computer is so slow

[low_delta]

My computer takes forever to boot up. It takes ten minutes to boot up, load Outlook Express and load LJ in a Firefox window. And then for the next ten minutes, it crunches furiously, going through the rest of its start-up routine, so everything runs slowly then too. That's twenty minutes to start up! What gives?

What's going on in the background? Does every program I have send out for updates upon start-up?

Comments

[i.livejournal.com]

run sysconfig and reduce the number of programs that load at startup.

[i.livejournal.com]

or, in vista, go to control panel and change startup programs

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

XP. I ran "msconfig" and removed 22 of 33 items. Boots up much more quickly.

I wonder if there's a way to improve the speed of the LJ login page.

[i.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, msconfig. i wasn't awake yet. lj speed is up and down. i still use the portal page.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I'm running out of time this afternoon, so I'll have to try that tomorrow. Thanks!

[ghostofzuul.livejournal.com]

you've gotten some good advice already... a quick way to do it is:

on a windows machine go to the "run" command and type 'msconfig' and there will be a 'start up' tab... uncheck everything that's not essential to your machine running...

[cynnerth.livejournal.com]

I took your advice and easily stopped iTunes Helper and Skype at startup. My reboot is fast again. Thanks!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I just removed two-thirds of them. We'll see what happens...

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Boots up much quicker now, as expected. Now I just have to find out if I disabled anything I shouldn't have.

[ghostofzuul.livejournal.com]

you'll know if you disabled something crucial b/c you'll get an error when the program tries to start during your next start-up... if you were able to restart w/out errors it should be all good... that's one of my pet peeves of windows... it allows all kinds of shit access to your root folders and subsequently stuff gets all bogged down...

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I didn't remove anything critical. I'm more worried about other programs not functioning as I expected. Most of the things were like a sync manager for my mp3 player (that I never sync), or quickstart tray icons, where I can still run the program from the start menu.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

Let us know what you find. I'm curious. Oh, and I sent a link to this page to M, who is complaining that his computer is slow...

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

So far, I've followed the above advice from i and zuul, and it helped a lot. I still have some issues, that I'll try to track down later.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

For my own notes, here are the things I removed from startup:
NeroCheck
zHotkey
Remind_XP
PDVDServ
mixersel
igfxtray
hkcmd
SOUNDMAN
ALCMTR
opware32
HPWuSchd
QTTask
iTunesHelper
realsched
ctfmon
CTSyncU
Button Manager v1.874
HP Digital Imaging Monitor
TotalMedia Backup Monitor
ymetray
Adobe Gamma
OpenOffice.org 2.0

Some of these were for programs I don't use, or functions I don't need often, that I can still run manually.

[serendipity.livejournal.com]

thanks for the post and for the comments. i need to do this later, too.

[specificocean.livejournal.com]

See if your hard drive needs to be defragmented, too.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Not too long ago, I defragged and ran a spyware sweep. It didn't change anything.

[gillhooterr.livejournal.com]

(http://lovemexe.blogspot.com/)