Slow boot times on Centrino laptop

[Banditman]

I don't know if this goes here as my question has to do with the pc as a whole. My sister in law asked me to take a look at her 6 month old laptop as it was SO frigging slow. It is an Acer with XP Pro, a dual core Centrino Mobile Duo running at 1.6 ghz with 1 gig ram. She has 2 50 gig HDs installed. This thing takes 4 minutes to boot up and 2 min to shut down!!!! I went through and cleaned out the startup folder of alot of auto start junk that she didn't need at boot time with the exception of all the Acer installed crap. I also run a few spybot scans and cleaned a few spyware off the PC. I also turned off alot of useless services. Defraged the HDs. All that I did only boosted the performance by about 10%. It is still freakin slow! I am thinking it is all the Acre installed bullcrap dragging the system down as well as the Norton 360 she just installed. I have suggested that she let me reinstall Windows XP Pro and only reinstall only what she NEEDS but she isn't sure about it.

Anything else you guys can think of here. I mean my 1 ghz pen 3 internet server can run circles around her new laptop.

[Hitman]

Yeah I am thinking a fresh install as well. To none geek types, reformatting your computer is scary. They automatically think all will be lost. Assure her you can save all of her documents and saved files, pictures, videos and music. Back it all up and let her rip.

[Banditman]

Anyone got anything other than a HD wipe?

[gvblake22]

My first guess would be to take a look and see if there is an Antivirus of some kind on there that is slowing it down. I've seen Norton bring systems to a complete crawl, so check for that.

[Banditman]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

My first guess would be to take a look and see if there is an Antivirus of some kind on there that is slowing it down. I've seen Norton bring systems to a complete crawl, so check for that.

Yes, that is the Norton 360 Antivirus suite I mentioned. I told her that I can install Avast and free up some resources but she is in love with Norton. I can see it making the system crawl once it is loaded but the problem extends to before the antivirus is loaded and during shutdown. Once the power button it pressed, it takes 3 min just to get to desktop and an additional 60 to 90 sec to load the startup apps such as antivirus and all the Acer installed crud. It is the initial 3 min boot that has me. (running on power cord and not battery btw) I checked the bios and it is, ofcourse, the standard min options bios. No tweeking can be done. Could it be a HD failing? There are no Smart options in bios so I would prob need to optain a Smart app. I remember seeing one somewhere that monitors the HDs from within Windows. I don't know much about the dual cores. Is there an app that will optimize the use of both cores in windows, a driver update maybe? I'm not sure if that is a factor, just throwing it out there. I did notice that only one of the cores is getting used and only some activity on the 2nd. I also noticed that her USB thumb drives are slow as heck also. I tried to do a file transfer of about 500 mb from the thumb drive to the main HD and it told me that it would take 1 hr. I checked the device manager and the USB 2 drivers are installed. I also know the the thumb drive is also USB 2 compliant. I hope the additional info here helps in determining a solution.

[gvblake22]

You could check the BIOS and make sure the HDD is set as the first boot device. There are also sometimes options in the BIOS to enable or disable quick startup memory checks, so set that appropriately as well. You also mentioned the "Acer crap" again, is it safe to assume that although you cleaned up some of it, there is still a good amount left? Maybe try removing more of the Acer junk? If you are still not satisfied with the results, arm yourself with the appropriate drivers and just reformat and reinstall Windows as a last resort.

[Banditman]

Those are fine options to check. I'll go back and recheck those. The Acer crap consists of a security management program, a network management program and a bunch of other onboard management apps that already comes with Win XP Pro. I really don't know what controls or effects what yet as I have only been on it for a few hours last Monday. But just from what I have witnessed with it, my 1st choice would be a reinstall as mentioned minus the Acer crap but also wanted to get additional points of views or other possibilities. But it looks like the reinstall is inevitable.

Thanks guys.

[gvblake22]

Also be careful if you have to reinstall it from an Acer "Operating System Disk" or "System Restore Disk" as it could be a slipstreamed Windows install disk with the Acer crap still on there and you may end up right back at square one again!