Laptop taking very long to load Vista

[Black Panther]

It's been some months now: it all started when one of my graphic cards started artifacting.
I thought it was because of it, but after I removed the faulty card the problem still remained.

Basically from the moment I press the power button till I get my icons and desktop background 2 minutes and 35 seconds pass. The majority of the time is during the Vista startup where there is that bar with the 'loading' green vertical lines. I've never counted them but since this problem started it does 55 cycles whereas before it was only like 8 cycles.

I'm using Selective Startup from Msconfig - basically the only startup items there are:

- Windows Defender
- HD Audio Control Panel
- SM56 Helper Win32 Utility
- Microsoft Security Client

I also unchecked all the items under Services (always from Msconfig), after 'hiding' all Microsoft Services.

In Task Manager I've got 57 processes (showing processes for all users) and four of them are IE related because I'm running it right now.

________________________________________

Where do you suggest I start to solve this problem?

 

[overclocker]

Reformat, check ram for errors.

 

[H82LUZ73]

scandisk and defrag also crap clean the reg using ccleaner.http://www.piriform.com/

 

[Black Panther]

Forgot to mention that I run Defraggler and CClean regularly, in fact just did them yesterday. I also ran a thorough virus scan.

Apart from the slow startup, laptop works fine, programs load fast, etc..

I was thinking of the reformat as a very last option.

 

[trickson]

Try cleaning registry and junk files with registry mechanic ? If all this doesn't work you may want to reformat the HDD , This could be because you have some program that has not fully uninstalled and is taking up background resources . But I know you know this ! I would just reformat .

 

[Black Panther]

Try cleaning registry and junk files with registry mechanic ? If all this doesn't work you may want to reformat the HDD , This could be because you have some program that has not fully uninstalled and is taking up background resources . But I know you know this ! I would just reformat .

Isn't CCleaner a sufficient registry cleaner?

I'm currently running memtest...

Leaving the option to reformat as the last option though.

 

[ManofGod]

Run a full harddrive test using the Western Digital Diagnostics Utility. Also, are there any errors in the event logs that would indicate the problem?

 

[Black Panther]

Hmmm look what I just found

 

[Melvis]

Sounds normal to me, worked on many Vista laptops new and old and they all take a few minutes to load into windows.

 

[trickson]

Isn't CCleaner a sufficient registry cleaner?

I'm currently running memtest...

Leaving the option to reformat as the last option though.

No not in my book . A friend of mine had a similar problem to yours and well he used CClean as well , I installed reg mechanic in ( The newest version is far better ) and MAN it found tons of BAD things ! Ran it cleaned it defraged the reg and his system is faster than ever now . Some times things get paste CClean I run then both along with windows 7 manager and man do all 3 make a big difference , If you can I would also get windows 7 manager as it has tons of tools that can help you fix this . I love it and it is worth the cash .

 

[garyinhere]

What programs are running during start up, go through and delete the ones that aren't necessary to boot like quick start programs ect.

 

[Black Panther]

I'll give registry mechanic a try.

@ Melvis, but my laptop started having slow startups kinda overnight.

___________________

Some more stuff (which I need help in deciphering)...

@ Gary, the only 4 startup programs I have are those in the OP. Not much.

 

[garyinhere]

Everything i'm seeing on the 402 seems to be a server issue?
You can receive the Event 402 that indicates that the connections number
reach the limit on the SMTP server.

Event 100
When you perform a message transfer agent (MTA) scan job in Microsoft Antigen 9.0 for Exchange, event ID 100 is logged in the Application log.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923869

 

[Black Panther]

Well, I ran memtest for about an hour, no errors were found.

I also ran through all the options in Registry Mechanic, but it didn't work!

After doing this, I took a video and uploaded it on youtube. If you want to see it, it's... uhh... "only" 2:41 but all it show is my laptop starting up.

Oh and I counted the windows loading bars... they're 55!

 

[trickson]

Well, I ran memtest for about an hour, no errors were found.

I also ran through all the options in Registry Mechanic, but it didn't work!

After doing this, I took a video and uploaded it on youtube. If you want to see it, it's... uhh... "only" 2:41 but all it show is my laptop starting up.

Oh and I counted the windows loading bars... they're 55!

WOW that is brutal ! It is slow . You may just have to reinstall windows . When you installed the new video card did you make sure that the old drivers are all gone ? It seems like this could be trying to load up too many drivers or some thing .

 

[Namslas90]

Maybe try Soluto (free), at least it might give you a better idea as to whats going on;
http://soluto.en.softonic.com/download

 

[Black Panther]

When you installed the new video card did you make sure that the old drivers are all gone ? It seems like this could be trying to load up too many drivers or some thing .

I am in fact suspecting the nvidia driver.

In my first post I said this problem started exactly at the precise moment when one of my cards decided to start artifacting. So I removed that card (laptop had two 8800M GTX so I essentially went from SLI to single keeping one of the cards, actually removing the master card and putting the slave instead of the master...). Removing the card also removed the artifacts, and the laptop was as good as new once again. Only this startup problem remained....

Now I remember, that after going from SLI to single card I didn't reinstall nvidia driver... Perhaps the driver didn't "like" going from SLI to single and needed reinstalling. I'll be trying that next. I've kinda got faith that this will work.

 

[Goodman]

Spywares , maybe?

Try this--->http://www.superantispyware.com/
Run a complete scan

 

[Black Panther]

Update:

I think I found the crux of it all.

When one card "died" (I dunno I still have to re-test it) I googled and found like 20 images showing that the parent card on the D901C is on the extreme left nearest to the chassis of the laptop.

So I assumed that my parent card had died and moved the daughter card into its place, after removing the parent card.

Now I check my bios, and find this:

So something's clearly not right. I can't change the laptop's bios, so I guess that in my case it was even weirder i.e. parent & daughter were switched and as a result I'm using a single card in the daughter slot instead of the parent slot...

 

[trickson]

That could very well be it . It is searching for the parent card in the parent slot . What have you done to fix the " Bad " card ( If any thing ) ? Have you tried putting the good card in that slot and see what happens then ?

 

[VulkanBros]

Update:

I think I found the crux of it all.

When one card "died" (I dunno I still have to re-test it) I googled and found like 20 images showing that the parent card on the D901C is on the extreme left nearest to the chassis of the laptop.

So I assumed that my parent card had died and moved the daughter card into its place, after removing the parent card.

Now I check my bios, and find this:

http://img.techpowerup.org/110408/Parent!.jpg


So something's clearly not right. I can't change the laptop's bios, so I guess that in my case it was even weirder i.e. parent & daughter were switched and as a result I'm using a single card in the daughter slot instead of the parent slot...

Dont think thats the problem.......have you checked all the services - sounds like there is a hell lot of them running - ?

 

[Black Panther]

Guys, this is weird.

I've "lost" my Vista themes
Vista Basic and Vista Aero just aren't there in theme settings or personalized settings.

Also, yesterday utorrent was here, today it 'vanished', and I had to download and install it again.

I'm currently doing a full scan with Malwarebytes.

 

[cheesy999]

Guys, this is weird.

I've "lost" my Vista themes
Vista Basic and Vista Aero just aren't there in theme settings or personalized settings.

Also, yesterday utorrent was here, today it 'vanished', and I had to download and install it again.

I'm currently doing a full scan with Malwarebytes.

sounds like your laptops mobo dead, if both the gfx and hard drive are messed up - have you tried checking the ram - could be a memory error causing all of this - unfortunately i'm only saying that because when a laptops mobo go's then its time to buy a new one, but its worth a try running this for a few hours

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

might be time to buy that netbook

 

[Black Panther]

sounds like your laptops mobo dead, if both the gfx and hard drive are messed up - have you tried checking the ram -

Dead mobo, drive and gfx??
I was more thinking of a virus...

I ran memtest for an hour yesterday, didn't find any errors.

I'm on the laptop right now, I mean apart from all the above it works fine...


Edit: Malwarebytes found everything clean.

 

[Black Panther]

Is it normal that two svchost.exe processes use 272,712K and 218,840K of memory respectively?

I've only got IE with 4 tabs running, is this memory usage normal for Vista?