Slow boot time: possibly software related?

I don't know what's causing my problem, so I posted it here

I have an Acer laptop. It originally had a Sempron 3000+ with 256 MB PC2700 SODIMM memory. I added a stick of 512 MB and it now has 768. I use avast! anti-virus, SpywareBlaster, Spybot, and Ad-Aware Professional. The only things running at startup are avast! and SpywareBlaster. I have done several virus scans, Windows updates, driver updates, BIOS updates, and spyware scans with everything up to date, but it still takes literally half an hour to get through the "Windows XP" screen where it shows the moving blue bar before the desktop.

I don't know when this started, but once the PC gets booted, it will usually restart in 30 seconds if I so choose. It's like once it's started, it's warmed up and ready to go. I have tried everything I can think of and I don't know what's causing it. The PC is super fast once it's started. Sempron obviously isn't the best, but my friend has a Pentium III with 128MB of RAM and it only takes about 60 seconds to load Windows XP -_-

Something's wrong here--- anyone have any ideas?

Windows XP Home
Sempron 3000+
768 MB memory
SIS 760GX chipset (sucks )

If you need any more info, let me know.

 

Try doing a registry clean-up. There are various free programs you can download off MajorGeeks that will do that for you.

30 minutes a whole long time. If you can't find out what is wrong with it I'd format the hard drive and start from scratch. Make sure you have the windows xp cd and have backed up any files you want to keep before you do this. And make sure the bios is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive if you don't have a boot disk.

 

Visit the malware thread! You can find it here. (I also recommend you follow the instructions on preventing future malware infestations - there's a link in this thread)

A registry clean up might help as Fertyop suggested. You might also try running ccleaner to get rid of temp files, and clean your prefetch.

You could also try running system file checker. To do so, open a command prompt and type 'sfc /scannow' (without the quotes) with your XP cd in the drive.

Heh, don't jump to formatting just yet!

 

If all your important files are backed up, I'd also recommended a scandisk followed by a defrag. Go to "my computer", right-click on the drive in question, go to the tools tab, and run the "error checking" (with all options checked, you will probably need to restart and have it run in reboot), then after the check runs (expect an hour+), run the defrag from the same tab.

 

Try BOOTVIS, however take all necessary precautions like creating a Restore Point and backing up.

Bootvis will tell you which driver or file is causing the problem.

 

Though, BOOTVIS is a microsoft product that they deny it works.

It says, that is ONLY works for XP SP1 or less. It does work with XP sp2.

BOOTVIS is very similar to a defrag. Not sure (as I type this) it really helps to do a restore point.

Though, doing a FULL backup will help, as Insomniac states......

 

They don't deny it works. It was a tool designed for techs, and a poor one at that.

However, every man and his dog downloaded it, with dire results.

Micro$$oft then removed BootVis from their site, which was a long, long time ago.


As far as System Restore, it works, depending on how you use BootVis or the outcome.

BootVis should really only be used for performance graphing and tracing.

Boot optimisations invoked by BootVis is already a built-in feature of XP anyway.


In essence, use BootVis just to list the culprit that is delaying boot time.