

Have you tried updating all your drivers? Chipset, the works... Everything.
 
Acaid said:
I have Bitdefender 09 & Ad-Aware. Clean according to them.

Here's my process list:

firefox
ad-watch
svchost
thunderbird
aim6
explorer
vsserv
ituneshelper
ccc
spoolsv
seccenter
svchost
svchost
taskmgr
svchost
svchost
rundll32
svchost
ipodservice
starwindserviceae
csrss
ati2evxx
msndsreponder
livesrv
mom
services
aolsoftware
ati2evxx
ctfmon
applemobiledeviceservice
hpzipm12
lsass
winlogon
smss
system
system idle process
Click to expand...


Shut down every process that is bolded and see if system response improves. Add them back in one at a time. With the daemon tools and Alcohol running, I'm almost apt to think it is a DRM scheme or copy protection running somewhere.
 
Have you gone into Device Manager and looked to see if the drives are running in DMA mode? Your description sounds like the drives are running in PIO mode.

 
nitrobass24 said:
Was this computer always like this? I assume at some point it was fast(normal)
Did something happen, did it get dropped, lightning, brown out, etc?
Click to expand...

It ran normal for years. This came completely out of the blue.

Elf_Boy said:
A thought - How many laguage packs do you have installed?

Have you tried updating all your drivers? Chipset, the works... Everything.
Click to expand...

The installed copy of XP is tuned for "performance," ie nothing extraneous.


Kil4Thril said:
Shut down every process that is bolded and see if system response improves. Add them back in one at a time. With the daemon tools and Alcohol running, I'm almost apt to think it is a DRM scheme or copy protection running somewhere.
Click to expand...

Didn't make any difference.

SmokeRngs said:
Have you gone into Device Manager and looked to see if the drives are running in DMA mode? Your description sounds like the drives are running in PIO mode.
Click to expand...

They are both running DMA as set by bios.

My computer is doomed! All suggestions are very appreciated.
 
I had the same problem and the culprit was the motherboard. The issue arose after one month of use.
 
Try removing your Ethernet connection and all IDE/SATA (inc cd/dvd) devices except your boot drive.
 
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