Mr. Sushi

When i first got my p4 1.8 ghz Dell desktop it use to load win XP pretty fast on the screen. now the green squares move but there will be periods where they just stop for 2-3 seconds. and i don't know what is giving it the problem? does anyone know how i can find out what's causing this or what could be causing this?

elderec

Running any antivirus software?

beatlesdb

Try defraging the HDD - because it's a new machine - you have probably installed allot of software by now.
also - the computer may be indexing the hardrive so that when it is booted up, it runns fater.

allan

And you might want to download and run BootVis

Mr. Sushi

1) i'm running nortaon anti virus 2002
2) what's indexing? and should i leave it alone?
3) what is bootvis or whatever?

engel59

1) Norton and ZoneAlarm will both cause your system to boot-up a little slow.
2) Indexing, I think, you have no control over. Windows is figuring where everything is at. Think of it as a file/program map. One such area is "c:\windows\prefetch".
3) Bootvis is a program that can rearrange things, like files and drivers, on your system so when you startup your system it starts faster. It will also tell you what is taking so long to load.

My answers might be a little vague put I think you can understand what I'm saying.

Mr. Sushi

where can i get bootvis

engel59

Microsoft wrote BootVis.exe.
You can get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/platf...ot/BootVis.asp

You might want to do a search for BootVis on this site.
There are a lot of comments.

engel59

Other things you can also do to help windows startup faster:

1) If you look in Start > All Programs > Startup; everything in there is starting at startup.
I created another Folder in the All Programs section and called it Startup2. Things in Startup2 will not be loaded at startup. I moved things, programs I don't use that often, from my Startup section to my Startup2 section.

2) See if you can turn off some of the programs from starting up by going into their options area and choosing not to load at startup.

3) Go to Start > Run; type in msconfig.
Go to the Startup Tab. Everything you see in there is starting at startup.
Programs showing these locations are being run from the Registry:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

HKCU = HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This is for each User's Account.
HKLM = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. This is for ALL User Accounts.

anewhope

Bootvis really helped my PC on start up, took about 12 seconds off start up time, which was nice

Antivirus, for the good it does, is a plague on performance!