Lazy Laptop

[SyllogismCheck]

When powering on my HP laptop, it usually takes around 30 seconds to load the Windows login screen. Then, from hitting return having typed the password, a further 15 to 20 seconds to populate the desktop, quick launch buttons, system tray etc and them become useable.

Just occasionally, about one in ten startups, the first part up to login happens normally, but after hitting return to enter the password, the desktop background appears but there's a delay in it being populated. The delay varies between about 20 to 40 seconds, Then the icons, taskbar, sys tray, etc, pop up as usual within another 15 to 20 seconds.

When the delay occurs, there seems to be very little HD activity, whereas on a normal startup, the HD is going ten to the dozen. It's as if the system just isn't getting itself in gear and getting on with the job, not as if it's bashing away at some intensive process which is slowing things down. There seems to be nothing in the event viewer which differs between normal and slow startup to suggest something's actually going wrong or something extra is happening, just the unexplained pause.

Any and all ideas and suggestions welcome as it's getting rather annoying and gives the niggling feeling that one day the pause may suddenly become a full-stop. Or should I just accept that I have a laptop which has developed a propensity for occasional laziness?

[Lancelot37]

What maintenance do you carry out?

The easiest and most simple, reliable one, is to run www.ccleaner.com (http://www.ccleaner.com)

Allow it clean away the junk then run its Registry Cleaner. It's a fail safe program.

Run defrag before you start looking for other problems, which can be many.

[Sprogget]

Sound advice I think. If that doesn't speed things up, you can look at msconfig.

Go start, accessories, run then type msconfig in the box - see what's running at startup on your system. Be careful with it though, only disable what you're sure you don't need.

[SyllogismCheck]

Thanks for the suggestions, gents, but I already use CC and don't have anything unnecessary chiming in at startup. The only thing which ever started needlessly was my printer's cumbersome monitioring program, and that's been disabled at startup via msconfig since soon after it was installed and proved to be a resource hog.

There are only 43 running processes as I speak, pretty low for a laptop with all the touchpad, buetooth, etc, etc, bits and bobs running, so it's not exactly overwhelmed either once up and running or during startup.

Like I say, it's not as if it's struggling to cope with the workload during the slow startups, just like it's not trying to work at all. Virtually no HD light or noise, just an almost inactive pause until it decides to get to work in earnest. Very peculiar.

[ab33t]

Have a look at what your AV program is doing

[SyllogismCheck]

It's does nothing immediately at startup. I run it manually. :ok:

I'd simply ignore the occasional pause, but I it gives me the feeling something's going gradually wrong that could lead to a total failure. An intermittent hardware issue seems most likely, but I cant fathom what, where or why. :confused:

[Mr Optimistic]

Sorry if I missed it, guess it's vista. I have read about this before, can take up to 10 mins. Could be its looking for a network drive, does 'My Computer' show any ? If so, try deleting these (only shortcuts). Worthwhile checking your hard drive for errors to (control panel>administrative tools>computer management>disk management in XP). Select the drive, right click, properties, then tools. There is an option to check for errors. In control panel, under systems also check to see its till udma and not reverted to pio.

Under the administrative tools thing tab earlier, you could also check the 'event viewer' to see if there are any problems being reported.

If no joy & vista, buy windows 7 or revert to XP !

[Saab Dastard]

Could it be auto-updating anything? MS Updates? AV def. updates? Any other updates?

SD