Laptop running slow

Advertisement

Waiting for some computers to boot up to a usable state can be frustrating. At best, it’s an inconvenience; at worst, watching paint peel is faster and more entertaining. This week we’ll look at why your computer might be booting slowly, along with tips for speeding up the process.

It’s important to know what your computer is doing when it starts up. When you press the power button, the first thing the computer does is a hardware self-test, which gives the CPU the thumbs up. ROM-based BIOS codes are set, and a multitude of hardware tests are executed.

Assuming no problems were found, the boot process moves on to load the operating system, eventually leading to either a login screen or the Windows desktop. This is our final destination, but we’re not functional yet. At this point, Windows still has to load drivers, check more hardware and execute all those memory-resident applications that reside in your system tray.

At best, my computer can go from completely off to fully functional in 30 seconds. I’ve seen plenty of machines, however, that take three to 10 times longer, and there’s usually something that can be done to speed them up.

When first started, computers run on software code that resides on ROM chips. Beyond that, it reads startup and OS information stored on your C drive, also known as the boot drive. If your C drive is old, full or prone to errors, it can affect the computer’s boot speed.

If your C drive is full, clear some space. Microsoft recommends having at least 10 percent of your drive’s total capacity free. If your C drive is too small, it’s most likely also old and might need to be replaced. Newer drives run faster and quieter, but you’ll need to perform a Windows reinstall to enjoy the full benefits of a new drive.

If your hard drive is fine, it might just need some routine defragmenting. A severely fragmented drive can have an enormously negative impact not just on the boot cycle, but for everyday operations. Keep your boot drive defragmented for optimal performance.

Another way to speed startup time is to turn off extraneous boot devices in BIOS. By default, some computers check every drive for bootable media. This allows you to boot from alternative media such as floppy disks, CDs or DVDs, external drives and even flash drives.

If this is something you never do, however, it’s needlessly adding to your boot-up time. Consult your motherboard manual for directions to tell BIOS to boot only from your C drive.

Once you get into Windows, you can speed up load times by reducing the items that run in your system tray. If you can do without a program running in the background, remove it from the system tray and run only when needed.

Finally, the single most effective way to speed up boot times is to put your computer in standby mode instead of fully shutting down. If your computer supports it — called suspend to RAM — Windows takes a snapshot of its current state and shuts down your computer, but it retains just enough power to keep that snapshot stored in RAM.

Suspend to RAM is nice because it produces instant on/off states. If your computer is suspended and you press the main power button, it will open Windows, exactly as you left it, within five seconds. It’s very nice, but overuse can cause erratic behavior in some software applications or hardware devices. Do a full system reboot for every 10 suspends.

Scott A. May is a local computer consultant and has been writing PC Info since 1989. Reach him at sam@csc-pc.com.

Reach Scott A. May at sam@csc-pc.com.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• example of computer store business plan
• business plan computer reseller sample
• business plan examples computer repair
• sample small business plan for computer repair
• common questions for starting computer repair business

Incoming search terms for the article:

• streaming videos are slow on windows xp

One Response to “Clean out computer for speedier startups – Business”