Suddenly icons take almost a minute to load on start-up

Hi there,

About a month ago I re-booted my WinXP desktop and found that although the wallpaper came up there were no icons. I re-booted a couple of times, but there was no improvement. I Googled the problem, did a system restore to a point from a few weeks ago and after a couple more re-boots the icons came back.

Since then, though, when I re-boot the Welcome screen sits there for about 30 seconds and then when I get to the desktop with wallpaper it's almost a minute before any icons appear. (They appear all together: not one at a time. After that things load into the Systray individually, in the usual way.) I've been over in the Malware section but no malware has been found.

I followed the advice of an expert in the Malware section to run msconfig, disable everything in the start-up section and then re-start, to try to work out what's slowing things down. However, that made no difference at all. The Welcome screen still sat there for 30 seconds or so, and it was then almost a minute before any icons appeared on the desktop (although the wallpaper was present).

This is a new thing for my desktop. I don't remember installing anything new recently, because I tend to use my laptop downstairs most of the time these days. (The desktop is connected wirelessly upstairs, via a Belkin USB thingy.)

Can anybody suggest a way to work out what's slowing things down? I've also noticed that Chrome is now starting very slowly, but when I first began to use it a few months ago it started super-quickly. I'm sure there must be something wrong.

Many thanks for any help you can offer.

 

There's quite a few possibilities for your PC problem, so it'll be a process of trial and elimination to determine exactly what's going on.

I'll just start with some basic hardware troubleshooting.
Go to the run box and enter devmgmt.msc and you should be at the device manager.
In the top menu, select View > Show hidden devices.
Expand all the tabs and note any entries with a ! next to them.
Do you have any USB devices plugged into the PC at boot? If so, disconnect them next time you shutdown.
Do you have a card reader or CD/DVD drive installed? When you boot up, check whether the light (LED) on the device is flickering abnormally when you boot.

I'll leave you with that for the time being.

 

Hello there, and thanks for helping.

There are no !s in the device manager.

I have a few USB devices plugged in: my external hard drive (though the device itself is not currently switched on), my mouse and my Belkin USB wireless thingy (the PC has a wireless connection as the modem is downstairs). I tried unplugging the external hard drive and rebooting but that made no difference. I'll unplug the mouse and the Belkin if you think they might help, but I didn't want to lose either the mouse or internet connectivity on re-starting and so I've not tried it so far in case you didn't mean me to include them.

I have a CD/DVD drive (empty), and it didn't seem to make any unusual flickerings during the boot.

I don't know whether this could be relevant, but just in case... I've been using the PC wirelessly with the Belkin dongle thingy since moving here 18 months ago, and on the whole it's been okay. I did begin to notice a couple of months ago, though, that if I rebooted (not something I do regularly: PC is on almost all the time) then it would take a long time to re-establish an internet connection. Sometimes half an hour or more. I currently have the Belkin utility controlling the wireless connection rather than XP itself, and (touch wood) I don't seem to have that problem at the moment. That's part of why I'm a bit hesitant to reboot without the Belkin, though, unless you really do want me to.

Thanks again. Anything else I can try?

 

Any other suggestions, anybody? I've no idea where to go from here.

Thanks if you can help.

 

There is a registry hack that has worked for some folks with slow desktop/icons loading.
It is at:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Add Icon Cache Size to Folder Options/View is the one you want. Double click after downloading it and say Yes when it asks if you wish to merge this into your registry.

This will add additional options the View tab in Folder Options, increase the cache size and reboot.

 

Many thanks -- I'll give that a try.

 

You mentioned that chrome seems to be rather slow. Does the same apply to other browsers?
Are there any other noticeable slow downs as far as other programs starting, running etc?

 

cipher--many thanks again, but that didn't help. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

nullptr--thanks for reading. I did say that about Chrome, but since writing that I've changed my mind. I don't think Chrome is actually significantly slower to start than it was, now that I've cleaned up with CCCleaner etc.

What I am wondering, though, is whether it might just have something to do with the drivers/software for my Kodak Hero 5.1 printer. About a month ago a software update came out. For some reason it didn't install properly, and there's been a message on bootup ever since telling me that the 'ui' file was missing. This morning, after trying cypher's suggestion, I Googled that error message and fixed it, which involved reinstalling the Kodak AiO Homecare Software. The installation took ages and ages--about 15 minutes--and since then the error message has gone, but it now takes even longer for my desktop icons to load. Previously it was about 45 seconds, and now it's about twice as long as that. I'm wondering whether to uninstall the printer and see whether that makes any difference.

 

Try booting into safe mode to see whether everything loads quickly.
What age and type is your Hard Drive, also how much RAM is installed?
Can you confirm that the PC is running fine once everything loads.

 

Hi my friend , you can download this

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

opting for Summary from submenu you opt for Report opting for Quick Report from submenu - Overclock choosing Plain text ( saving report to desktop )

afterwards you can follow this

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86880

to attach your report :wave

 

_nullptr - Thanks for those suggestions. I booted into Safe Mode and all the icons appeared immediately. Hmmm...

I bought the PC about 4 years ago, and I think I have 3.25 GB of RAM.

All seems to be running fine now, except for the slow start i.e. the welcome screen stays on for a long time, and then the icons take about 80 seconds to load.

falconattack - Many thanks for that. I've attached the report

 

Does your Kodak Hero 5.1 printer use the wireless connection? If it does, then that would likely explain the further slow down since you reinstalled it.
I lean towards thinking that the major problem is with the wireless connection. What sort of internet connection do you have coming into the house, DSL, cable?