My computer seems to take forever to boot up. And when it starts it is only at about 65% available resources. I have gone into the start up folder and gotten rid of much of the unneeded things that are loading but it still is taking longer then it should. Is there some where else programs couldbe loading into my system? How can I monitor what the computer is doing on bootup, what’s taking so long, etc.?
The first thing you should do is defragment your computer. You’ll find it in the Start menu under system tools, and make sure you select full defragmentation. It may take a few hours, but it will put all the data on your computer in order, allowing for easier, and hopefully faster access to the data.
Second thing you need to do is get rid of everything from startup, and then put it in a seperate folder and place the folder on your desktop.
Then, when you need to use a program, you open it, and only it.
This will save you heaps of time on the initial load up. You obviously have way too many programs in your startup, because 65% system resources is excruciatingly low.
Hope this helps.
On a slightly different slant, maybe some one out there can help me, or at least explain to me, a slight problem I have with accessing the Internet. I have a cable modem. When I first try to get on the Internet, it won’t be respond. I have to alt-control-del a couple of times and then I’m all right. No big deal, but it would be nice to know what’s going on. Maybe in this cold weather, it takes a while for the cable to be sufficiently warmed up? But I have no trouble getting my email.
65%! Assuming you got at least 32 (preferably 64 megs or more) of RAM you’ve definitely got a problem and though defragging is always a good idea this is not your problem. Something is gobbling system resources.
You can check to boot log out to see what has loaded but try this first if you haven’t already. There is an applet built ito win98 you get to under the
programs/accessories/systems tools/system information/tools/system configuration
System configuration lists all the tabs where stuff is placed into startup ie autoexec.bat/config.sys/ win.ini/system.ini/win startup and lets you activate or knock them out selectively.
A lttle shareware/freeware app called startup.cop (www.tucows.com or http://www.zdnet.com) will also do the same thing but only for the startup folder.
There are HUGE amounts of crap that applications (without permission) stuff into windows startup. The best way to see what you have running is to use alt/crtl/del and see whats running on the pop up window. Bear in mind that there are “hidden” deeper level stuff that will not show up in the active memory task window.
The worst offenders are the anti-virus programs on systems with 32 megs of RAM or less. Second in line is Norton Utilities “monitor everything” option. Next is the Realplay and related (I’ll stay in memory just in case you run my app) next are all the little “cute” crap (purple gorilla etc etc) memory hogs that kids love to load and finallyn there are the registration reminders that some companiees (esp HP) jam in.
Excessive time to load is also a possible indicator of a driver conflict that the system has to “handle” every time it starts. If none of the above works a clean install and re-loading your necessary apps one by one is probably the best solution.
Also double check your memory amount. Make sure one of your modules has not crapped out.
Tretiak, you didn’t even tell us what kind of computeryou have [a mac?] , what operating system & how long it takes to load at start.
Plus, don’t defrag first. You have to scandisk before you defrag, if of course, you have a PC with Windows.
Slight OT, Microsoft paid Rolling Stones $18M for the rights to their song, Start Me Up.
This sounds like Windows, and it sounds like the typical software hell that arises from allowing multiple programs to install themselves all over the place on your computer.
If you’re running W98, there are six possible places that a program can insert itself, including on the desktop, on the startup menu, and on the quickstart bar. The most notorious programs insert shortcuts into all six places. The startup menu is the worst: all programs on that menu are pre-installed at startup, and soak up a proportion of your memory in anticipation of your using it. AOL and Realplayer are notably egregious offenders.
Fortunately, you have the sage advice of Dan “Tweak Monkey” Kennedy. Here is his boot-up guide. And here is his wonderful system cleanup guide. These are two excellent places to start.
If you are too lazy to read these guides, the shortest version is this: install TweakUI from the W98 install disk. Use it to turn off Scandisk and the W98 splash screen. Disable your startup sounds. And use msconfig to raze all of those annoying programs that pre-load at startup. Some of them, like Realplayer, send information about you to the software maker when you’re online, so you probably don’t want that crap running in the background anyway. Good luck.
I just wanted to point out that defragmenting a disk should not be considered a casual thing. If anything were to go wrong during the process, you could find yourself in serious jeopardy. Having seen two hard disks go bad in a defrag process in my few years as a sys admin, I can tell you that the advice to backup first should not be ignored…
Do you (OP) by any chance have dynamic IP DSL or Cable? If so, put an IP address in the network configurations. Your DSL or Cable provider will still change the IP, but it’ll chop a full minute off boot times. If you don’t, then ignore this solution.
Jman
That’s true Jman. ALso, if you have a Network, changing to Windows Logon can save more time…
As usually the OP didn’t come back again.
FWIW-
Although the O.P. hasn’t been back yet, I just wanted to let the other posters to this thread know that some of us have appreciated your responses. I just spent a couple minutes flushing out my system once again (Is this a full-time job or what?).
Thanks for some helpful links.