REALLY slow Windows startup on laptop

Okay guys

I have an Acer laptop with an AMD Sempron 3000 and 512 RAM. Pretty fast when I get it loaded up, but I've noticed that it literally takes about 5-6 minutes to load Windows. It stays that long on the Windows XP black screen with the moving blue bar.

This wasn't really gradual... It seemed to have started all of a sudden, but I have no idea what could've triggered it. I have only had the computer about 3 months and it doesn't have that much on it. I have run AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and a worm remover. All came up with nothing.

Any ideas?

 

Also don't know if this anything to do with it but it is FAT32 instead of NFTS. Don't know what the heck that means, but I have heard a lot of complaints about it.

 

Anyone?

 

Out of curiosity, how many items do you have loaded up on your systray? As in, near your clock, how many items are there displayed, if you have an << near the end, click that and add the items together and post here....

Also, please read this:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/announcement.php?f=21

 

Er, may I ask why you asked me to read that? I posted system specs, and my question has not been answered as far as I know.

But FWIW, my system icon only shows the anti-virus, volume control, and Acer eManager.

 

Sorry, that is a bad habit I have.

Okay, how long have you had this laptop, what about browsing, what about virus and malware scans? Do you have Service pack 2? And all other updates?

What are your startup items, have you defraged lately?

 

I already said I've had it for three months and scanned it with AVG, Ad-Aware, and Spybot. I have done all Windows updates and I have no startup items that didn't come on the PC other than AVG. I have not defragged in about a month, though I don't think that to be the source of the problem.

Okay, now today I boot it up and the touchpad won't work. I have had the latest driver for it from Windows Update since I had the laptop, checked and there isn't a new one. I don't know WTF is going on with this thing.

 

Anything?

 

if u dont mid doing it, a clean format and reinstallation should help...

 

You should not dl updated drivers from Microsoft. Download the drivers from the manufacturers web site. I have wrecked a few clean installs from doing this. Did you happen to notice this slowdown after a driver or software update? Try going into safe mode and see what the time difference is if any.

 

It sounds like you have a driver problem. See if you can do a system restore to date before the problem occurred.

 

I'm not sure how much this will help, but I have some notes that I had organized a while back after reading a topic similar to this one. I kept track of the programs that were used and did the research on 'em and stuff. Hopefully they'll help you. One in particular, bootvis, will allow you to see what is taking so long to boot up, and then you can troubleshoot from there...

Anyways... the page on my notes (it has a lot of other programs that might help you with your boot time on it too.) is right here:
http://www.ditcomp.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=850#850