Weird Windows 7 startup issue

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

I've got an HP 2570p with Windows 7 Professional (fully up to date).

I have this odd startup issue where upon logging in, the screen is black for several minutes. It finally logs in but then it takes ages for the taskbar icons to load and loading a program takes forever. It's not a speed issue as the system doesn't feel slow, it's almost like there's a queue.

A few restarts and the issue disappears. Then it reappears again a few restarts later. What is going on here?

 

[mrbazmondo]

Is the BIOS up to date?
Does the GFX card share RAM with the system? If so can you increase the GFX card RAM in the BIOS?
Are your GFX drivers up to date?
Are there any clues that something is up in windows event viewer? Make a note of the time when it goes black screen and look in the log around that time.

 

[linktoinsanity]

Is there an antivirus installed and/or Malwarebytes?

If so try choosing the delayed startup option.

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

I've got Bitdefender installed. The odd thing is I've had this installed for months and the issue only recently started occuring.

There's no discrete GPU. But the Intel drivers are up to date. No options for GPU in the BIOS.

It's doing it again as we speak so I'll have a look in the Event Viewer right away.

 

[Scort]

I've got an HP 2570p with Windows 7 Professional (fully up to date).

I have this odd startup issue where upon logging in, the screen is black for several minutes. It finally logs in but then it takes ages for the taskbar icons to load and loading a program takes forever. It's not a speed issue as the system doesn't feel slow, it's almost like there's a queue.

A few restarts and the issue disappears. Then it reappears again a few restarts later. What is going on here?

Boot into Safe Mode (hammer F8 after powering on), then delete the following:

%tmp% - all files
%windir%\temp\ - all files
%windir%\prefetch\ - all file BUT NOT Layout.ini
(you can Run these locations - Start/Run)

Reboot and see if that helps

 

[bledd]

Create a new user and see if it does it in that.

How many processes do you have running once it logs in? A very clean Windows 7 is around 50.

If it's not a user application, it's likely to be HP junkware or a bad driver.

 

[Nikumba]

Mechanical or solid state hard drive?

 

[linktoinsanity]

I've got Bitdefender installed. The odd thing is I've had this installed for months and the issue only recently started occuring.

There's no discrete GPU. But the Intel drivers are up to date. No options for GPU in the BIOS.

It's doing it again as we speak so I'll have a look in the Event Viewer right away.

Try finding the BitDefender service and set it to automatic (delayed start) and see if that does the trick.

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

Boot into Safe Mode (hammer F8 after powering on), then delete the following:

%tmp% - all files
%windir%\temp\ - all files
%windir%\prefetch\ - all file BUT NOT Layout.ini
(you can Run these locations - Start/Run)

Reboot and see if that helps

Fixed it, thanks a lot mate!

 

[Scort]

Fixed it, thanks a lot mate!

No worries fella

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

And now the issue has returned!

 

[DXP55]

I am suffering the same problem - It came out of the blue on 22nd March on first start up of the day - if I put it to sleep and start it's OK but if I do a restart it happens again.

So switch on and it starts boot cycle - get to windows blue welcome screen and sits there for less than a minute then screen goes black - The mouse pointer is on screen and can move it around - Avast notification came up saying scan done once- I can hit alt-cont-delete and task manager comes up - This is for exactly 3 min then windows opens and all is fine - PC works as it should do.

I did try the hit F8 and it opened but nothing worked - no pointer or response to arrow or enter key - It did same when loaded Win 7 Disc to try for a repair.

I also have Macrium Reflex so tried a restore from 19th March but that didn't work - I have since 22nd been googling on a regular basis to try and find what it is but no luck - The only problem is startup time - it's just peeing me off.

This morning I did alt/con/delete and is it task manager that comes up (Hardware I am ok with -software does my head in) - The first two entries were DWM.exe - 44.716Kb and explorer.exe 43.092kb - all rest were under 20.000kb - The HHD led on front of PC is going like a bat out of hell so something is going on but I ain't got a clue.

Looking at windows update nothing was done on 21-22nd March.


One more thing - I did a sfcfile scan (or something like that) and it came up clear this morning.

Things keep coming back to me - Also on 8th April windows update MTP device failed twice but that is about 18 days after problem started.

I am at a loss now but will keep looking and hoping it will cure itself.

I am PC illiterate so any help needs to treat me as a 5 yr old -

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

Uninstall Bitdefender.

 

[DXP55]

Sorry should have said I use Malwarebytes -CCleaner and Avast - no firewall I trust BT.

 

[jpaul]

%tmp% - all files
%windir%\temp\ - all files
%windir%\prefetch\ - all file BUT NOT Layout.ini
(you can Run these locations - Start/Run)

wasn't that aka stopping fast start ? did you also disable that function directly ? (I had, I forget why, now)

 

[Silly Goose On The Loose]

Removing Bitdefender and installing Avast resolved the issue for me. Sorry, I'm out of ideas!

 

[Scort]

wasn't that aka stopping fast start ? did you also disable that function directly ? (I had, I forget why, now)

In reference to prefetch? If so, I think that's just an old legacy 'feature' that XP introduced - supposed to keep either a cached copy, or reference to common files, in this location - to aid boot speed; but they're safe to flush - just keep the ini file.

I've never disabled anything in relation to this, as it's never been overly problematic on the last few operating systems using it.

 

[Enfield]

Start with this...

Try running Clean Manager - CTRL + R, type 'cmd' (without the single quotes). Then in the command window type 'cleanmgr sageset:50'

In the window that opens select what you want to clean up, click OK. Then in the command window type 'cleanmgr sagerun:50'

Whilst Clean Manager is doing its thing, you can then type in the command window 'chkdsk C: /r'

This will scan your hard drive for any errors and repair them after you reboot. (I've assumed the 'C' drive is where you have windows installed to, change it if needs be.)

Once the clean has finished use the Registry Cleaner in CCleaner and reboot.

 

[DXP55]

Just an update

Since my last post I have slowly been going through things one by one and today I uninstalled Avast and bingo - so far so good I am back to normal fast start up. Somewhere along the line I clicked wrong box on Avast update and ended with trial version of paid for Avast - Don't know for sure if that was problem but have put Avast free back on and it's starting OK now.