Help! Hey computer guys...

gtrjunior

gtrjunior

Wannabe
What would cause my laptop to suddenly take 3x as long to boot up? When I turn it on it takes about 30 seconds to load the password screen then after I enter it it takes about 5 full minutes to load the homepage and icons etc. I can't think of anything I downloaded or changed in the computer that would cause this to just suddenly happen. It never took this long until about 2 weeks ago. There have been times when it would run slow and I'd have to reboot it and then it was fine.
I have a Dell Inspiron running a Core i3 processor on windows 7. The computer is about 5 years old but has very little use on it. I bought it when my wife and I were DJ-ing weddings and parties. All my music is stored on an external hard drive and not on the computer. Originally had 4G of memory but I upgraded to 8G a couple of years ago.
The only thing I use it for now is home recording running Cubase 5.
Keep in mind that I know almost nothing about operating systems etc so you may need to dumb down your responses for me. Lol thanks
 
Under startup there's maybe a dozen things starting up now. I disabled a few things like iTunes, Dropbox msoffice etc. I figured I don't need them to startup each time.
Under the services tab there are tons of things listed there....all with a check mark. I have no idea what these things are or if they all need to be checked and if they would cause the comp to run slower...

Rebooting now...
 
Dell Advanced Slow Performance Troubleshooting: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN171944/EN

You'll want to back up your files from your personal files location, which is C:\Users\(user-name), and any other locations you have saved files into. It's probably best to make a full backup of the computer to a portable hard drive first.

Dell Backup and Restore instructions - http://www.dell.com/support/content...ell-backup-solutions/Dell-Backup-and-Recovery

Also ensure that you have the installable disks/files for any software you have installed on the laptop that you'll want to0 reinstall.

Dell Inspiron, instructions to factory reset it: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/4/SLN291879
 
GDSmithTX said:
Dell Advanced Slow Performance Troubleshooting: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN171944/EN

You'll want to back up your files from your personal files location, which is C:\Users\(user-name), and any other locations you have saved files into. It's probably best to make a full backup of the computer to a portable hard drive first.

Dell Backup and Restore instructions - http://www.dell.com/support/content...ell-backup-solutions/Dell-Backup-and-Recovery

Also ensure that you have the installable disks/files for any software you have installed on the laptop that you'll want to0 reinstall.

Dell Inspiron, instructions to factory reset it: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/4/SLN291879
Click to expand...
I think I should save this as a last resort thing!
The good news is that I don't really have much that I absolutely need to save. Like I said I never really used this computer to download things into. The music software is really all that I'd want to save. I have the actual disks for Cubase.
What about digital download programs? I believe I have registered all that I've bought, so I'm assuming I can go to the website and "reactivate" the program?
 
gtrjunior said:
I think I should save this as a last resort thing!
The good news is that I don't really have much that I absolutely need to save. Like I said I never really used this computer to download things into. The music software is really all that I'd want to save. I have the actual disks for Cubase.
What about digital download programs? I believe I have registered all that I've bought, so I'm assuming I can go to the website and "reactivate" the program?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it starts out with Troubleshooting and proceeds up to "wipe it out and start anew".

Generally, yes that's how you do the digital download thing. Make a list of what they are and look in your emails for the receipt/installation key.

A handy tool is Belarc Advisor, which examines your system and makes an HTML file of all the hardware, the system details and all the software keys it can find, including those for Windows itself, MS Office, etc. It's good to have that info on hand (on an external drive, naturally) if something happens.

I would absolutely make a Dell System Restore system rescue disk before doing anything, if you haven't already done so: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/SLN298442
 
I'll look into that when I get home from work tonite.
As far as virus software, I have just a basic mcAffee security essentials program. I did run it yesterday and it came back clean.
I'd hate to think the hard drive is on its way out since this computer has relatively very little use on it. And this is something that just recently ( 2 weeks ?) started happening.
It boots up to the screen where I enter my password in under a minute. Once I enter it it takes a solid 5 minutes to load the desktop and icons etc. it used to take just a minute or 2 for that.
 
I work in tech support and we have computers with hard drives that are DOA out of the box. It may not be the hard drive, but in my experience slow boot times are often drives that are starting to go.

You can also boot the computer in Safe Mode. This disables most, if not all, of the stuff that runs on startup. Stuff that Coralkong suggested reviewing in your MS Config. If the system boots way faster in Safe Mode, then it is likely some startup item is causing a headache. The odds of it being malware/virus also increase. Are your anti-virus definitions current? If you look in the McAfee application, do you see definition dates that are December 2016? If yes, that means you're protected and chances of virus/malware are less likely. If your definitions are a few months to years out of date, it could be virus/malware.

If the system still boots slow as shit in safe mode, it more strongly indicates a hardware problem.

Here's a link on how to boot into Safe Mode. https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-start-windows-7-in-safe-mode-2624540
 
Personally, I wouldn't waste too much time on a windows PC that's been in service for several years if you don't have a bunch of data on the PC & you've got your software handy for reinstall
Back up yer data
F12 @ the dell startup screen and choose the diagnostics option. It'll run through the hardware and generate an alert if a fault is detected
If it passes the diags, reinstall windows & your software
 
gtrjunior said:
I'd hate to think the hard drive is on its way out since this computer has relatively very little use on it. And this is something that just recently ( 2 weeks ?) started happening.
It boots up to the screen where I enter my password in under a minute. Once I enter it it takes a solid 5 minutes to load the desktop and icons etc. it used to take just a minute or 2 for that.
Click to expand...

If you ever take a hard drive apart, you'd me surprised they even work in the first place. They are basically a stack of thin metal plates that rotate 7200 RPM.

hard-drive-disk-1444280.jpg


I'd say hard drive dying or malware of some type. I usually use Malawarebytes for a first run of malware removal.
 
Make sure the conductive grease between the CPU and the CPU Heat Sink hasn't all cooked off or gotten hard. Sounds silly, but that chip will reach its thermal max in mere seconds on startup. If that stuff is cooked or burnt off, the heat sink and fan are useless. I just went through this on my PC, and my oldest son's PC goes about 6 months between having to pull the heat sink and replace the grease because he's a gamer and taxes the bugeezis out of his machine.

You can get a tube of the stuff at Staples or Office Depot for a few bucks.

My machine had gone from a sub 30 second startup time to well over a minute, and crucial programs were running very slow. Now it's back to normal after replacement of the goop.

Just be sure you don't pull the chip out along with the heat sink. It has a bazillion little pins and if you bend one, you're fooked.
 
The fan still works. I can hear it start and stop. But if I understand you, if the grease is cooked it doesn't matter...?
 
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So I just ran the troubleshooter and there are no problems with the hardware. So I'm currently running the extended memory check. Let's see what happens.
 
Download adwcleaner from bleeping computers. Scan with that. McAfee is useless at spotting pups. Potentialy unwanted programmes. They will almost certainly be the problem. Adwcleaner is owned by malwarebytes and is quite safe to use. Dont be surprised if it finds a LOT of files, folders and registry entrys to delete.
 
knotty said:
Download adwcleaner from bleeping computers. Scan with that. McAfee is useless at spotting pups. Potentialy unwanted programmes. They will almost certainly be the problem. Adwcleaner is owned by malwarebytes and is quite safe to use. Dont be surprised if it finds a LOT of files, folders and registry entrys to delete.
Click to expand...
I'll do that...thank you.
 
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