choppy start up

[byte_king]

Hello,

A year ago I purchased a Dell Inspiron 1545 with Windows Vista SP1 Home premium installed. Back in October, I upgraded to W7 and I have no real major problem or complaints...

However, Over the last 2 months something has been happening. It bears no impact on the functionality of the computer itself or the OS, but it's just annoying me. Before, when I would boot the computer, boot was clean, fast, and smooth.

Now, the boot is not so fast, it can take upwards to a minute to boot and the boot sequence is choppy. For instance, it goes to the Starting Windows screen, and it takes forever here, at its worst 20 seconds. Than, when it passes this, the screen flashes black, grey, then goes back to black (like the ACDC song ). At this point, for a few seconds, about 15, it is just black and all i see is a cursor. Eventually, it goes to the Please wait page than to welcome. Sometimes, I don't even see please wait, it just goes straight to welcome. Once it loads the desktop, there is no smooth transition to the desktop. The screen goes black, stays black for a few seconds and than the desktop appears but in segments...

It's not a big issue and the computer works smoothly after this, but I'm just getting a bit annoyed with it. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do to make the boot a little smoother? And should I start getting worried.

Thanks.

[exile360]

Hello

Please do the following:

Provide System Specifications:

• Please download Speccy from here and save the installer to your desktop or another location where you can easily find it.
  
• Double-click the file to begin installation and follow the onscreen steps to complete the installation and make sure that the checkbox next to Run Speccy is checked before you click on Finish at the end.
  
• Once the program starts it will analyze your system, please be patient as it may take a few moments to complete.
  
• Once it finishes and none of the areas say Analyzing click on the File button at the top and select Save Snapshot...
  
• Save the file to your desktop and click Ok to confirm
  
• Go to your desktop and right click on the file you just created and hover over Send to and select Compressed (zipped) Folder
  
• Please attach the zip file you just created to your next post
  

[byte_king]

Hello Exile,

As requested, here is the info.

speccy.zip

[exile360]

Hello again

I was checking to make sure your graphics drivers were up to date and they are.

Please do the following:

• Download the latest chipset drivers for your system from here and save it to your desktop but do not install it yet.
  
• Please copy and paste the following text in the Code box exactly as written into notepad (not wordpad or any other text editor):
  

  @echo off
  infinst911autol.exe -OVERALL -OVERIDE
  del /f /q %0

  
  

• Once you've done that click on File and select Save As...
  
• In the Save dialogue box click on the drop down menu next to Save as type and select All Files
  
• Name the file Install.bat (the .bat extension is very important)
  
• Save the file to your desktop and double click it to run it.
  
• It will start the driver installer, follow the onscreen instructions to install the drivers and reboot your machine if it prompts you to do so.
  
  • Note: It is absolutely critical that this bat file be saved in the same location as the Intel Driver installation package (infinst911autol.exe) that you downloaded, otherwise it will not work.
    

Once that's complete, restart your system a couple of times to see if things have improved at all.

Let me know if that helped or not.

Thanks

[byte_king]

Do you think I should update my BIOS as well?

Also, I got this message as I was following the procedure.

Should I downgrade my chip set drivers then?

[exile360]

Interesting, that was the latest version available on Intel's website, at least that I could find. Leave your current one installed if it's newer.

As for the BIOS, yes, you can update it from here.

[byte_king]

Good morning,

I updated and flashed the BIOS with no real affect on performance. Although I did notice that since the BIOS upgrade, the initial start up of my computer has been slightly faster, though not really significant.

I think I'm just missing the days when my computer was still new and all I had to do was hit the power button and the computer booted in less than 20 seconds. I suspect my hard drive is starting to feel its age, which might account for the choppy start up.

Still, if you have any more suggestions I'd love to hear them.

[Sartori]

Did you upgrade from your Vista install or did you do a clean install?

Sometimes doing an in place upgrade instead of wiping out the previoius version can cause issues...

[exile360]

I suspect my hard drive is starting to feel its age, which might account for the choppy start up.

That certainly is a possibility, especially if the computer is a few years old. Just in case of a future catastrophic failure it would be a very good idea to make sure you've created reliable backups of your files so that you don't lose them if the hard drive does fail.

[byte_king]

@ sartori: I did upgrade from vista. But this issue began several months after the upgrade. I might do a clean install if it bothers me still in a few months, but everything else is fine so I might just leave it.

@Exile 360. Well,the computer is only one years old. I tend to backup everything on a regular basis, and i normally don't save much on the computer's harddrive. So, in the event of a failout, I think I'll be ok.

Still, I would like to get this issue sorted out. But I won't do anything drastic unless I notice the computer laggin in other areas.

[AdvancedSetup]

Computer and browser slowness are not always malware related

Poor performance and other problems can be the result of disk fragmentation, disk errors, corrupt system files, too many startup programs, unnecessary services running, not enough RAM, dirty hardware, etc. As your system gets older it becomes filled with more files/programs and has a natural tendency to slow down so cleaning and regular maintenance is essential.

Listed below are a few things you can do to improve speed and system performance. Many of the these suggestions will apply if you're using Windows Vista but may be done a bit differently. Near the bottom of this thread there is a section specifically devoted to Vista Users.

For browser problems, see:

• Its not always malware: How to fix the top 10 Internet Explorer issues
  
• How and Why to Clear Your Cache
  

If your having connectivity issues or errors such as Page cannot be displayed see

• Repair/Reset Winsock settings
  
• Troubleshooting Internet Connection Problems
  

If you're using Vista or Internet Explorer 7, see

• Why is my Internet connection so slow?
  
• Windows Vista - My Internet connection is slow
  
• The Phishing Filter may slow down the PC
  
• Tuning IE7 for Better Performance
  
• How to optimize or reset Internet Explorer 7
  

If you have a lot of toolbars and add-ons attached to Internet Explorer, you could try improving performance by disabling those which are unecessary. See:

• Control Internet Explorer Add-ons with Add-on Manager
  
• Troubleshooting and Internet Explorer

[byte_king]

Thank you,

Well, I have done many of these steps and suggestions outlined in your massive post. I appreciate the wealth of information here. I learned allot as I sifted through it over the last few days.

However, the issue I seem to be having is the booting of Windows itself. It's just not pretty,

If you have any ideas about how to make the transition smoother as Windows is loading that would be awesome.

Thank you for everything. I have noticed some improvement with my computer. The staff here on this forum is so helpful.

[Firefox]

Have you ran the Dell Diagnostics to test the hard drive and memory and other hardware on that Dell to ensure it all passes?

You can access it by hitting the F12 Key when you first turn on the computer and before windows loads up....

[mountaintree16]

AdvancedSetup,

"Understanding, Identifying and Upgrading the RAM in your PC".

That link of yours doesn't work

[YoKenny1]

AdvancedSetup,

That link of yours doesn't work

It does not work for me either.

I like Crucial System Scanner tool available from:

http://www.crucial.com

I use its output then go to my local PC store and ask for that RAM and hopefully they can get it for me like they did for my XP Pro system when I wanted to upgrade it to 1.5GB RAM that makes it run almost as fast as my Windows 7 system.