Startup Issues

My laptop computer does not start up correctly. It only starts up correctly every other time. It is out of warranty so no help, other than very expensive help, available from the manufacturer.

It is an Acer Aspire 5920 laptop. The operating system is Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2. The processor is Intel Core2 Duo 1.85 GHz. The hard drive has a capacity of 105 GB with 60 GB free hard disk space. There is 2 GB RAM.

What are the potential problems causing it to only start up properly sometimes? How could I diagnose these problems? What solutions do these problems have?

 

Greetings, mark59.

Please clarify "does not start up correctly" - the machine itself, or Windows?

If Windows, have you tried Safe Mode? If so, are there any changes in symptoms?

 

Hello Caliban

Thanks for responding.

I mean Windows. When it does not start-up properly the gadgets sidebar does not appear on the right-hand side of the screen; most of the icons that are normally in the Taskbar (for my antivirus and firewall, to show I'm connected to the Internet, etc.) do not appear. Some programmes will not open, e.g. my web browser. Even when they do they are not shown on the Taskbar.

When I open Windows in Safe Mode these problems are not present.

 

And there you have it. For troubleshooting purposes, try running Startup CPL and disabling any or all of the listed startup programs, reboot to check symptoms, and repeat the process until you find the culprit(s).

Since the major symptom seems to be desktop gadget related, this could be a Java issue - have you recently updated?

 

Can I manually update Java? How? (I let it update itself automatically.)

 

First remove all previous versions of Java from your computer.

If you go into Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs, they are listed similar to this:

Java(TM) 6 Update 2
Java(TM) 6 Update 9
etc..

Update 26 is the most up to date version, you can get this version at:

http://majorgeeks.com/Sun_Java_Runtime_Environment_d4648.html



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Also, you may find this program useful:

http://majorgeeks.com/JavaRA_d5982.html

it has a feature to remove all old versions of Java with the click of a button, I find that you have to run it about 3-4 times though to completely clean out the older versions. It's a beta, crashes sometimes.. Overall a very nice/small removal tool.

 

I've checked the machine. There is is only one version of Java installed on it. It's the current version: Java(TM) 6 Update 26. So, it can't be a Java-related problem.

 

Try doing what Caliban mentioned, that should work

 

Is Startup CPL 2.8 compatible with Windows Vista? In the list of Windows versions with which it's compatible, the latest one it lists is XP.