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Post by Nobody on Mar 19, 2009 22:06:54 GMT -8
My laptop takes a little while to boot up. Here is what I notice. My laptop has no problem booting up until it loads all of the network stuff on the system tray (this is like the wireless stuff with an icon of a monitor). The antivirus does not take long because I uninstalled it and reinstalled it and did a virus scan and a spyware scan. Nothing came up. Also, when it is loading the network stuff the laptop seems to stop. What I mean by that I cant here anything going on inside. Usually you here the fan or hard drive running. But before the network stuff it is perfectly quiet as if its loaded.
Then after like 3-5 minutes it starts making the usual noises and the rest of the programs load in the system tray.
A few things you should know. My laptop is connected to the UCLA network. Which runs a program that checks if you have an antivirus installed. It then opens the default browser and automatically and takes me to the UCLA computing page (which is normal).
Here are the specs:
120 gb hard drive (half full)
2gb ram
256 mb Nvidia
AMD X2 Turion
Windows XP
If you need anything else let me know.
Thanks in advanced
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Post by Zangief on Mar 20, 2009 8:16:18 GMT -8
Does it still load slow when it is not connected to the UCLA network?
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Post by FrkUout on Mar 21, 2009 16:54:35 GMT -8
Here's some suggestions: 1. Check the performance settings for the laptop. This is found un the power options of the battery meter. I would assume that while on battery you have it set to max batery life to allow for note taking and such in class. When back in the room and plugged up the laptop will retain the max battery setting which will slow the computer down. Try setting it to high performance when plugged in. 2. Defrag the hard drive. Even though you have 60GB of free space, the swap file ont he hard drive is constantly moving data to and from the RAM. PLus if you've added or removed and files, programs, or add-ons it causes the hard drive to become more fragmented. This option probably should be #1 but I have a good feeling about the power setting thing. 3. Take a look at what Jeremy is suggesting. It could be that whatever the UCLA network is scanning for and/or pushing to your computer could be the culprit of your extended boot times. Try timing the boot without being connected tot he network and compare it with a time connected to the network to see if that'll help narrow it down. 4. Make sure you have all the latest updates for Windows and other MS products you use. Sometime there can be tweaks that they push out for Windows that can help security issues and performance. I would suggest checking for updated drivers for the video as well. Given taht it's NVidia the latest NForce software for you particular video card may help some. 5. If you have the system resotre monitoring your PC you may want to go in and delete some older restore points. This program will slow down the computer a bit. It's good to have in case something happens. Any maore system update will force a restore point but if you are not creating a restore point after you've done some school work that is important, running the system restore may be for nothing. I would evaluate your useage of this feature and see if you really need it. All the restore points do add to virus and malware checking times and take up hard disk space. 6. All else fails, back-up your work and re-install Windows. Sometime Windows gets so corrupted that none of the above fixes really help it out. There's two ways to reslove it, re-install Windows or ditch Windows and go to Linux. A third option is to just deal with it but that's not much of an option. I hope this will help get you one your way to faster booting goodness. |
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Post by Nobody on Mar 24, 2009 19:19:31 GMT -8
I came home this week and my laptop boots up normally. I am guessing that it is the UCLA network. I don't think there is much I can do to speed it up because of that. The UCLA network first checks to see if I have this one program called SafeConnect installed. And then it runs it which it detects to see if my antivirus is installed and then it loads the browser automatically. So I don't think there is much I can do.
However, the thing is that my laptop worked fine before when I was on the network. I think I will reinstall windows since I am at home.
Thanks guys.
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Post by Zangief on Mar 24, 2009 19:26:45 GMT -8
Why reinstall windows? You having other issues? From what it sounds like, your computer only experiences slow down when are connected to the UCLA network. So if thats the only problem, I wouldn't think reinstalling windows would be necessary.
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Post by FrkUout on Mar 25, 2009 18:26:11 GMT -8
It wouldn't unless he's thinking that there's other issues. Given that Meesam has pretty much narrowed it down to the network I would just recommend a good defrag, maybe run it two or three times, and call it a day.
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Post by Nobody on Apr 11, 2009 9:03:55 GMT -8
I couldn't reinstall windows because I could not find the cds nor the recovery discs at home (My recovery discs were here in my dorm, lol). Anyway I defraged the hard drive but the only thing it did was set the delay back a little. What I mean by that is is that the really long delay that used to occur right before the wireless stuff loaded has now moved back to when the desktop first loads. My computer logs on and just stops when the background comes up. Same delay it just happens earlier now.
I am not sure what this means. I mean at home it booted up just fine. Back at school (even without connecting to any network) it is really slow.
It sounds pretty weird i know. But there are a lot of little things wrong with my laptop (it has been really banged up). Such things like it will not read cds for a long time if a lot of stuff needs to be copied from it. The cd tray pops out just whenever it feels like it. The fan on the computer turns on at a super high speed when I am just surfing the net (light surfing such as e mail and my college website and no the surrounding areas of the laptop are not hot at all and it has been on for about 15 minutes).
So yea, thanks for the help guys. I will try to recover it a little later and see if that works if not then I think I will trash it and get a mac or a lenovo.
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Post by FrkUout on Apr 11, 2009 10:01:16 GMT -8
just say no to a mac. If it's that bad try a warranty repair if your still under warranty. Also, there's still the linux option if you thinks it's a windows issue.
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Post by Zangief on Apr 12, 2009 10:13:29 GMT -8
dont get a mac
they are of no use in the engineering world
plus they are for noobs who buy into the commercials
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Post by Nobody on Apr 12, 2009 23:55:12 GMT -8
dont get a mac they are of no use in the engineering world plus they are for noobs who buy into the commercials Noted. I am leaning towards a ibm thinkpad anyway. My dad has one and is pretty solid. Really well built, and from what I hear they have some high quality parts. One bad thing is that they are really stingy on memory. |
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Post by FrkUout on Apr 20, 2009 17:03:37 GMT -8
I have office 2007 running on Kubuntu 9.04 with the use of crossover linux by codeweavers. It works well except for Access. Kubuntu is ubuntu with the K desktop environment (KDE). It looks similar to windows.
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Post by Nobody on Apr 20, 2009 19:04:39 GMT -8
I did not hear about ubuntu until I saw the clip on youtube entitled "Matrix runs on Windows".
But yea, I think what I will do is take my laptop down to one of the Computer science meetings and have them install linux side by side with windows and see how that goes for a while.
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Post by FrkUout on Apr 20, 2009 20:50:44 GMT -8
you don't have to do a full install. You can run a live CD that will let you try linux before you install, not very good because you cannot really install any other programs. Or you can install it from windows. It'll run a program call WUBI. That program will set aside a folder in windows of a specified size and install linux. once it's installed then you can just reboot into it if you choose. You'll be provided a boot menu to choose linux or windows. Windows will be the default after 30 seconds. That method gives you a little more flexability with installing additions, updates adn programs. You may find that you won't need windows anymore for office software as linux has openoffice installed. You can view it at openoffice.org. It's free for all platforms and opens MS formats. It's not the same but from what I understand once you get used to the program it's pretty good. I'm still using Vitsa as well but I'm really liking what I see from my kubuntu install. Check the different versions of Ubuntu out here: UbuntuKubuntuXbuntuUbuntu Products PageInfo about Wubi install |
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