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Very Slow Initial Aps Loads

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8 replies

by rovoco

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A client has a wierd problem I have not seen before. Running Windows XP SP2 on an older Gateway, with 512 MB of memory. He has plenty of hard drive space. Recently, he complained of longer than usual boot-up times and very long initial applications loading. I confirmed this during a visit and ran rootkit, virus, spyware and similar scans. Found a few nasties and removed them, but it had no effect on the initial loading times of the applications. Once
the ap has been loaded one time, then closed, it loads immediately on the next try. All applications act the same way. It's as though the targets are lost on shut down and Windows has to find them on the next boot up. I ran RegCure to clean up the registry, which did improve boot-up time, but had no effect on the initial application loading time. Any help would be appreciated.

8 replies

by travler92

Firstly I'd up the memory.
After boot whats running in the task manager (processes)? Anything chewing up the memory on boot. Run some AdWare / spyware.
ANy difference if you run from a shortcut or directly from the exe.
Clear all cache and temp files, delete and recreate all shortcuts. Reboot into safe mode and see if the results are same.

Good Luck

by rovoco

Thanks for the quick response! I shall try your suggestions when I can get back to the customer. I shall also boot with MemTest to check on bad memory locations. If there are
any, I'll try swapping memory modules, which are DDR266. Will keep you informed.

by rovoco

Client's PC is still running very slowly. I have not found anything in StartUp that would
load the system that much. Reinstalling MS
Office 2003, updating it and restoring the desktop shortcuts helped. Loading directly from the .exe file is a bit faster. Have run AVG Antivirus, Antirootkit, Antispyware in depth scans. System is clean. Memtest
for Windows did not detect any errors, but the bootup version did detect 6 errors at one location once. Cannot duplicate this result, however. Will replace the 512MB memory module with 2x512mb modules for 1 GB. New thought: What about re-installing the Windows XP-SP2 upgrade over the existing SP2? Any danger of really messing it up?
Is Windows XP's "PC Doctor" worth anything? It tells me there is nothing wrong. Hah!
Could I have lost the Pentium 4's on-chip cache and still have the processor work? The BIOS has no means of turning this on and off. BIOS setup defaults do not help. Any
answers to the above would be appreciated.
Thanks!

by computercookie

of XP where the disk didn't include SP2, so I'm not sure how it would go if you have installled SP2 where the original install was XP or XPSP1.

You can check L2 cache setting in registry but unless you have more that 256KB it is not woth worrying about.

by sleepin'dawg

1: Defrag the HDD
2: Download and run Autoruns 9
3: Download Mike Lins Startup Control Panel 2.8
4: Download and run CCleaner and sort the registry and resolve issues

Failing that; do a reformat and then a complete reload of Windoze XP SP2

[b]Dawg[/b] ]:)

by boxfiddler

the master boot record is likely becoming unwieldy and it is time to redo. Or so my experience has been. Every 2-3 years Windows needs to be completely redone from scratch. In my experience, slow loading apps are one of the first signs. One of.

I have ignored the signs twice and regretted it due to the fact that Windows crashes when I am using it most and can't be without it. Good thing I backup frequently. All I lose is some time.

by ozi eagle

Hi,

This could also be the early stages of a hard disk about to fail. Run HDD manufacturer's disk utilities to check. MAXTOR's powermax seems to work with most brands, otherwise search the manufacturer's site.

Herb

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