Extremely slow/unstable startup

My laptop has recently been extremely slow at startup .
I only have the applications since the laptop was bought plus adobe and quicktime/itunes added to the startup so its deffinitely not a problem with too many processes. The slowness continues even after all the tray icons load which is the reason i believe its disk usage and not cpu usage.
After a few minutes the system becomes stable and speedy.

I looked at the resource monitor and the disk usage graph is all over the place which is why i think that is the cause of slowdown but im not even sure what to be looking for so it could be normal to be all over the place.
The disk drive is also extremely noisy at startup (a burned disc in it).

I deleted KIS 2009 because i thought it caused the problem so i am also without a antivirus or firewall.

Is there any way to find what is causing this?

The laptop specs are as follows:

AMD TL-60 2.0 GHZ
2GB RAM
32-bit Vista Home Premium
Nvidia 8400m GS

 

Far from an expert in this, and not familiar with Vista, but in XP you could look in the event viewer, was a rt click on My Computer and select "manage" then "event viewer" and look at the System log and the application log. This would sometimes show where problems were occuring during startup.

 

There is too many entries. Can i filter them?

 

If it's like XP and previous versions of windows you are only interested in the ones with the red X suggesting an error, or possibly yellow triangle suggesting a possible problem.

 

what make of laptop do you have?
what program where preinstalled?
and do they run at startup?
when you open autoruns go to the options menu and tick the hide microsoft entries box. then close it and relanch.
this will only show the third party entries and will make it easier to work out the cause.

 

And with this remove adobe, itune/QT and other useless stuff from autostart.

 

Just a thought, but could it have anything to do with Windows Update checking for updates at boot time? I used to see high cpu at this time on my old PC in XP due to WU. Perhaps disk usage takes a hit also?

 

I checked my event viewer and i think i found the problems.

I fixed one of them but i still have 1 left which i believe is the main slowdown.
I will post it when i go onto the laptop.

 

I'm back with more questions.

What affects the speed at which the logon screen appears?
Both my desktop and laptop have this in common, a slow appearing logon screen.

Does the files in each account affect this?
I still haven't solved the previous problem of starting after i login but i believe they are related because i have GB's of files on my desktop and documents on both computers.

 

I'll second Lodore - make and model of this "pretty low tech" computer?

 

First post

 

Don't know about Vista, but my Xp once got extremely slow at startup because I had disabled Prefetching.

 

I seem to have fixed the slow startup after login by deleting unneeded files and registry cleaning but there is still delay before getting to the login screen.

I'll try windows defragmenter since its too dangerous to try other defraggers since this isn't my laptop.

Does anyone know programs that fix windows settings that may have been messed with?

I know advanced windows care is one.

 

You understood make and model, correct?

 

Coolio, did you try Autoruns? Did you remove itunes and all that from autostart (and choosing not to autostart in the program's options so it won't come back).

Next i would JKDefrag and NTREGOPT the thing. I don't know how much that actually does, but it does clean the house sort of speak.

 

Is there a way to find the order in which programs load?
Because the freezing seems to happen after a certain tray icon shows.

Or the amount of cpu/disk the process used during startup?

 

Autoruns shows the entries in order i believe.

On the amount of CPU, i don't know. Perhaps something that can log that info during boot.
Edit: try bootvis - http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/fastboot/default.mspx

 

Vista compatible?

 

Google
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-performance-maintenance/108549-bootvis-vista.html

 

you might find http://www.superwin.com/speedstartup.htm helpful
like other programs it will tell you what is loading but it can also let you play around with the order of loading

 

This problem does not seem to want to go away.

I followed the zdnet instructions and could not find anything constant at each startup. I checked the regular system and application logs and nothing is listed that could cause this freezing.

I used autoruns and disabled as much as i could without disabling laptop features (such as quickplay buttons). It's not a big deal because it freezes completely for only a few seconds but its still annoying.

If i could provide any information/logs please just ask.

Reformat/Restore is not an option because it is not my laptop, but another family members who has lots of pics/docs.

I have run jv16 regcleaner and deleted unneeded files with no success.

 

On the scarce information you're providing, i'll gamble a bit and say it's a driver.
But you should really try to say more. Security programs, what exactly did you remove from autostart, what remains.

Some troubleshooting steps (how to isolate a problem 101):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/help/f9c50a72-04ec-4088-9fd4-a4f979eef5a71033.mspx

 

C'mon now, this is nonsense - "If I could provide any information/logs please just ask."

Make, model, modified hw option's (unless you're such an expert as to deem those stat's insignificant)?