Windows 7 really slow startup

PC Doctor

PC Doctor

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I have a Windows 7 laptop in Toshiba Sattelite I3 with 4gb Ram.

Machine seems to boot ok, Windows logo comes up as normal and then loads to a black screen with a mouse pointer and just sits there, maybe 4 or 5 minutes then the desktop comes up and from that point the machine operates normally and at a reasonable speed.

I have scanned it for malware, removed pup's etc and also removed some old programmes to no avail.

Any software available that would be able to tell me what is causing the slow boot?
 
I'd echo the hard drive checks. In answer to the tracking boot times, the command line options built into windows are a hassle. Soluto is more designed towards end users but their interface is actually quite good in showing what is slowing down where. I normally just turn everything off in msconfig / safe mode it instead though.
 
After you determine the HDD is healthy with zero reallocated/pending reallocation sectors, perhaps run the Reliability Monitor to see a helpful history of OS errors/warnings. Slow, blank screen on start-up suggests a recent windows update, but that usually clears up after the next reboot. The history of recent update failures might be interesting. I assume you've already gone through all the start-ups and disabled all the garbage.
 
I agree that running a hard drive diagnostics along with a system image should have been one of the first things you did. Quickly check SMART with Crystal Disk Info and run a short and long test with gSmartcontrol.
 
If it's around 5-Years old then just tell them to stop wasting money/time on you and that laptop. Put that money/time into a new one and help them with a data transfer and a new setup. I wouldn't even advise putting in a new HD or an SSD in a laptop this old, put those resources into a new one.

Best case scenario is you spend hours trying to troubleshoot what I would call a "needle in a haystack" issue just for the personal satisfaction of saying you fixed it. Then they are still left with a 5-year old laptop and the drive is probably past due anyways.

Worst case is the HD is bad, it isn't worth replacing and they end up having to buy a new one anyways.

Personally if someone comes to me with anything older than 4 years, that could even remotely point at a hardware issue, I just tell them to not even bother bringing it in. Lets just get setup on a new one.

If they can't afford a new laptop after having one for 4-5 years then they probably can't afford me.
 
thecomputerguy said:
If it's around 5-Years old then just tell them to stop wasting money/time on you and that laptop. Put that money/time into a new one and help them with a data transfer and a new setup. I wouldn't even advise putting in a new HD or an SSD in a laptop this old, put those resources into a new one.

Best case scenario is you spend hours trying to troubleshoot what I would call a "needle in a haystack" issue just for the personal satisfaction of saying you fixed it. Then they are still left with a 5-year old laptop and the drive is probably past due anyways.

Worst case is the HD is bad, it isn't worth replacing and they end up having to buy a new one anyways.

Personally if someone comes to me with anything older than 4 years, that could even remotely point at a hardware issue, I just tell them to not even bother bringing it in. Lets just get setup on a new one.

If they can't afford a new laptop after having one for 4-5 years then they probably can't afford me.
Click to expand...

That's a rather harsh assessment. Much as I like new tech, and much as spiffy new things are fun, there are plenty of 5 year old laptops with a ton of life left in them, and there are very many reasons to keep one going. For example, I would certainly recommend someone invest $300.00 upgrading a 5 year old business laptop or a 5 year old MacBook Pro with an SSD and a tune-up rather than replace it with a new $300.00 laptop. There are a lot of homes where multiple computers are passed down through the family, going from Dad's work machine to kid's homework machine to Grandpa's upgrade from Vista or XP. There are also environmental reasons to keep systems going - our landfills are full enough.

Quite a lot of my business involves keeping older but still fully functional computers working at what I call "human speed" - not lightening fast zippity zip new, but a reasonable enough clip to get the job done and not drive the user crazy. I have had plenty of systems dropped off that behaved like the computer OP described and went back working like a decent computer again, with pure software fixes or reasonably priced hardware upgrades. it's actually a fun part of what I do!
 
carmen617 said:
That's a rather harsh assessment. Much as I like new tech, and much as spiffy new things are fun, there are plenty of 5 year old laptops with a ton of life left in them, and there are very many reasons to keep one going. For example, I would certainly recommend someone invest $300.00 upgrading a 5 year old business laptop or a 5 year old MacBook Pro with an SSD and a tune-up rather than replace it with a new $300.00 laptop. There are a lot of homes where multiple computers are passed down through the family, going from Dad's work machine to kid's homework machine to Grandpa's upgrade from Vista or XP. There are also environmental reasons to keep systems going - our landfills are full enough.

Quite a lot of my business involves keeping older but still fully functional computers working at what I call "human speed" - not lightening fast zippity zip new, but a reasonable enough clip to get the job done and not drive the user crazy. I have had plenty of systems dropped off that behaved like the computer OP described and went back working like a decent computer again, with pure software fixes or reasonably priced hardware upgrades. it's actually a fun part of what I do!
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. My general rule is, if it's an older Core 2 Duo era machine, $200 tops. That would more than cover a hard drive replacement and data transfer. If it's a 1st gen i-series, $300 tops. These are a great candidate for an SSD upgrade.

Another rule is, if it has DDR2 memory, replace with another hard drive (the speed benefits of an SSD are minimal if you're running a system with DDR2 memory). If it has DDR3 and isn't a bargain basement AMD E series processor or a Celeron, do an SSD upgrade.
 
Check HDD health as mentioned using CrystalDiskInfo - then processes that are causing the load using Process Explorer. It may be a Trojan that has hijacked explorer.exe and other system services.

DNS Trojans exhibit this type of behavior
 
Markverhyden said:
The second trouble shooting step should be to boot from your favorite linux distro to see what happens. Then move on.
Click to expand...

Agree. Simply boot one of the many stand-alone OS CDs (e.g. Linux, Acronis, one of the PE versions). If you see the same "hang", then it's hardware, otherwise it's software.
 
Just ran across one yesterday, an HP with a Pentium P6000 that upgraded to Win10. Dog slow to respond to almost anything, even Task Manager was slow to come up. When it did, nothing was slammed, not the CPU, not the disk. The drive access indicator light wasn't on solid, which is typically the case when Windows has just started.

It was Intel Matrix Storage Manager (son of Intel RST). Pulled it off the system, restarted, performance problem solved.

This was a system with no solid state cache drive, just a single HDD. Really no need for the software RAID.
 
Last edited:
It the OP doesn't appreciate the info maybe someone else can make use of our replies via a search...

My solution, 1st try to clone or make a backup of the hard drive via Acronis (or your favorite program). If it fails you probably have a bad hard drive. Reinstall the O/S on a new hard drive and attach the old drive and see if Fabs can get his info copied/transferred for you.
 
PC Doctor said:
I have a Windows 7 laptop in Toshiba Sattelite I3 with 4gb Ram.

Machine seems to boot ok, Windows logo comes up as normal and then loads to a black screen with a mouse pointer and just sits there, maybe 4 or 5 minutes then the desktop comes up and from that point the machine operates normally and at a reasonable speed.

I have scanned it for malware, removed pup's etc and also removed some old programmes to no avail.

Any software available that would be able to tell me what is causing the slow boot?
Click to expand...

Have you checked how much memory it has ? I recently did a laptop about the same age with the same problem and found it only had 1g of ram, I was quite surprised to say the least at how little ram it had for something that was only a few years old. I ran crucial scan which found it could have up to 8g of ram, popping in 4g of ram fixed all and it goes like the clappers now, the client was over the moon and said it runs better than it ever has. :)

rgds
Syb
 
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