My boss's computer this week has started taking ages to boot, well over 5 minutes and a few minutes to actually login. Once it boots though it's fine and is as fast as it's always been. Run disk cleanup, defrag, and antivirus but nothing found. Any ideas? As far as I know nothing has changed with it, no new programs in at least 6mths so I'm a bit stumped as to what it could be.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Take a look in services, see if anything set to automatic is failing to start.

How do I see what's running on automatic? Services are either running or stopped and nothing looks odd

I know this might sound a little obvious, but quickest and easiest fix is to run a system restore (if enabled), rather than try and find out what is actually causing the problem. Of course if the issue reoccurs after a restore, then you'll have no choice. Make sure you restore it back to a few weeks ago, not just the one!

I know this is an option and most of the time I do this. but just wanted to try and fix it first. Wouldn't be surprised a Windows Update has caused it. It's the only thing that's been updated in the last week

How do I see what's running on automatic? Services are either running or stopped and nothing looks odd

Type in services into the search bar after clicking on start. This will list all services running, disabled etc.

Type in services into the search bar after clicking on start. This will list all services running, disabled etc.

Ah I though you meant msconfig

the only one is Multimedia Class Scheduler that Auto but not running. Can't see how it would affect loading as media works fine. It boots fine up until the user select and login screen. There's 3 users, one is Admin, one user and one guest. I use the User account one. Once you click login it takes ages to load everything up from this point and will hang sometimes.

Ah I though you meant msconfig

the only one is Multimedia Class Scheduler that Auto but not running. Can't see how it would affect loading as media works fine. It boots fine up until the user select and login screen. There's 3 users, one is Admin, one user and one guest. I use the User account one. Once you click login it takes ages to load everything up from this point and will hang sometimes.

Ah ok so it is getting to the user select window ok. I have had this before and it turned out to be the ethernet adaptor. Just to a disable on the network adaptors and try it just to test. I bet that Windows update has updated a driver and has screwed it up.

Tried logging on with the network cable out?

I thought mine was slow at around 90secs!

When you have it up & running, do a defrag for a starter, try out a utility program such as Tuneup Utilities 2012 (includes a defragger) which will go through the system and check it out for unnecessary junk.

As a side note: I'll be upgrading my system to include a SSD HDD, that should reduce it from 90sec to around 15-20secs.

An update. The laptop is wirelessly connected to the network so I disabled the wireless card. Restarted but still took an age. So I tried a system restore to a point 2 weeks ago when I know it was all fine. Took it's time to do it but going from login to desktop was much quicker, however was still freezing when it came to loading up the startup programs. One of which was Messenger which I've deleted as no one uses it. I don't know if somethings dying or not but once it finishes having it's startup fit it runs well. Posting this message on it now. Boss is back tomorrow so I'll ask him to bring a spare laptop in and an external HDD to back all his stuff up. Could be a case of format and start again.

It could be just the HDD is getting full, have you checked the size of the paging file that Win7 uses?

Barely used a quarter of the space. It was completely fine last week but I don't know what's happened. I was convinced a Windows update has broken something but after rolling back it's the same.

Have you tried logging in on a different account? As it could be profile related. Have you put anything large on your desktop as this will slow it down.

John

Is there anything interesting in the logs (can be viewed via Event Viewer)? This should show you anything that failed to start which could narrow down the problem. Alternatively, Windows 7 now has much better logging detail and in Event Viewer, you can look under "Applications and Services Log" -> "Microsoft" and there's a wealth of diagnostics. Diagnostics-Performance (look for event 100 I think) and Diagnostics-Networking may be of interest.

EDIT: Useful site here -> http://itexpertvoice.com/home/what%E2%80%99s-taking-so-long-how-to-fight-slow-startup-times-in-windows-7/

Chris

Edited 24 February, 201214 yr by ScoobyChris

Slow boot ups can be caused by dodgy DNS - is the DNS handed out via DHCP or hard coded?

disable the LAN card too and try. AS i said i had it on a machine and nothing was plugged in the LAN yet it was taking a good minute to log on, once i disabled it, it was a matter of seconds.

Is there anything interesting in the logs (can be viewed via Event Viewer)? This should show you anything that failed to start which could narrow down the problem. Alternatively, Windows 7 now has much better logging detail and in Event Viewer, you can look under "Applications and Services Log" -> "Microsoft" and there's a wealth of diagnostics. Diagnostics-Performance (look for event 100 I think) and Diagnostics-Networking may be of interest.

EDIT: Useful site here -> http://itexpertvoice...s-in-windows-7/

Chris

I'll give this a go tomorrow. Definitely seems the right approach to it. Never used event viewer until today, barely knew it was there

I'd run a spy it scan from safernetworking and then run ccleaner.

If you want the fire n forget command for spy bot providing you installed it to c:\program files it is:

"c:\program files\spybot search & destroy 6.2\spybotsd.exe" /autocheck /autofix /autoclose

The spybot folder might have a different name.

have you tried safe mode to see if thats as slow, if its still slow id suggest hardware fault, if its quicker id suggest software fault

least then youll know which direction to look in

I've not played with the rollback on Win7, but previous versions didnt remove all of the updates installed since the restore point wastaken, so rolling back doesnt always fix a bad update.

First port of call when a PC suddenly goes slow is running an "on demand AV" program in Safe Mode, MalwareBytes is my weapon of choice.

Does the PC have a card reader ? I found an update about 2 years ago that caused really slow start up times, I removed the card reader from my one PC and unplugged a built in reader in my other PC and both suddenly went back to normal boot up speeds. The problem only occurred with my Gigabyte boards though, my old Asus and Foxcon board based systems used at work were fine.

Another possibility is the current AV program, or a house-keeping program like a defrag tool has been set to run a scan at start-up.

Another possibility is the current AV program, or a house-keeping program like a defrag tool has been set to run a scan at start-up.

Two other usefull programs are Superantispyware and CCleaner . The latter can check your startup list to show things starting at start up .

Slow boot ups can be caused by dodgy DNS - is the DNS handed out via DHCP or hard coded?

I'd agree - if the machine is part of a Windows domain (i.e. you have a Windows server) and there is a problem with DNS, the PC may be spending time trying to find a domain controller. Check in Network and Sharing Centre, 'change adaptor settings'. Right click the network adaptor and check the TCP/IP V4 properties. If addresses are handed out by DHCP, the DNS server should also be automatic. If the DNS servers are specified manually, check they actually exist (may have been changed by virus).

Also, check c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (use notepad or similar), whether anything other than localhost is specified. Some viruses will write to this and you may find it's full of stuff.

I'd be way of automated registry cleaner type apps they can cause more harm than good.

Right an update. Been busy so haven't had a chance to come back to it. He wanted to restore it using his original backup disks but he can't find the right ones so I want to format and start again. Now I've used Magic Jelly Bean to pull the product key so I can use it and then install my version of Windows 7 using his original key. However I may have a problem. My copy is 32bit but the laptop is 64bit. Will the code work on my version?

Both are Windows 7 Home Premium it's just one is 32bit and the other is 64bit. It's only got 3GB of RAM so don't get why it came with 64bit in the first place. Also my copy of Windows 7 is genuine as I bought it when I was a student. Microsoft had an offer on and it was only £30

If it's a Laptop then his installation should be stored on a partition of the Hard Drive, you can usually access this during the bios boot.

Do a google search for the Make and Model number and ad full system restore hotkey. (Usually it's something like the F11 key)

Going back to your original query everyone is bang on the money for checking for Spyware / Malware and viruses first.

Have you also checked the following

HDD Drivers are up to date

Indexing Options - This one is the main cause of some windows 7 systems running slow.

Indexing options allows the computer to index contents of the computer for faster search results, unfortunately it supposedly builds these indexes when the computer is not being utilized... yeah right.

Personally unless you use the search function a lot I tend to disable this or if you do use it I tend to do the following

Go To My Computer

Right Click on the C:

Properties

Untick the "contents of files can be indexed" (or something like that, bottom of the properties window)

It will fire through and disable the content indexing, Skip any files where it cannot amend.

I also go into the Indexing options and then 'More Options' to get to the file types.

I then change the properties of each to only index the type and not the contents.

You should also use Wise Registry Cleaner (free) to clean and effectively defrag the Registry.

The 3 programs I utilize to cleanse a computer are

Spyware Terminator (free)

Avast Antivirus (free) - this also has a handy feature called Boot Time Scan which can run a virus check before windows starts i.e. before any virus or spyware services initialize

Wise Registry Cleaner - Cleans all invalid keys from the registry as well as defragments it for faster booting.

I usually install the programs and go into safe mode and run them through in there.

9/10 these three programs do the job. The other time I have to do a Factory Restore.

Anyhow, hope this helps