Startup delay...

[cjsuh]

Can anyone tell me if they've experienced this... Sometimes when I restart my ThinkPad (maybe once every three times) it hangs on a blank desktop for a good 3-5 minutes and then seems to wake up and continues loading the rest of the desktop. When this happens, the first program I open also goes through a 3-5 minute lag. I have to restart to get it working properly.

Any idea what may be causing this? Could it be Norton?

Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

[Flightvector]

Sounds like some things are not right, is this a new thinkpad first of all? It should not have been like this as new. You may have unnecessary programs junking up your windows and its registry and in most cases only a reformat will work. But I really need you to provide information because my answers are ambiguous without your system info; what model is it and how does it act otherwise? Norton doesn't seem a likely reason, but that again depends on your system.

[s0larian]

Norton is a good guess. I had exactly the same problem and after deinstalling Norton AV the delay was gone.

Did you try Microsoft Bootvis? Google this tool, you cannot get it from the Microsoft web site anymore, but it really improves the boot performance. In my case startup is more than 1 Minute faster after the Bootvis optimization. And you can look up what process needs such a long time on your system

[Roy_W]

I had exactly the same problem after installing one of the latest MS XP updates.

Even after doing a system restore, the problem remained. I reinstalled XP but am now very hesitant to reinstalling the updates.

Unfortunately I could not determine which update caused the problem.

[cjsuh]

Flightvector: Yes, this is a new ThinkPad. Model is 2374-6VU. I don't know what programs could be junking it up. I don't really use anything out of the ordinary - MS Office, iTunes, AIM, Pacific Poker, and a few games that I loaded after the problem started.

Solarian: I will try those suggestions. Thanks.

Roy_W: I do know that I have windows update activated and I've installed all of the updates so far. Perhaps that could be the problem, but then wouldn't it be more prevalent than a one-off issue like it seems for us?

Thanks for your help, please keep the suggestions coming! I really don't want to reformat, but I will if I have to...

[Roy_W]

Cjsuh,

Just to make sure that we are speaking the same problem.
Does the problem/hanging happen betwen the moment you click user /login until the desktop and all the item in the System tray are available. For me, even after the majority of the desktop items were available, I still had to wait quite some time before the network connections became available.

[cjsuh]

Roy_W: Well, I only have one user on this computer, so I don't have to click on a user to login. But, like you said, it happens between starting up and loading the entire desktop. However, while it is hanging, some of the system tray icons are visible (wireless connection, usb mouse, and others), though if I were to click on them, nothing would happen. For me, my desktop was blank, with just the Toolbar on the bottom. When I glide over the wireless connection icon in the system tray it says, "Excellent at 54 mps", so my network seems to be functioning properly. And then it just hangs for 3-5 minutes, seems to wake up, and then boots the rest of my desktop and tray icons. But, the first program I select (usually MS Outlook) takes another 3-5 minutes before fully loading. That also comes up instantly at first, and then hangs before completely loading. A restart gets rid of the problem. But, something to note. When I restart, an "End Program" notice flashes, though I'm never able to read which program it is having trouble ending.

[Roy_W]

cjsuh,

I am not sure sure that we ahve exactlly the same problem now.
Once I had all my icons, everything worked correctly.

Which version of Access Access Connecitons are you using.

[cjsuh]

I actually don't use Access Connections anymore. I deleted my profile (around the same time this started happening, now that I think about it) and then just left the utility on my computer. I much rather prefer going through Windows, but maybe I should reactivate AC and see if it fixes things... I haven't updated the version at all, so I'm not sure which oneI have, but it is the one that came with my computer.

[Conmee]

If you are using Norton Personal Firewall, it will hang on startup just like you indicate if you have Message Queing services running or WWW service running. Need to disable or set to manual a number of Windows services prior to installing the firewall software when installing a 3rd party firewall, then turn things on one at a time so the firewall can detect the service and ask you how you want it to deal with the service (Allow/Block/Auto Config) in terms of granting it access to your network interfaces and/or the Internet. Also, if you use a loopback adapter, IEEE1394, or Bluetooth Ethernet networking functionality (check your Network Neighborhood properties and see if you have more than the Intel Pro1000 gigabit and WiFi adapters installed), you should assign those devices in the TCP/IP settings a private IP address (i.e. 192.168.1.1, etc) unless they are going to connect to a device that serves as a DHCP server. I found that when I assigned static IP addresses to my Loopback adapter, IEE1394, and Bluetooth adapters that had TCP/IP support installed, my system didn't delay. Especially the loopback adapter, which will hang for a good 90 seconds waiting for DHCP to assign an address. Unless DHCP is running as a host service on your machine, or these adapters are communicating with a DHCP server, they will wait until they timeout, and that was hanging my computer. Especially when combined with Norton Personal Firewall. McAfee and Zone Labs are much better at not hanging your system.

Anyhow, generally, a delay with some icons and tray applets visible/loaded and system becoming unresponsive to keyboard and mouse, usually indicates that some app (usually a network app or an app accessing the network or configured for TCP/IP) is waiting for a response of some sort and has a timeout period. Once the timeout period expires, then the computer finishes the boot/desktop loading process. Tends to happen with firewalls. And by the way, Norton didn't play well with Windows firewall, so disable or don't use the Windows firewall when using a 3rd party firewall.

Daniel.

[Roy_W]

Just a stab in the dark :-

Access Connections :
Can you completely uninstall and/or verify that you do NOT use V3.20.
You can verify the version using the IBM Software installer. This version caused various problems and was replaced with V3.21

This is the link to V3.21

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4ZLNJB


PS : The only IBM soft that I have left in my machine is the Thinkpad Key Configurator and the Incrustion, XP can handle almost all the rest.

[cjsuh]

Thanks for the great tips, everyone. I will try them out once I get home. Hopefully, this will turn out to be a minor issue that can be solved using the methods described above instead of a major one requiring a reformat.