slow start up and shut down

Piriz

hey,
i've noticed my laptop is taking longer to start up and longer to shut down lately, is there anything i can do to make it as efficient as it was before..
there is no new programs or data on it really, maybe needs to be cleaned up or defragmented (?)...
any advice?
thanks

Alanstrainor

The best solution to this is to reinstall the operating system. There are other improvements you can make, but at the end of the day reinstalling the OS is the best solution.

How old is the laptop? What operating system is it? Windows 7?

JJJJNR

Reinstalling your OS is a bit overkill to be honest, post up your specs.

Piriz

its windows vista and i don't know where the Vista CD unfortunately.
how do i find a list of the specs? there is a combo of keys i press init?
its an acer aspire 5050, its about 3 years old, it was fixed about a year ago and was running well since but is slowing down on start up and shut down, i had an upgrade of ram too..
its used almost everyday for few hours..(im a student).

pieface_ie

If you know what your doing go to "run" and enter "msconfig" - click the startup tab and disable alot of the crap you see in there, theres an option to hide all the microsoft components so you dont disable any essential program.

Anti virus is a big one, i disable it and just run it manually when i need it.

But as i said above only disable things if you know what your doing.

Edit: yeah defragmenting the hard drive will help but i find its generally not a huge improvement.

Piriz

thanks pie face, im a bit of a 'have a go hero' but i honestly don't know what i'm doing when it comes to computers, i tried to speed it up in the past and it ended up in the repair shop:)..but some simple suggestions (& directions) are welcome..
thanks everyone..

Encoder1970

Not sure if it;s available for vista but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbnFXfAgi7o

pieface_ie

welly try the msconfig and have a look at the startup and see what you think, it maybe be easy for you to understand what your looking at.

i used one of them speed up programs before, there a disaster, deleted parts of the registry and fecked up alot of my software like AutoCAD.

Rebel021

Try soluto
Review
http://www.pallab.net/2010/06/10/soluto-start-up-optimiser/
Download
http://www.soluto.com/Download/

Sikpupi

I would do the following:

START - RUN

and type msconfig

This will show a number of tabs...find teh START tab.

Your PC is probably booting up a load of needless programs (Adobe etc). Take the tick off a load of them and restart.....

Sikpupi

Preface....bet me by 2 mins!!! That 2nd glass of wine slowed me down!!

pieface_ie

Preface

Pieface

must be more than 2 glasses you've had!!