This computer started out as a Gateway Multimedia machine. It got a lot slower about a year ago, but totally lost its way during a recent thunderstorm. Now, evevn with a new ASUS motherboard, a 3.0GHz AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core processor, and 4GB memory it still insists on maintinaing its slow poke slacker lifestyle. It takes over four minutes to complete a full boot up. It takes about 10-15 seconds for programs to launch.
For reference, sitting right next to it is a similar machine that I put together a couple of months ago, also
with an AMD Athlon 64x2 dual core processor, but running at a slightly slower 2.71GHz. It also has 4GB of memory. It boots up in 90 seconds and takes about three seconds to launch a program.
SlowPoke is running XP MCE SP3 and
Reference is running XP Pro SP3.
SlowPoke's problems began long ago and did not improve with upgrades to software or hardware. Several antivirus and malware programs have not found problems. McAfee was removed and replaced by Norton 360, which in turn was removed with the Norton software removal tool. then came Trend Micro, NOD32, and now Avast (before and after the lightning). Still no improvement.
I have clocked the time to various boot up events. After the last icon shows up in the Nofication Area, I
click on My Computer and count until the window is populated. Then I click on Firefox Quick Launch and count until my home page comes up. That is what I am considering a full boot up. I can reverse these last two steps but it comes out about the same.
Here is the data (times are averaged across several cold boots):
Elapsed Time Comparison in Seconds
SloPoke Reference
3.0GHz 2.7GHz Event
:05 :09 Beep
:31 :29 Scrolling Bar
:46 :44 Black screen
1:08 --- "Windows is Starting Up"
1:12 :53 "Welcome"
1:31 :56 DeskTop Visible
1:45 :58 SysTray: First Icon Visible
2:35 1:01 SysTray: Last Icon Visible
3:16 1:23 My Computer window opened
4:18 1:30 Firefox online
How can I speed this thing up?
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