Why does it take 8 minutes for my computer to startup

I've been on this forum for some time. I have read the numerous threads about disabling certain utilities that vista has integrated into it. (don't remember the names) However, I still can't understand why it takes over 8 minutes for my computer to stop loading. It takes about 30-40 seconds to get onto my desktop and a little while longer for it to connect to the internet. But my computer runs slow and is loading for at least another 4-5 minutes after that.

If I had xp, I think my computer would load and be fully function in less than 2 minutes. My 5 year old compaq laptop loads in xp in about 2 minutes.

I hated vista when I first got it, it started growing on me and now I'm starting to hate it again.

By the way,

I have a thinkpad t61:
t7300 (2 GHZ)
100 GB 7200rpm HD
4 Gigs of Ram
vista business 32 bit

 

When vista is loading, after the desktop appears....have you opened up task manager and checked which service or program is using the max ram and cpu..??

 

Not really, but I don't have excessive programs at startup on my laptop. I'm usually running around 55 processes which is a pretty low amount for vista.

 

It is worth having a look at it, check which program uses the most ram and cpu, (mostly antiviruses)....
And try running a registry cleanup with CCleaner or Uniblue 2.0....
and by the way, my task manager has 54 processes running atm.. (I guess it is normal to have below 60)

 

Clean install would help it out.

 

I've been having the same problem recently. After I load up my hard drive is just madly paged by what else, the pagefile so I get random freezing for a minute or so. It only started to happen lately after I was messing around so I must of tweaked something I shouldn't have. I won't bother to reinstall now though since I'm going to finish my ongoing games first and have a clean install for going back to uni.

 

You should use this. It's Gary's(a member of NBR) startup utility, which defrags boot files to make vista startup faster.

 

Your title made me lol.

Probably an excessive amount of programs trying to run at startup; use Windows Defender to disable the programs from running at startup.

 

While it could be a lot of programs running at start up, it isn't necessarily. My main desktop - the fairly beefy one at the top of my sig - takes an eon to boot Vista Ultimate x64. I've narrowed it down to either my motherboard, my external hard drive, or my G15's drivers, but since I can't do without/afford to to replace any of those I grin and bear it. Even my ancient Gateway 7422GX boots Vista faster. After some research courtesy of Google, it appears that there are just some combinations of hardware and peripherals that cause Vista to hang at various points of its boot sequence for excessive periods of time - you might have just struck gold on that front, so to speak. I have (some) faith they'll iron it out someday, but they're sure taking their sweet time about it.

Also, down Intel fanboys: It isn't my Phenom. My desktop booted just as slowly with my X2 4200+ installed, and that chip now powers my "extra" desktop, which boots Vista Ultimate x64 from power button to login screen in a blazing 15 seconds.

 

With those specs, if your system takes 8 minutes to boot up you may need to re-install Windows. That doesn't sound right. Maybe your system is bogged down with spyware?

 

Are there any scans or update programs running during this time?

 

Ok, let me first make myself a little more clear. When I say it takes 8 minutes to startup, I mean that my hard disk icon is constantly on for the first 8 minutes loading something. During this time I can use the computer, but it is pretty slow. Again, I get onto my desktop relatively quickly, it's just everything after that seems to take quite a while.

I use CCleaner at least twice a week. I've clean installed my computer twice in 1 year and as recent as 2 months ago. I have a good antivirus program (nod 32) and I have alternative spyware program for manual scans. I pretty much have my system as bare as possible on startup. The thing is, my brother has the same exact computer and it takes just as long.

Oh and I have tried the method called defragbootfiles on the sticky at the top of this page. It really didn't seem to do much.

 

I don't think so.

 

If I have my ext hard drive hooked up to my laptop, it takes much longer for it to boot up also. I think it that may be your problem.

And to the OP - I'd say it's time for a clean install.

 

I clean installed 2 months ago. It's no different now, than it was the day after a clean install.

 

Do you have a fragmented pagefile? You could try lowering the size of it along with defragmenting it.

 

Does it take 8 minutes to boot into safe mode or diagnostic mode..??

 

I don't really know what that means really. I've heard stuff about lowering the size of the pagefile, but it seems a little complicated and I don't wanted to mess anything up.

 

It's not safe mode, I don't know what diagnostic mode is. It takes 8 minutes to boot into the regular mode of how you would use vista.

 

Press the winkey+R....type msconfig....and on the first page you should have a set of options to choose on how to boot windows....Just select diagnostic boot..!!

 

It's not the start up programs, it is the fact that he might have vista ready boost enabled or vista's superfetch abilities turned on for both program files and boot files. What this does is, during initial start up the superfetch feature pre-caches your programs into ram (which explains why vista idles at such high RAM usage). This enables about a 1-5second(s) launch for most programs.

 

Go to Start > Run > Type "msconfig" > Startup Tab > Uncheck everything you don't need.

Then download and read the Tweakguides Tweaking Companion for Windows Vista.

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

 

Could you at least show us which programs are running at startup????

 

Here are my processes. I'm positive this is not the problem. I've spent quite of a bit of time making this computer as lean as possible but still using the utilities I find necessary.

 

svchost is taking up alot of memory....reboot and check if svchost shoots upto 100% cpu utilization..!!

 

Nope...It got up to as high as 45% but that was for maybe like 1 or 2 seconds. It was most.y the system idle process hovering between 70% to 95% most of the time and the system process hovering around 7% to 25% using up the cpu. The svchost process was generally under 8% cpu most of the time.

 

System Idle Process is a kernel thread, which runs when no other runnable thread can be scheduled on a CPU

Run Process Explorer and see which of svchost's baby processes are using up the most ram....

 

Maybe it's an antivirus performing a scan. Most of them scan the startup objects and etc at boot up. Try changing your AV settings.

 

If i remember correctly, that service is related to windows updates. there is seriously somthing wrong with the computer. maybe a wrong setting or something but i highly doubt Vista is the root of the problem. I been using Vista with lesser specs and its fast as hell.

 

Nobody said my computer was not fast. It's just slow to boot up.

That svchost has several services that it's running.

AudioEndpointBuilder
CscService
EMDMgmt
hidserv
Netman
PcaSvc
SysMain
TableInputService
TrkWks
UxSms
WdiSystemHost
Wlansvc
WPDBusEnum
wudfsvc

Now when you look at that many services running under one svchost process is makes sense that it's using up so much ram. Even so, the process is not using up any of my CPU so I don't see why that would be a problem.

 

Have you tried disabling Vista Search Indexing as suggested in NBR Vista Tips and Tweaks Guide?