Ridiculous periods to boot up

[beardoc]

It seems my primary laptop is taking ridiculous amounts of time to boot up. Almost 20 minutes until everything is fully loaded. Interestingly, it seems to take 5 minutes alone to boot through the BIOS (which the original BIOS loadup screen where it says "press F10 to enter setup". Previously it would take about 15 minutes to load everything, but

Comments

[cuboz]

It's probably all that porn you've got on it.

:-)

[ednixon]

Check and see if a bios upgrade is available. The Bios battery may also be going flat.
So, flash the bios with the latest ver, and go ahead. I did this recently on a Toshiba notebook and an Acer netbook, it ran from flash drive files in windows and was suprisingly easy once I figured it all out...

[beardoc]

I just checked - the last BIOS update from HP is from Nov 2007 - surely that wouldn't suggest that the BIOS if it's a new thing?

BIOS battery is a possibility - this laptop is almost three years old now.

I might start taking more regular backups from now on.

[beardoc]

Having bought a new Netbook a little while back, I'm keen to replace this bulky 17" 4kg monstrosity with a desktop, and just use the netbook on the road. And have dual 22" monitors, etc. So I'll probably go this path and retire this old laptop.

[urbear]

4 Kg?? That *is* a desktop machine, never mind that it claims to be a laptop.

[beardoc]

It was a machine that was picked up through an HP "Family and Friends" deal back in 2006 - it's got everything - dual hard disks, dual backlit 17" LCD screen, Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Graphics card, XP Media Centre Edition (with an upgrade to Vista that I never took up), HDTV Digital Tuner - it was all very latest stuff back then. It was bought at a time when I was needing to transport my computer between Tamworth (400km from here) and Sydney on a regular basis. It's not so much a laptop, as something that can be easily dragged between different desks. It was perfect, because it became my TV, DVD player, and internet connection for those months that I was away.

But it's completely impractical as a laptop. Hence the Asus EEE PC.

bios

[anonymous]

howdy, maybe instead of shutting the computer down all the time. Just close the lid and change your power settings. when you open the screen it will be a quicker start. Just an idea... Greg

Re: bios

[beardoc]

Sometimes you have to reboot though - and that's where it's so slow.

[ricksf]

Interesting. My desktop, of somewhat older vintage, is suffering a similar issue. I've marked it down as an overburdened registry from changes and updates over the years. But I'm hardly a systems expert.

I'm similarly considering simply retiring the machine for something new. But then I won't buy a Vista machine. So the conundrum continues...

Of course there's always a Mac...

[urbear]

If you can wait a couple of months you'll be able to buy a new machine with Windows 7. I've been using a pre-release version for months, and it's a honking huge improvement over Vista for many reasons. I'd say that it's actually somewhat competitive with Mac OS X, believe it or not.

If you can't wait that long, you might want to buy a Vista machine now. Most manufacturers offer a free upgrade to Windows 7. You'd just have to grit your teeth and deal with Vista until the end of October.

And yes, there's always a Mac... never a bad choice.

[urbear]

I've decided that I prefer it to XP.

Even better, for the first time in their history, Microsoft has released an OS that actually requires fewer resources than its predecessor. It runs nicely on everything from a netbook on up.