Crazy Long Start Up Time

[Archie F. Swin]

I have a 5 yr old Dell desktop that, as a whole, functions well. What's crazy are the boot/startup times. It takes on average 4 1/2 minutes between selecting a user and having a fully functional desktop. Most of that time is on a black screen.

I've run virus/malware/spyware scans. I've defragged and run disk cleaners and everything seems to be in good working order(considering the age of the machine). I have noticed that when you restart the machine it always wants to do a disk check.

I have recently replaced the power supply, and we do have some bulky games on this machine. Maybe 4 games combining for about 15-16 GB in size.

IS there anything I can do to get this thing to come to life more quickly?

[hometeam]

Originally Posted by Shaid

No, it's not wrong. You uninstall and reinstall programs which changes and resets files. Some will remove a file you might need etc. So unless you're a grandma who just runs a computer as is and never connects to the internet, you will inevitably need to reload at some point. Ask any tech who's worth a shit and they'll tell you the same.

Yep, its wrong.

Sorry bro, I mean nothing by it, but your windows files do not 'inevitably' lose integrity or become corrupted or anything else. There is no accidental deletion of files upon removing programs that might cause slow startup.

And you never need to reload windows unless you have a problem.

[Shaid]

Originally Posted by hometeam

Yep, its wrong.

Sorry bro, I mean nothing by it, but your windows files do not 'inevitably' lose integrity or become corrupted or anything else. There is no accidental deletion of files upon removing programs that might cause slow startup.

And you never need to reload windows unless you have a problem.

No, it's not wrong.

I was a Technical Team Lead for a major computer manufacturer and have built my own PCs for 15 years. I got that promotion after being with the company for only 9 months. I'm really not trying to measure dicks here but I want to make it clear that I have an idea of what I'm talking about.

System files do get changed/replaced. The comments about no accidental removals/changes of system files is insane. You obviously don't remember the Myth II uninstaller fiasco that turned Bungie from an independent company to a Microsoft lackey. There's a slew of others but that's probably the most prominent example. Programmers make mistakes in their install/uninstall protocols all the time. Windows is much better now then they used to be about allowing the changes but it still happens. If it couldn't happen, no virus would ever work.

He also talks about needing to run a checkdisk on startup which could potentially point to bad sectors on his hard drive, another potential cause for system file corruption. A 5 year old PC very likely has bad sectors and very likely has some system files that have lost integrity. You can go into msconfig and edit the startup items or go directly into the run lines in the registry and make manual corrections that way but you are putting a band-aid on the problem. Why would Microsoft even have an option to Repair Windows on their disks if it couldn't happen?

The truth is it usually just depends on when you want to do a reload. I personally would choose to do it while I still had the option to back up files the easy way in windows and not wait until I no longer have that option.

That's my 2 cents, you can decide on what you choose to believe.

[Old Dog]

Wouldn't simply upgrading the RAM help him quite a bit?

[phisherman]

Fish and I have a fair bit of experience ourselves. We're still talking about a machine that was built 5 years ago. Rebuild the box or get a new one. You know, diminishing returns and all...

[Vegas_Dave]

Originally Posted by hometeam

If he wants to spend the money, the SSD will cure all that ails his startup woes.

I was just not too hot on suggesting spending the money on a computer that is already outdated.

See and my thought is that the ssd solves the immediate issue and when/if he upgrades system later, that ssd moves to the new computer. That was the justification I had when I put one in my 4 year old laptop.

[jjjayb]

Originally Posted by Shaid

No, it's not wrong. You uninstall and reinstall programs which changes and resets files. Some will remove a file you might need etc. So unless you're a grandma who just runs a computer as is and never connects to the internet, you will inevitably need to reload at some point. Ask any tech who's worth a shit and they'll tell you the same.

I'm a tech that's worth a shit, and I'll tell you, you absolutely don't need to reload windows. In fact, a tech that isn't worth a shit will tell you to do that because they are too lazy or can't figure out whatever problem is slowing you down.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

a lot of techs will reload because they either don't know the cause of a problem or because they don't want to spend possibly more time tracking it down than putting on a new drive image. The average joe shouldn't need to re-install windows every 6 to 9 months, if you do, you should stay off the warez, porn, and freeware shit.

[hometeam]

Stick with hometeam. I know my shit.

[jspchief]

Originally Posted by jjjayb

I'm a tech that's worth a shit, and I'll tell you, you absolutely don't need to reload windows. In fact, a tech that isn't worth a shit will tell you to do that because they are too lazy or can't figure out whatever problem is slowing you down.

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

a lot of techs will reload because they either don't know the cause of a problem or because they don't want to spend possibly more time tracking it down than putting on a new drive image. The average joe shouldn't need to re-install windows every 6 to 9 months, if you do, you should stay off the warez, porn, and freeware shit.

This was my first thought. Sounds like someone that takes the lazy route for diagnosis.

[Shaid]

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

a lot of techs will reload because they either don't know the cause of a problem or because they don't want to spend possibly more time tracking it down than putting on a new drive image.

This is unfortunately very true and has always been the case. I know someone who works for Best Buy and they basically instruct them to do just that so they'll reload people on extremely simple problems. We're talking about 5 years of junk here though and the delay at the beginning sound more serious than simple startup items.

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

The average joe shouldn't need to re-install windows every 6 to 9 months, if you do, you should stay off the warez, porn, and freeware shit.

I do it because I like a nice clean install, I just do. I don't download freeware and porn shit which causes problems for lots of people. But I use cracks and torrents and am constantly uninstalling and reinstalling games, changing things, trying out new programs or modding them, etc. For me, a reload is simply something I can do while watching a movie so it's a piece of cake. I have a 1TB drive for backing up items and a 4TB drive for media, etc. I like to save. I wouldn't recommend an average person do it too often but at 3 or more years I think most people start seeing some issues, especially because that's around when you start to see hard drives start failing on people more often. That's when you should have at the very least a backup stategy.

I spoke to a business owner once who was still on a 3.1 system and kept their financial info on it and it finally just lost it's hard drive after working for over 10 years. He didn't have anything backed up. I keep items tidily backed up and I like fresh installs.

I will admit that my last fresh reload was around 2 years instead but that's really just because I had done some pretty big modding on a few programs and didn't feel like redoing it just for the fresh reload. I finally did once I bought a new SSD.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by Shaid

I spoke to a business owner once who was still on a 3.1 system and kept their financial info on it and it finally just lost it's hard drive after working for over 10 years. He didn't have anything backed up.
.

That guy must be a colossal dipshit.

[Shaid]

Originally Posted by notorious

That guy must be a colossal dipshit.

yep

[Archie F. Swin]

Wow. i didn't follow up on this thread. Thanks for all the advice guys.

For now, I'm not gonna throw money at it. Seems pointless if the machine is stable and does its job as a web browser.

You know what they say:"If your car is making a weird noise, just turn the radio up". I do really appreciate all the insight. Its nice to know what exactly is going on inside this magic machine.