[TRM125]

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 running Windows XP Home Edition with SP2. Lately, it has experienced erratic startup behavior. It boots fine, but when logging in, it may take 15 minutes to start. The icons in the system tray don't all load. Other times, it starts up just fine. It seems to improve after running CHKDSK a few times. I followed the PC World malware detection procedure from a couple of months ago, but that didn't turn up anything unusual. I use Norton Internet Security.

[mphenterprises]

Hi TRM125. Let me ask you some questions:- To what "Malware Dectection Procedure" do you refer?- What security software do you have and when was the last time you scanned?- How much memory do you have?- What is the wattage of your Power Supply rating? (You can find the PS rating on the inside of the computer on a sticker on the side of the Power Supply)- How long have you notice this problem?- Did you install any programs that would coincide with this problem?- When was the last time you Defragmented your Hard Drive(s)?

[smax013]

TRM125:I have been experiencing similar problems with my Dell 8400 for quite a while. Removing Norton Internet Security seemed to help some. I went to ZoneAlarm Pro for firewall (I like it better anyway) and Norton Anti-virus 2005. I defragged my hard drive. And ran a registry cleaning program (Registry Mechanic was recommended by others on this forum). All this helped some. I still have some of the issues. My next step is to dump Norton Anti-virus for either AVG or Avast.Don't know if my experince will help much or not.

[DellCustomerAdvocate]

Hi,My name is Todd and I'm with Dell's online outreach program, where we try to help our customers via blogs and forums. If you haven't done so yet I recommend that you try to defrag your system's hard drive as a first step. It sounds like your system is taking a long time to locate files as it's first booting up. Defragmentation of files over time is a common occurence and it's something that is easy to try to resolve. (click on START, then All Applications, System Tools, and Disk Defragmentation).Next, if that doesn't help enough, try going into Safe Mode and see if it seems to load quicker in that test version of Windows. If it does (the first time will probably take longer than you would expect, but that's normal) then it's an issue with an application or file loading that is causing the slow down. To get into Safe Mode restart your system and at the Dell prompt tap the <F8> key and follow the on-screen instructions.Try those two steps and see if it helps. Those may be easier fixes than removing and reinstalling security software (which it may come down to needing to do anyway). I'll stop back and see if this helped or if there is anything else I can suggest you try.Thank you,ToddCustomer AdvocateDell, Inc.http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/11/19/3648.aspx

[techie4fun]

[quote:8ba3bbdb82]When was the last time you Defragmented your Hard Drive(s)?[/quote:8ba3bbdb82]Now that this has been mentioned twice, I'm going to make a third notion. I would highly recommend doing a disk defrag and see if it improves speed up time and performance. That could be the problem right there.

[RoryH]

If your icons in the system tray aren't all loading up either right away or at all then I would suspect you have an issue with a start up file/program. I would go into MSCONFIG and gradually eliminate startup programs to determine which one mightbe causing startup issues. Try deselcting two or three at a time, reboot and repeat if necessary until you find the culprit. If you haven't defragged in QUITE AWHILE then yes, you should, otherwise if you do this fairly regularly then it probably won't help much at all.Make sure your hardware drivers are all updated as well, inlcuding printer and any other external devices you may have connected.Booting to Safe Mode will almost always work without error as Safe Mode does not load anything OTHER than Microsoft files/programs: no third party software or drivers will run in Safe Mode, so booting to Safe Mode won't tell you too much about your problem, unless it also boots VERY slow as well, then of course you have to start looking at the OS and other MS programs. However, while in Safe Mode you can look at you Device Manager and see if there are "ghost devices" as a lot of manufactured systems will show double entries on various devices; if you find them, then remove them from the Device Manager. Chances are you won't find anything like that though, but worth checking.Added: you need to consider the possibility of bad hardware as well. A lot of times if you have boot issues before getting into Windows, or during the loading of Windows, this can indicate hardware problems as hardware/device drivers are enumurated and loaded before loading Windows, even with bad hardware Windows can load, but erratically. Look at all your hardware from removable devices/drives to IDE cables and memory as well. I've seen bad memory and IDE cables cause boot issues and replacing either one solved the issues, but you have to eliminate all suspects.

[lilxkid24]

but still 15min.. even with everything on it shoudl take 15min to load. I suspect you have some type of spyware or virus. Do a scan or something and see does it come up with anything.

[mphenterprises]

Almost a week since TRM posted. Hopefully he or she has either solved the problem or will come back to answer our questions.

[TRM125]

Sorry I haven't responded to anyone. I've had some family illness issues. However, I appreciate the responses, and there are some things I can try. I have defragmented the disk, but not recently. I have started it up in Safe Mode and it booted quite rapidly. I'll take these suggestions and go through some systematic checking and see what happens. Thanks to everyone for your input.