Curse

Jebus · Sep 04, 2006, 04:47 PM // 16:47

My boot is kinda weird. When I start up my every, it will show what kind of CPU and how much ram I got, after that it will check for errors on my HDD (NOT chkdsk!). After that my OS will finally start loading (Win XP home edition). I don't see the blue line (the loading one, you know), instead I see my background. It stays there for 6+ minutes, then I will finally see my taskbar, pictograms etc.

When I go to task manager, while only my background is shown, and terminate explorer.exe and then start it again, I will see my taskbar and pictograms. Immediatly.
Only a few programs are set to start on start-up (Zonealarm, AVG, xfire and that's about it).

PC specs if you need:

3.00 GHz CPU (Dual Core)
1024MB ram.
nVIDIA 6800 gt (256MB)
...

Tell me if you need to know anything else, help will be greatly appreciated.

Omega X · Sep 04, 2006, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Sounds like Spyware to me.

Get a cleaner like Spybot S&D or Ad Aware and scan for issues.

skills4kills · Sep 04, 2006, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Yeah true it "can" be spyware, or, It can simpaly be the amount of junk processes he has to boot or what his boot priorty is.
yeah Ad-aware Se personal addition is free and works really great.
also try the yahoo tool bar there spywear scanner is good if not better than ad-aware. If you do get the yahoo one, you will se 1 or 2 new processes such as YTBSDK.exe and/or NSS.exe wich its the yahoo tool bar and the Norton spyware scanner. those AVG and Xfire and Zonealarm are "tool bar programs" thats not all of the things your Pc starts. you said you had Windows XP home addtion, you might wanna check for Windows Updates, such as service pack 2 (wich had a few issues but they have been fixed)
and BOIS updates, all driver updates, as for the explore.exe, in taskmanger
there is a user name bar, If it is NOT under the SYSTEM than that is most likely a virus/spyware. if it IS under SYSTEM than there is most likley an error.
On your start bar wich should be green go there should be box that looks like an exe file. click it and type this "msconfig" this brings up the microsoft configuration, wich has a list off all the programs that you boot, and others.
dont get rid of anything right away. just look at what your system dose when it boots. in the first part you will see the tab "genral" "SYSTEM.INI" "WIN.INI"
"BOOT.INI" "services" and "startup" go to the "BOOT.INI" tab and see what the timeout is, any higher than 3, and that might be your problem. any thing eals will take more thinking, if you need more help PM in-game Paladin of tyr, or Im me on Xfire, its sittro. good luck

Jebus · Sep 05, 2006, 05:38 AM // 05:38

I'm pretty sure it's not any spyware, I scan for spyware/virusses a lot, and usually never download malicious files. I scanned anyway, but none of those programs found anything.

My bootup is pretty clean, yes, I know AVG and zonealarm aren't the only ones booting, but they are the programs that use the most system resources.

ducktape · Sep 06, 2006, 03:36 AM // 03:36

Did you try running a hard drive test? It sounds like your hard drive might be on its deathbed. Getting messages about checking for errors might be system file checker trying to repair system files, which can get damaged if they are in a corrupt sector of your hard drive, and taking forever to boot up your computer or not being able to finish loading the desktop are some definite red flags for hard drive problems. I know you said you can kill explorer.exe and restart it and then everything finishes loading, but I've seen that with hard drive problems a couple times before.

As the other guys pointed out, these things can also indicate spyware has royally f'ed your system files, spyware is fun like that. You mentioned you routinely scan with antivirus and antispyware, but didn't mention any other diagnostic tests you've tried, so if you have not run any hard drive tests yet that would be an important thing to check.

I wish you luck and hope that you don't lose any data due to whatever is messing up your computer.

Jebus · Sep 06, 2006, 10:59 AM // 10:59

I have tested with /chkdsk. Every time I start my PC up (before Windows XP loads) I get a message saying no errors were found. My PC is fairly new (+/- 3 months, and I know fairly well how to use it. After the boot the computer works a-okay without any problems, no stalling, or anything like that. When I resume from hibernation I don't get this problem at all.

ducktape · Sep 06, 2006, 10:59 PM // 22:59

Well, chkdsk isn't really a hard drive diagnostic program, I meant something that does read and seek tests on all of the sectors and does a S.M.A.R.T. test on the drive if available. If you have a computer that you bought from dell/gateway/hp etc, just pop in the diagnostics/utilities cd and boot off of it and run the hard drive test. If you built your own computer, I am going to assume it was an OEM drive and not the retail version, so you'd have to go to the drive manufacturer's site and download their diagnostic utility to test your drive. Which might suck because some diagnostic tests don't work with certain SATA controllers and you might need to borrow someone else's computer just to run the stupid test.

Now that that's done with, your hard drive is seeming less likely to be the source of the problem.

Out of curiosity, have you updated any drivers recently? That could be causing your system to hang to the point where you have to restart explorer.exe.

If you haven't changed any drivers, there's two possibilities:

1) Program or service trying to load at boot-up is causing problems
2) Windows system file problem

Windows file problems is the easiest to try and fix. Put in the windows cd and open the command prompt and type "sfc /scannow". After it's done, make sure you type "sfc /revert" to set system file checker back to normal. That will repair any corrupted windows files and replace any that have been deleted.

If there are still boot problems after that, you should download autoruns from sysinternals and set it to check everything that boots up with your computer, go through there and disable any stupid crap like Adobe Speed Launcher or Quicktime Taskbar and so on, and see if the boot problems go away. Keep playing with disabling stuff (you can always check the box and re-enable it later) and see if the problem goes away. Autoruns is also nice because it shows a lot more things than msconfig, and you can right-click anything and google it and see whether or not it's a good idea to disable it

Jebus · Sep 07, 2006, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Well, I was able to get rid of that blue and black screen I get at the startup (Saying my PC info) by unchecking /SOS in the boot.ini tab.

I'll try that now, ducktape.

awesome sauce · Sep 08, 2006, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Windows defender beats the hell out of ad-aware. Download it here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

It also comes with a software explorer, which reveals startup programs, currently running programs, internet using programs, and winsock services (no idea what those are), and tells you whether they or not they are malacious and whether or not you need them.

Jebus · Sep 08, 2006, 02:42 PM // 14:42

It's clean.(Same for Full Scan)

Meols Green · Sep 08, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02

The boot thing, from what i know about booting up, seems to be that its set to long boot in the BIOS

My BIOS has an option for Quick Boot, which i always have enabled... all it does it a POST, mobo splash screen, and then boots windows... taking less than 2 mins..

Try going into your bios and look for that option.

Also, if the bar doesnt show, or takes ages, then it could be that your registry is packed (keep in mind the boot process loads the registry every time you boot) so if you have had the pc a while, its gonna be full of junk, the registry logs everything you do on the pc, so it gets big, fast.

Thats all i can really think of right now

Jebus · Sep 08, 2006, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Fixed that loading bar, had to switch off the /sos flag in boot.ini.

Anyyway, I checked the bios before, it's all set for fast booting etc, which it does. Only it's a long time between my desktop and my icons showing.

PS: other problem; every time I boot up my system, my resolution is set back 800*600, even though I change it every time.

J J Lin · Sep 08, 2006, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Try defragmenting your hdd

Jebus · Sep 09, 2006, 06:54 AM // 06:54

Did that.

Syndren · Sep 09, 2006, 08:04 AM // 08:04

Don't know if this will help...

start>run
1) msconfig
2) services.msc

my computer>rightclick>properties>device manager (clean if you must)

use regcleaner

switch off system restore

see if those help...

Not sure if it will help..but it will for sure increase your computer performance while in windows.
I know System restore (off) decreases the shutdown time...

Jebus · Sep 09, 2006, 09:22 AM // 09:22

I did all those, but what do you expect me to do in services.msc ?

ducktape · Sep 12, 2006, 06:07 PM // 18:07

I think he wanted you to go to services.msc and disable any non-microsoft services and reboot and see if it helps.

I had an idea: How big is your pagefile? Try to set it to 2500MB (min) and 3500MB (max) and see if that helps. If you set your pagefile to be on a different partition than windows (like on the D drive) that makes the pagefile much more useful also.

Also, how much free space is on your hard drive, percentage wise? If your drive is pretty full, that could be why the computer is running so slowly. My work HD is 83% full and runs like crap, when it's like 60% full it runs much better.

Tutis Evito · Sep 12, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

back up, format and reinstall

gabrial heart · Sep 12, 2006, 07:07 PM // 19:07

It's pretty normal to have long boots actually, especially with disk space issues. I know both those start-ups you mention take a bit to load as well. If your talking about long bios boot times, you're in the realm of having your machine searching for a net boot device, or you have some type of controller (i.e. scisi, sata II controller) fishing the bus for devices. Some realtek adapters come with netboot set on default and will sit there for a bit searching for a net boot server.

As far as the screen res, if you just do a log out adn log back in under the account, do you have the res issue? Does it only happen after a soft boot (restart) or a cold boot (powered off)? Each one has diffenrent issues associated with preferences and screen res scanning for optimal resolution.

Jebus · Sep 12, 2006, 08:04 PM // 20:04

@Ducktape 71 GB free of the 116GB (C: partition, 60% free.) Pagefile was already set like that.

@Tutis Evito, maybe if it's a last resort.

@Gabrial Heart The resolution problem changed by itself, after a few reboots.
I don't call a 7-min bootup normal. (That's from displaying background to icons and taskbar) For a fairly new pc.

I'll try to look in my BIOS settings for settings that have anything to do with my Realtek device. I got a Realtek RTL8139 Family Fast Ethernet NIC and a RT2500 USB wireless lan card (<-- Is this Realtek?)