Laptop really slow on startup

tgibson97 · Joined: Jun 23, 2005 Posts: 59

I have followed Greyknight17's turtorials and have had no issues of those kind. I have also went through MSCONFIG and temporarly turned off some programs on startup which made it a little faster. But is is still alot slower than what it usually is. Its an Hp Pavillion dv5000, AMD turion 64 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB of ram. Windows XP MC. Any info is appreciated.

tbernstein · Joined: May 16, 2003 Posts: 1668 Location: London

Is this Vista?
1GB of memory would be pushing it a bit. Turning off the special effects helps.
Is it a new machine, full of the manufacturer's pre-installed junkware? Removing it all helps

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

It's not Vista. He mentioned Media edition of XP which is XP Pro. Do you have anything Norton/Symantec installed? How about mcAfee or Comodo firewall?
What security programs are you running? Have you used a cleaner like CCleaner to remove temp files and clean the registry?
Also use CCleaner to see what is running at startup. If you have HP, Nero, Adobe, QT and a few others running to check for updates, that can drag any system down.

tgibson97 · Joined: Jun 23, 2005 Posts: 59

I have AVG. I also use Easy cleaner 2.0 and clean up on a regular basis. I have deleted everything from the computer that I don't use and all the free crap along time ago. I'll check the startup and see what is trying to update. I recently added Zone alarm, good or no good?

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 2238 Location: Central FL, USA

Don't beat me up.....Please! for saying this....but....

Zone Alarm is a huge resource hog and is only needed on computers where the operator either can't or won't keep their PC clean and free of malware that would try to "Phone Home".
Also, in MSCONFIG, DE-Select all those Updaters and Schedulers that would want to "Phone Home".

The firewall that comes with Windows is more than adequate to protect you from internet hackers trying to get into your computer.

I dumped ZA years ago when SP2 first came out for XP. I find that my computer runs much better without ZA.

Absolutely NONE of my customers uses ZA..... just the Firewall from Windows and my Security Package consisting of:
AVG 7.5 FREE
Spybot S&D
Spyware Blaster
Hazard Shield
HostsMan (Hosts Manager)
Windows Firewall
I also use "Trojan Hunter" on my own PC. It's RETAIL software but runs an active scanner, like AVG, to protect me from trojans getting into my PC. I just NEVER get infected, in spite of the extensive searches I do on the internet.

If you like, you can add Windows Defender. I think that on Vista it comes already installed and actively running.

That's about it!
The Doctor