how can i make my laptop boot up quicker?
 

my laptop sems to be taking longer and longer to switch on.
ive tried to clean up my desktop but it doesn't seem to have made any difference. when it was new it used to switch on and get to the desktop real quick.............now i wait for what seems an eternity! can anyone help?

run defrag

How old is it? How old is the load of the OS (windows) on the computer? If its been more than a year its worth saving everything, then reloading Windows (if thats what you are using) again. Defrag is a good way to start getting it back into shape but if your load of Windoz is over a year old you might look at doing it right.

Backup all your data then put in the laptops rescue disks, which will reload all the OS and apps. Then before adding all your data and programs, delete all the crap you do not need. All the AOL, "Get a free credit report" and so on that clutters up your computer, desktop and hard drive.

Also, if the hard drive is large enough I like to partition it into two sectors. One "C" and one "D." Put Windoz on the C drive along with the various programs. Put your data and such on the D sector. This way when the computer starts up its not sorting through all your data to find the OS, and as well if you ever have a problem in the future, format your C drive and reinstall. Your personal data is sitting on the D drive section and still there.

This does not keep you safe from a complete hard drive failure and you should always back everything up on another hard drive, computer or where-ever.

After you do all that, run Defrag once a week if you take the laptop around with you, otherwise at least once a month.

If you need help with it, I will be in London by mid to late week next week.

JoeA

If you are seeing a continual slow down on boot up, my guess is that it is a recent program you loaded or a combination of virsus and trojans. They always kill performance. A quick way to check for the most current ones is MS's free tool:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad724ae0-e72d-4f54-9ab3-75b8eb148356&displaylang=en

Like Joe said, a FDISK / reformat and reload is always a good idea, especially if you are still running Windows 98. This is the only way to be sure you have a clean system and improve performance. BTW, the new generation of 7,200 RPM hard drives might be the best way to improve performance short of a motherboard transplant I have seen. My new 80 Gb drive in a Dell Latitude D400 is clearly faster in bootup, shutdown and most importantly application useage.

USe MS free tool before you reload. It's also helpful to get a second opinion via spybot search & destroy.

If all of that STILL doesn't find anything to improve the speed you need to look at what programs are being loaded at startup.

Assuming you're using windows XP (the hardware you have might be helpful) hit the start button, then click run and type in msconfig. Click the okay button and then check out the tab labeled "Startup."

These are all the programs that load at startup (after the login) and if there is a ton of them it can slow things down.

Careful here as you could disable antivirus...stuff like that - important stuff. I always turn off things like ituneshelper, qthelper, things that are clearly "extra." They are designed to make THAT program load quicker when choosen but it's at the detriment of every other program and general use.

Lame

Zonas...I just noticed your sign-off.

Typical blackshoe, always complaining about the color of my shoes!:)

A guy at work is a computer guru, and when he looked at my laptop there were 71 programs running in startup. Laptops have more programs than desktops running, but that was too many. He disabled a bunch of them, and I get to the desktop much quicker now. It's hard (for me, anyway) to tell which programs are essential to run.

He has a signoff? I only see the avatar.

Yeah, you probably tell people you were in the Navy, don't you, flyboy!

Well, at least you weren't a Marine :)

Oh, I hope that Randy does not see this! Just wait....

JoeA

WERE!?! I'll bet you're a Pollywog...and a damn fine one:)

FWIW, I did a tour as an Airboss and qual'ed as an OOD. After over a year of having my own watch section, I learned to respect the men and women in black...didn't earn the "Water Wings", but I already had some gold:cool:

But the Marine thing, you're on your own!

Thanks guys! loads of great info here. JoeA, thanks for the offer of help. ill let you know if i get in a pickle! while im here, how do i partition my hard drive? my machine is a dell inspiron 5100. it was new in feb 04 and runs XP. it has a 40gig hard drive.

Andy,

Without formatting your hard drive, the only option I know of is a program called "Partition Magic." I may have a copy on my laptop hard drive, otherwise we can buy it off of the internet. Works wonders and can partition any hard drive without losing any data while the OS is in place.

If your computer was new in 02/04, then the OS was loaded in 01/04 and is two years old. If you are going to keep it, its time for a reload IMHO. Some people do not subscribe to this but Windoz and other programs load up crap that really slow it down.

I have a Dell 600M and did the same thing 4 months ago. Really saw the difference in speed but its up to you. If you are going to do this you might look in to getting a 60 or 80 gig hard drive unless the one you have is under half full. The prices are very good and the new drives run faster, making everything load faster.

Joe A

cheers Joe, partition magic sounds like a nice bit of software.

Thanks for your help

Andy

Q: Do you know the difference between a Marine and a SUBmarine?

A: Nothing! A sailor will go down on both of them! :D

Randy

Zonas,

Thought it might hurt. One of my best friends is a ex-Marine. Thank God they are on our side...

Andy,

If you decide to follow Joe's advice and rebuild your hard drive, allow me to suggest something a bit further.

Once you have your OS and any additional applications installed, configure everything as you like it and then make an image of it.

Norton Ghost is perfect for this. Basically, it makes a copy of everything which you can back up to an external drive, or even span it across DVD-R disc(s), if you need that much room (A DVD-R will hold up to 4.5 GB.

This way, if and whenever you feel the need to rebuild your drive again, you simply lay the image on it, over whatever you have and you are back up and running in a hour or so, rather than the multiple hours it takes to install everything individually.

I know of some people who do this as their routine backup. They have the original image, and once a week, or once a month they image their current setup.

Just my own $.02.

Randy

great idea randy, thanks for the info

Not bad, jarhead.


A transport plane was in route to Guadalcanal Island during WWII and it was blown off course in a terrible storm. The plane crashed in the sea, and everyone made it to shore in the life raft.
The survivors included: A young and very attractive Navy Nurse; The Marine Pilot and Co-Pilot; and Five young Marine replacements including their corporal.
The pilot explains he did not get out a distress call before they went down and the island is not on any normal navigational patterns.
The Navy Nurse ask what that means.
The pilot explains they have little chance of being rescued and could be marooned there for life.
The Navy Nurse gets worried that there are 7 men and just her.
The pilot decides they should split up and explore the island, meet back in 2 hours and discuss what they have found.
Everyone meets back with relatively good news, the island has plenty of fresh water, fruits, a lagoon with fish, and there seems to be turtles on the south beach. There are also plenty of palm trees and other wood to make shelter. In addition, an empty barrel has washed ashore.
Everyone sets out to build a shelter.
After 3 months everyone has come to the conclusion the pilot is right, no chance of a rescue.
The men have a secret meeting and decide to draw straws for who gets the Navy Nurse.
They approach the nurse with their idea and with the winner.
The nurse being well medically trained and quite practical decides this is not viable and decides to give in and have SEX with all 7 Marines on a rotating basis, each man getting it once per week. But she does NOT want to get pregnant so she limits SEX to blowjobs only. She also stipulates she wants to have SEX while under the empty metal drum, and the Marine is to place his penis in the hole for her to pleasure.
The Marines huddle again and agree this is the most practical idea.
After about 4 months the nurse starts getting regrets and decides to take her own life.
After another 6 months, the Marines huddle again and decide to bury her.

A Marine knows that "whole" is spelled "hole" ....

Is this thread going into a whole (not "hole") different direction, or what? :D

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. In the Beginning was God - and all else was darkness, and void, and without form. So God created the heavens and the earth. He created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, so that light might pierce the darkness. And the earth God divided between the land and the sea, and these He filled with many assorted creatures. And the dark, salty, slimy creatures that inhabited the murky depths of the oceans, God called sailors, and He dressed them accordingly.

And the flighty creatures of the air He called airmen. And these He clothed in uniforms which were ruffled and fowl.

And the lower creatures of the land, God called soldiers. And with a twinkle in His eye, and a sense of humor that only He could have, God gave them trousers too short, and covers too large, and pockets to warm their hands. And to adorn their uniforms, God gave them badges. And He gave them cords. And He gave them ribbons... and patches... and stars... and bells. He gave them emblems... and crests... and all sorts of shiny things that glittered... and devices that dangled. When you're God, you tend to get carried away in a big way.

And on the 7th day, as you know, God rested. And on the 8th day at 0730, God looked down upon the earth and was not happy.

GOD WAS NOT HAPPY!

So He thought about His labors, and in His infinite wisdom, God created a divine creature and this He called a Marine. And these Marines whom God created in His own image, were to be of the air, the land, and the sea. And these He gave many wonderful uniforms.

He gave them practical, fighting uniforms, so that they could wage war against the forces of Satan and evil.

He gave them service uniforms for their daily work and training, that they might be sharp and ready.

And He gave them evening and dress uniforms. Sharp, stylish, handsome things, so they might score with the ladies on Saturday night, and impress the hell outta everybody!

And at the end of the 8th day, God looked down upon the earth, and saw that it was good. But was God happy? No!

GOD WAS STILL NOT HAPPY!

Because in the course of His labors, He had forgotten one thing... He did not have a Marine uniform! But He thought about it, and thought about it, and finally satisfied Himself in knowing that, well, not everybody can be a Marine...

Randy

It was cut-and-pasted from a Marine joke website. I take no responsibility for it's spelling or grammar.


Q. "Why do the commodes in Marine barracks have the cut-out type seats?"
A. "So that if the seat falls while they're drinking, it won't smack them in the back of the head"

A Marine and a Sailor are walking down a country road when the Sailor spots a goat standing by the side of the road with it's horns caught between the rails of the fence. The Sailor looks at the Marine and says, "Man, I've always wanted to give that a try." He looks around, sees there's nobody nearby, then drops his pants and proceeds to sodomize the hapless goat. When he's done, he pulls his pants up, grins at the Marine, and says "Okay, your turn." --So the Marine sticks his head through the fence.

A Taliban Army Platoon was on patrol when the
commander noticed a lone Marine standing on a hilltop
above their location. The commander told two of his
soldiers to go take out the Marine, so they dropped
their packs and promptly ran as fast as they could
toward the Marine. Just before they got to the
top, the Marine ran over the other side of the hill.
The two soldiers followed.

For the next few moments there were bloody screams
and dust flying in the air. Then as quickly as it had
started, it stopped and the Marine appeared back on
the hilltop. He brushed off his cammies, straightened
his cover, crossed his arms and stood there looking
down at the Taliban soldiers.

The infuriated commander called for a squad to go
get the Marine. They promptly ran as fast as they
could toward him. Just before they got to the
top, the Marine ran over the other side of the hill.
The squad followed, and for the next few minutes there
were bloody screams and dust flying in the air. When
it stopped, the Marine again returned to the hilltop.
He brushed off his cammies, straightened his cover,
crossed his arms and stood there looking down at the
remaining Taliban soldiers.

The commander was really hot now. He ordered the
rest of his platoon to attack the Marine. Determined
that Taliban soldiers were far superior to one
lone Marine, they had blood in their eyes as they
ran up the hill. Just before they got to the top, the
Marine ran over the other side of the hill.
The blood-thirsty soldiers followed. For many
minutes there were horrific screams and clouds of dust
flying in the air. It continued and continued.

When it finally stopped, one lone soldier came
crawling back to the commander, all bloody and beat
about the head and shoulders. His uniform was
torn, cuts were all over his body. The commander
demanded a report. The lone soldier, trying to catch
his breath, replied in a forceful yet trembling
voice, "Sir, run... it was a trick. There are TWO
of them!!"

Randy

A Sailor and a Marine went into a restroom to use the urinals. Afterward the Sailor went to the sink to wash his hands while the Marine just walked out of the restroom.
The Sailor caught up with the Marine and said proudly "In the Navy they teach you to wash your hands after going to the bathroom?"
To which the Marine says, "In the Marines they teach you not to piss on your hands?"

Randy

Zoanas, I think I found your source... :)

The fifth grade teacher tells her class we are going to learn something about SEX.
So, she instructs everyone to go home and learn something about sex and come back tomorrow and be prepared to discuss it with the class.
The next day, the teacher asks, “Who has learned something about sex?”
No one says anything, except Little Johnny in the back of the room has his hand up.
The teacher looks around and calls on Mary.
Mary says, “Well my parents thought I was asleep and they left there bedroom door open, and I saw my Daddy on top of my Mommy and she was yelling, Oh my God, Larry I am cuming!”
The teacher says, “That’s very good Mary, you learned something about sex, you get an ‘A’ for class participation.”
The teacher looks around and calls on Suzie next.
Suzie says, “My parents went out last night and they left me with my older sister. She had her boyfriend Jack come over. I snuck down stairs and hid and watched them. Jack pulled up my sister’s skirt and ripped her panties off with his teeth.”
The teacher says, “That’s very good Suzie, you learned something about sex, and you also get an ‘A’ for class participation.”
So the teacher looks around and Johnny is busting a gut to tell his story, so finally the teacher says, “Ok Johnny, tell us what you learned about sex.”
Johnny says, “Well teach it’s like this. I went home last night and turned on Fox News TV Channel, and there was story about a Marine in Afghanistan. There were Taliban to the North of him, Taliban to the south of him, Al Qaida to the east of him, and Al Qaida to the west of him, he was completely surrounded. This lone Marine quickly dug himself in, and with his M-16 and Desert Eagle 50 he shoots them all dead!”
The teacher looks amazed and says, “That’s very interesting, but what does that have to do with SEX?”
Johnny replies, “Just goes to show teach, don’t fuch with the Marines.”

Randy

Isn't google a wonderful thing.

In all seriousness, I've nothing at all against Marines, or any other soldier or airman. My grandfather was an original 501st Airborne, which became, along with the 506th, the 101st Airborne .He jumped into Normandy, and Holland, and was surrounded at Bastogne. He later raided Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Rest assured, anyone who serves has my unwavering salute, regardless of uniform.

Ooooh-RAH!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1139105226.jpg

Semper fi!

Randy