very long xp boot, even after clean reinstall

[peter_ming]

hi,

one of my office PCs has problems lately, very long booting (up to 30min!), explorer.exe won't show up, freezing up, etc, so i took the liberty of doing a clean re-install of XP pro sp2 (from the same CD of the 1st installation)

it was still okay on the first day after re-install, all the drivers were reinstalled succesfully, i have also installed anti virus, anti spyware (thought this particular PC will never get connected to internet), and all the tiny bits of software needed (word processing and such).

however just this morning it showed problem again: very long booting time. it runs on P4 2.00GHz, with 256MB RAM, can it be problem? but my friend using the PC said it was never this long before.

also, the PC now won't work with DOS-based programs (Qpro, Foxpro, Clipper, etc), it was working fine on the previous XP install, and like it or not, these DOS-based programs are still used in my office. the window appears just seconds after we click on the exe file.

anyhelp will be much appreciated

thanks

 

[oldskool]

How old is the computer ? 30 minutes ? zzzzzzzzzz Upping the RAM would help after it booted but not until then. DOS-based programs ? Wow. I think you need to go SP1, then SP2 right after.

 

[KSoD]

Run MemTest86 and a check disk on the hard drive. XP with 256MB of RAM will be slow. No matter what it wont be a 30 second boot no matter what you do.

But it shouldnt be 30 minutes. I could see a 2-5 minute boot time with AV software and other software installed easily.

But it could be hardware dying, it could be a bad hard drive. It could just be that the system needs a update.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Also along with those, check to see how the processor fan is doing, if it runs efficiently and if it is cooling the processor.

 

[kucf.]

What kind of monitor do you have. I also had the slow bootup problem.

I was using a vga cable for my monitor then I took pff my vga cable and used the DVI cable and now my pc boots up fine