Suddently takes 3 tries and 10 minutes to start-up winXP

A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.

On 05/05/2017 05:06 AM, Micky wrote:
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.



After a bad shut-down Windows will typically run CHKDSK /F. then reboot.

The monitor sometimes will be completely dark when that is happing and
you are only going to make things worse by just shutting things down.

If you turn off the splash screen you may be able to view what's happening


https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-disa...config-2626116

On Fri, 5 May 2017 05:18:19 -0500, philo wrote:

On 05/05/2017 05:06 AM, Micky wrote:
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.



After a bad shut-down Windows will typically run CHKDSK /F. then reboot.

The monitor sometimes will be completely dark when that is happing and
you are only going to make things worse by just shutting things down.

If you turn off the splash screen you may be able to view what's happening


https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-disa...config-2626116

Did as it says, but on one start and one coming out of hibernation,
still didn't see anything until the big bright windows screen just a
couple seconds before the yet to be filled desktop. No opening
statements like Press F10 for BIOS or whatever else is on that page.

But it's working now, so that's good.

On Fri, 05 May 2017 13:06:52 +0300, Micky wrote:

A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I suggest trying to boot from CD or USB drive.
If that works maybe do a chkdsk on the internal hard drive.
A repair reinstall will refresh XP without changing any settings.

On Fri, 05 May 2017 21:46:34 +1000, Lucifer Morningstar
wrote:

On Fri, 05 May 2017 13:06:52 +0300, Micky wrote:

A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I suggest trying to boot from CD or USB drive.

It has no CD drive, though at home I have a USB CD drive that came
with it (via ebay) but it's not something I'd travel with.

I should have made the USB boot drive, but didn't, but I don't see the
opening messages anyhow. I guess I coudl ask here what Acer uses to
get into Boot Order and the BIOS, and try that key even when nothing
is displayed on the screen. (I'll have to see if the progress bar
for coming out of hibertnation displays. I know it did on my desktop
XP. I know they don't on win10, or Vista and I don't like it. You
can't tell if you're making progress.)

If that works maybe do a chkdsk on the internal hard drive.
A repair reinstall will refresh XP without changing any settings.

Have to wait until I'm home, in 3 weeks.

On my last trip, 9 years ago, for 8 weeks, I broke the entire computer
with about 4 days to go.. I went to someone I barely knew and either
I or he dl'd some repair medium for me, and I think I used that, and
after that, I think it was, I spent literally 2 days running chkdsk
until it was time for the plane to leave, and it still wasnt' done.

When I got home, I got it working, but a few days later, while I was
looking at a file manager, I saw the files start disappearing, 5 or 10
files per second. I had a copy of everything, and I bought another
3" HDD but didn't load it right for booting, and then I decided the
whole thing was old, WinME, upgreaded from 98SE..

How I broke the computer. I bought a bag of pistachios, and ate the
ones I could open. 5 or 10 were not open enough for me to get my
fingernail in, so I put one under the very flat bottom of the Thinkpad
and pressed down. First, the shell is so strong that could never have
worked. Second, the nut went shooting across the room. I heard it
hit the back wall but never found it. The computer worked fine for
the rest of the session, bedcause everything was in RAM, and I should
have never turned it off, but it wouldn't start the next day.
(because as you know, but some of my email recipients might not, the
"tone arm" of the hard drive bounced up and down on the platter,
ruining one or both of them.)

"Micky" wrote in message
...
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Obviously, it is having trouble reading the HD. Could be the HD itself,
mobo, other. If it were me I would avoid using the computer til it could be
checked out. If I just had to use it I would be copying off my personal
stuff to a thumb drive.

On Fri, 5 May 2017 09:17:30 -0400, "dadiOH" wrote:


"Micky" wrote in message
.. .
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Obviously, it is having trouble reading the HD. Could be the HD itself,
mobo, other. If it were me I would avoid using the computer til it could be
checked out. If I just had to use it I would be copying off my personal
stuff to a thumb drive.

Good advice, I'm sure. Most of that is already taken care of.
Usenet will be duplicarted when I get home, except for the outbox,
which I don't think I know how to merge anyhow. (Although I asked and
maybe I got a good answer. Have to read that again.)

Combining Eudora mailboxes is easy and I'm not deleting any mail off
the server so all my incoming will be there to dl, and I set up the
stationery so that I'm sending a copy of all my outgoing to myself.
When I get back, if this netbook has failed and I can't copy its
outbox to the home PC outbox, I will filter email to me that's also
from me into my outbox.

That leaves the bookmarks and url history, and I knew how to back up
Firefox, and I brought with me the bat file that copies them to
another drive, but I don't know the file names for Sea Monkey, that
I'm using now and which works a lot better in XP on a netbook that has
only 1gig RAM.

Are the file names the same, by any chance?

In message , Micky
writes:
[]
That leaves the bookmarks and url history, and I knew how to back up
Firefox, and I brought with me the bat file that copies them to
another drive, but I don't know the file names for Sea Monkey, that
I'm using now and which works a lot better in XP on a netbook that has
only 1gig RAM.
[]
Not that it is any reason not to be concerned about the HD and other
hardware, but can you easily double the RAM? When I bought this netbook
(towards the end of the XP era), it also came with only 1G, and (having
heard it was advisable) I bought a 2G stick at the same time. It was
some months before I got round to fitting it, and it seemed to make
little or no difference - but then Task Manager showed I was rarely
getting anywhere near 1G. As time has passed, usage _has_ gone up -
browsers being the main culprit, and I now _do_ exceed 1G a lot of the
time (have even passed the 2 very occasionally of late).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Who came first? Adam or Eve?" "Adam of course; men always do."
Victoria Wood (via Peter Hesketh)

On Fri, 5 May 2017 23:41:26 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Micky
writes:
[]
That leaves the bookmarks and url history, and I knew how to back up
Firefox, and I brought with me the bat file that copies them to
another drive, but I don't know the file names for Sea Monkey, that
I'm using now and which works a lot better in XP on a netbook that has
only 1gig RAM.
[]
Not that it is any reason not to be concerned about the HD and other
hardware, but can you easily double the RAM? When I bought this netbook
(towards the end of the XP era), it also came with only 1G, and (having
heard it was advisable) I bought a 2G stick at the same time. It was
some months before I got round to fitting it, and it seemed to make
little or no difference - but then Task Manager showed I was rarely
getting anywhere near 1G. As time has passed, usage _has_ gone up -
browsers being the main culprit, and I now _do_ exceed 1G a lot of the
time (have even passed the 2 very occasionally of late).

By golly, it will take 2G. This is the second computer for which I've
thought it had as much RAM as it could hold. I will look into what
fits it and what they sell when I get home.

Meanwhile, it has occurred to me that just before I started haiving
this startup problem, when shutting down the previous night, it
installed 6 XP updates. Is there any chance one of them has slowed
startup, and is there a place where the Uninstall files for them is
located?

In message , Micky
writes:
[]
By golly, it will take 2G. This is the second computer for which I've
thought it had as much RAM as it could hold. I will look into what
fits it and what they sell when I get home.

If it's the same as mine (Samsung NC20, though I think the 10 is the
same), 2G is the biggest stick you can fit, and it only has one slot (so
you have to take out the 1G one).

Mike's suggestion of checking the ventilation is worth following: is
there a reasonable draught coming out of it somewhere, or just a gentle
(and hot!) breeze? Worth trying one of the utilities that reports
whatever temperature sensors it can find - I use
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php, but there are plenty of such
utilities. Although if it's responsive enough after booting, that's
probably not the cause (but worth checking anyway; [a] if it gets _too_
hot, it will just shut itself off suddenly to prevent damage, [b] I have
a strong suspicion this is what caused my disc drive to spotweld s
couple of years ago, before I'd realised the fan was failing). If you
_think_ it's responsive enough once booted, see if that still applies
when it has to access the disc: I had a friend whose computer was quite
responsive enough when you were just working with RAM (which covers a
surprising amount of time - e. g. reading emails, even editing a
document most of the time), but crawled when it had to access the disc
(which was failing - took a quarter of an hour to boot, and I think that
was Windows 98!).

Meanwhile, it has occurred to me that just before I started haiving
this startup problem, when shutting down the previous night, it
installed 6 XP updates. Is there any chance one of them has slowed
startup, and is there a place where the Uninstall files for them is
located?

I take it you either have applied the POS hack, or hadn't used it for a
_very_ long time! Even with the POS hack, my latest seems to contain
files dated 2016-6-17, and is (you'll almost certainly have to (Tools,
Folder Options, View) change Hidden files and folders to Show to see
these folders) C:\Windows\$NtUninstallKB3164035$ (one of _many_
$NtUninstall...$ folders there); it has what looks like an uninstall
..exe in a subfolder (as do most of the few I just looked at). But
whether these are safe to run, I have no idea; (a) image before you try
if you can, (b) I'd do them last one first - but I'd wait until someone
more knowledgeable than me (e. g. Paul, VanguardLH, etc.) comes along to
advise on doing this.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Intelligence isn't complete without the full picture and the full picture is
all about doubt. Otherwise, you go the way of George Bush. - baroness Eliza
Manningham-Buller (former head of MI5), Radio Times 3-9 September 2011.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Fri, 5 May 2017 23:41:26
+0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , Micky
writes:
[]
That leaves the bookmarks and url history, and I knew how to back up
Firefox, and I brought with me the bat file that copies them to
another drive, but I don't know the file names for Sea Monkey, that
I'm using now and which works a lot better in XP on a netbook that has
only 1gig RAM.
[]
Not that it is any reason not to be concerned about the HD and other
hardware, but can you easily double the RAM? When I bought this netbook

I don't know where I got the idea I coudn't do that, but it turns out a
2gig stick is only $10. I bought one and it was waiting for me when I
got home, but it doesn't work. The vendor said he'd send me another,
Samsung this time, and while at first he wanted me to send the first one
back, he seems to be wavering on that.

I think that's because he's convinced I know what I'm doing and that
I'm not lying. That's because he wanted me to rub the gold fingers
with a rubber (eraser) before giving up, and I wrote that I'd read that
was bad for contacts and I was going to use ??? Contact Cleaner first,
if that didn't work De-OxIT, and if that didnt' work, I'd use the
eraser. None of it worked -- the computer never gets past a black
screen with white clouds -- so I should write him tonight. I don't
think he sent me his shipping address yet.

(The first ebay email he sent was in broken English and a part was hard
to understand, but the second one said the same thing in better English.
While this is an inconvenience, I find the whole thing interesting, and
at worst I'll waste $10.)


IIUC it's $3 to China for an envelope under 1 oz. (or something like
that), if it fits.


(towards the end of the XP era), it also came with only 1G, and (having
heard it was advisable) I bought a 2G stick at the same time. It was
some months before I got round to fitting it, and it seemed to make
little or no difference - but then Task Manager showed I was rarely
getting anywhere near 1G. As time has passed, usage _has_ gone up -
browsers being the main culprit, and I now _do_ exceed 1G a lot of the
time (have even passed the 2 very occasionally of late).

On Fri, 16 Jun 2017 20:54:39 -0400, micky
wrote:

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Fri, 5 May 2017 23:41:26
+0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , Micky
writes:
[]
That leaves the bookmarks and url history, and I knew how to back up
Firefox, and I brought with me the bat file that copies them to
another drive, but I don't know the file names for Sea Monkey, that
I'm using now and which works a lot better in XP on a netbook that has
only 1gig RAM.
[]
Not that it is any reason not to be concerned about the HD and other
hardware, but can you easily double the RAM? When I bought this netbook

I don't know where I got the idea I coudn't do that, but it turns out a
2gig stick is only $10.

I was going to double the RAM in my Dell Inspiron but was put off
by the price. $80 for one 4 GB stick from Ebay.
If I could get one for $20 I would do it.

On 5/5/2017 3:06 AM, Micky wrote:
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.


It's worth the effort to check the CPU fan.
A large percentage of slowdown or boot problems I've
encountered have been due to a CPU heatsink full of cat hair.

On Fri, 05 May 2017 20:11:30 -0700, mike wrote:

On 5/5/2017 3:06 AM, Micky wrote:
A winXP question, but a serious one, so I'm asking for help from
v10-hotshots too.

My Acer Netbook (about 8 to 10 years old, model not remembered but on
request) has been working fine, except for the usual Firefox too many
tabs problem. This time I closed Windows normally and the next time I
tried to boot it, 10 or 15 minutes went by and nothing showed on the
screen. Nothing on the screen when I started, in the middle, or when
I got tired and turned the computer off.

Turned it off with the power button, and on restart, it did nothing
again, for 10 or 15 minutes. Much of the time the harddrive light was
on steadily. Sometimes it flickered and then went back to steady.

On the third try it started, but took much longer than normal, and it
displayed nothing along the way until the very end it displayed a blue
screen with a couple horizontal bars and Windows is Starting.

It's hard to believe but at the start it didn't even display the
startup options to go into the BIOS, etc.

But everything worked fine once it did start. After 8 hours of use,
the web browser (SeaMonkey) was slowing down, so I restarted it.

Same problems. Finally started on 3rd try, but took 10 minute to do
so. Working fine again.

What is the problem? What to do? I'm on vacation and if the whole
thing fails, I don't have equipment to "fix it" or even salvage data
from the HDD.)

Thanks for any help you can offer.


It's worth the effort to check the CPU fan.
A large percentage of slowdown or boot problems I've
encountered have been due to a CPU heatsink full of cat hair.

Will do.