Slooooow boot times...help out!

hey guys...

my girlfriend just bought a 6000z series notebook from best buy, and i have used it a few times now. Although i'm lookin at the 6500 series, this is still a pretty nice notebook overall. We have both noticed how slow it is to boot up. It has probably only been turned on 5 or 6 times, but everytime it takes a looong time, i would say at least 2 or 3 minutes it seems. I have heard the Norton really slows it down, but i figured i would try and get some more pointers from you guys. I don't want to disable norton because, well, its a teenage girl and she won't want to bother with starting it manually all the time. Help me out and score a few brownie points with her! Oh and by the way, Best Buy deleted 5 or 6 things before they gave it to us, like the Vonage stuff, etc, but i figured there was a few other things to get off. Any tips will be appreciated. BUD

 

I think your best bet would be to reformat the laptop and start from scratch. I bet once you do that you will have way less processes that need time to start up when you turn it on. As long as you have an xp or vista cd (whichever you prefer) you can do a clean install then get the drivers from the HP site.

Best buy didn't get rid of all the uncessesary programs, and yes norton will slow boot up down.

Again, I'd reformat and install the apps you want.

 

It's probably all the OEM bloatware and crap. Best bet is to get a clean copy of Vista, but I'm sure you don't have the money, or want to. Vista usually is known to take forever to boot up. You should leave it in standby or hibernate. Barely wastes any battery + it takes less time to boot.


OR just install Windows XP. :]

 

Uninstall bloatwares. Also disable unnecessary boot up programs.

 

Try this out :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=125129

 

Have you reformat the hd and reinstall the OS. If not I suggest you do this. It will delete all the garbage in the registry and give you a clean start.

 

How much RAM does the machine have? 2GB RAM is ideal, 1GB is OK, 512MB would explain your problem.

I wouldn't reinstall the notebook. I'd consider uninstalling Norton in favor of AVG Free Antivirus.

 

you could install a startup manager program that will let you chose the items you want to start. i disabled a lot of stuff i dont need and it sped up the boot time.

 

I'd format and start over just because of all the bloatware. Some remove it piece by piece, but it's better to send the message. Not that hard to do once you learn how, just a learning curve issue. On my DV 6500t, XP boots in seconds, no bloatware, nothing. Just a screen of green grass. Norton takes over machines and ruins them. It's like you really bought a Norton laptop. They midas well just put a big N on all of them and say "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated."

 

If manually starting Norton sounds like too much of a hassle, then the user probably isn't too much of a power user. In that case, reinstalling an OS would be overkill IMHO. Instead, get a startup manager, ditch Norton, get a free antivirus program and a free firewall. That should cover the security aspects and help you manage the startup programs.

Some Recommendations:

1) Startup manager:
a) Use the built in windows startup manager by going to start, search for msconfig, press enter and clicking on the startup tab. Uncheck all the unneeded programs
b) Try CCleaner, a free program that not only cleans registry, harddrives, etc. but also includes a handy startup manager and program uninstall app. Just click on tools > startup button. (Word of caution: be careful what you delete/clean with the program)

2). Antivirus/spyware scanner:
a). Not Norton, I wouldn't recommend McAfee either (lots of bloat)
b). AVG Free Antivirus is pretty good
c). Spybot Search&Destroy is good for spyware, Ad-aware is another good program. Both are free.

3). Firewall:
a). Not Norton, not McAfee either (too bloaty)
b). ZoneAlarm is a good free firewall.

 

SBR...you are correct...

like i said its my girlfriend, and she is by no means a serious computer junkie, she just gets annoyed because it takes so long to boot up. A clean install would be overkill, but the new anti-virus and firewall may not be a bad idea. Too bad they paid extra for the extended Norton services...And no, i wasn't with them when they bought the computer, or they wouldn't have paid for norton or the ****ty best buy warranty...