Slow Windows XP boot - how to fix?

[JDArt]

The PC at my work has XP Pro, and it boots up very quickly. None of my home machines, all with XP Pro, does, however.

What could be the difference?

I'm wondering whether manually assigning an IP address to the LAN cards in the home machines will help. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Blinky]

Originally Posted by JDArt

The PC at my work has XP Pro, and it boots up very quickly. None of my home machines, all with XP Pro, does, however.

What could be the difference?

I'm wondering whether manually assigning an IP address to the LAN cards in the home machines will help. Any ideas?

Thanks.

How slow is it, in say, minutes?

[JDArt]

Work: 30 seconds; home: 4-5 minutes.

I suspect it has to do with DHCP lookups or something?

[Blinky]

Originally Posted by JDArt

Work: 30 seconds; home: 4-5 minutes.

I suspect it has to do with DHCP lookups or something?

Yeah, that's waaaaay long. Could be DHCP but in assuming the params are good DHCP should be snappy quick. Sounds to me like the computer or the router is looking for an answer (probably to a useless question) somewhere and timing out. What kinda router ya got and are you using it with simple address translation or as a firewall?

[JDArt]

Getting way complicated now. Basically my work has done something to make its XP boxes boot quickly. All of my own PCs boot slower, regardless of firewall/router/or other settings.

[Blinky]

Take a look at these links... use cablenut to optimize your basic TCP/IPconfig (just follow the instructions on the page). The analyzer is necessary to get one or more of the settings for cablenut.
That will get the machine right but the router may be where the issue is. I guarantee you it's just sitting there looking stupid waiting a long time for a response from some device it can't find.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1722550,00.asp

http://www.speedguide.net/analyzer.php?

Tell me about that router, via PM if you prefer... I have to go offline for an hour or so.

Chip

[JDArt]

Thanks for the tips. Two routers: Linksys and Westell (two different installations).

[JKSeidel]

You've probably tried this but have you used the MS diagnostic tool called BootX (I think that's the name)? It loads as a wedge in DOS pre-boot and monitors all activity until Windows is completely up. It then gives you a report on everything that's going on during boot up and the durations. I found it quite some time ago on the MS site. I haven't used it in a long time and lost track of exactly where it's located on MS's site.

[Shortie]

slow boot is normally due to dns settings

in you DHCP set up hard code your ISP's DNS settings

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by Shortie

slow boot is normally due to dns settings

in you DHCP set up hard code your ISP's DNS settings

This is what I'm assuming the problem is. How do I find the ISP's DNS settings?

[Shortie]

boot the machine

and do

http://www.deamon.net/external

and add your ISP details in to the box

get the host name for the DNS servers as in FQDN

then ping them that will give you the DNS ip

hope that helps

any problems give me a shout

[JDArt]

Awesome. I'll try that. Thanks!

[mikej]

Are you talking slow to boot up to the windows desk top or slow to boot up before the desk top comes up?

If you mean it's slow booting up so that the desk top is showing and the hour glass is gone, this could also be caused by a lot of applications starting up at startup. Your virus checker could be set to do a scan on boot up, Office could be starting up, games, spyware, or any other programs you might have set up to load on startup. I regularly clean out start folders of things that have wormed their way into them over time. There are really only a few things you need to load at startup. Firewall and virus checker being the main two. A lot of these programs work in the background so you don't know what is being loaded. That's why I use Zone Alarm so I can controll everything that comes into my computer from the network as well as tries to access the network from my computer.

Mike

[JDArt]

Originally Posted by Mike Jordan

Are you talking slow to boot up to the windows desk top or slow to boot up before the desk top comes up?

No, it's not junk that's causing the slowdown. It's something DSL/network related, I'm pretty sure.

[Shortie]

Ops

Typo in the link try this

http://www.demon.net/external/

[Shortie]

Right in work now

Send me details of your ISP and will get the IP's for ya

[metalstorm]

Originally Posted by JDArt

This is what I'm assuming the problem is. How do I find the ISP's DNS settings?

Once you are booted up. type ipconfig /all in your commadn prompt. All your ip settings including your DNS settings will be there. If your router is set to forward your DNS to your PC, then home into the router and jot down the DNS settings that your router picked up. However, DHCP process usually takes less than 1 second on a network so something else may be causing your slow boot up. One way to eliminate it would be to disable your network card and then boot up. If it doesn't change anything, it wasn't your network card.

[JDArt]

Thanks. Does the router ever get new DNS setting, though, which would result in a foul-up ultimately?

[metalstorm]

Originally Posted by JDArt

Thanks. Does the router ever get new DNS setting, though, which would result in a foul-up ultimately?

DHCP has a lease time on it.* So your router would periodically poll back to the the DHCP servers for updated information.* If you feel your router has possibly old info(which I doubt) a reboot would be in order.* It woudn't hurt to reboot all the devices in your chain when troubleshooting.

[metalstorm]

Another thing just popped into my mind. Do you have any network shares attached to your machine? If any of these shares are not active, windows will wait 60 seconds for a response before it times out.