this has been annoying me for the past couple monthes, and with diablo 3 going live in a couple days I've been polishing up my computers performance, and decided to seek help in fixing a problem I haven't figured out.

unlike all information I've seen on vista boot issues, mine still works. it just lags. when i turn my computer on it goes through my bios screen at the normal speed but once it gets out of the bios screen i can barley see the boot screen horizantal bar (the part where the green squares go back and forth) but it is transparent (because had it not been lagging it would fade in) and it lags there for anywhere from a minutes to 5 minutes, then the bar fades the rest of the way in and all is fine. the rest of my boot is fast I have no other problems whatsoever.
interestingly enough if I hold f8 to boot in safe mode, it doesn't lag, loading windows memory diagnostic tool doesn't lag, booting from a disc dosn't lag. only the normal boots. and then its only 80% of the time

its been doing this a couple monthes, I've tried system restore, I've cleaned up all junk and unused files and programs, I've ran both anti malware and virus checks and both came back clean. I've even tried updateing my bios and removing extra un-necissary components (wireless card, dvd drives, and extra sata controller). I even took it apart, cleaned each piece individually with compressed air then reassembled (I didn't think it would fix my problem, but you know it can only help reduce heat)

I've checked my problem devices, only one being my extra sata controller because I removed the driver and use a third part driver for it. but I have also. tried removing the driver (and as stated before I took it physically out and it didn't help)

I'm really at my wits end of what exactly is causing my issue. it makes restarting after updating any program a major pain.

Vista home basic x64 (genuine)
AMD pheneom II x2 Black edition Callisto 3.2ghz stock (confirmed its really a 4 core, and have unlocked, and then re-locked them because it prevents me from monitoring temperature in quad mode)
4X 2 gig 1066 mhz gskill DDR2 RAM stock (8 gigs total, not overclocked)
500 gig 7200 RPM western digital HDD
gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P
gigabyte ATI Radeon 4850 800mhz 1 gig GDDR3
rosewill wireless card (no longer in use)
Via SATA 6421 controller (nothing connected to it)
sony operatic dvd burner
lite on ihas 224b
2X 250mm fans 1X 120mm fan and 90mm zalman cpu fan and heatsink
650 watt PSU
everything is Crossfire ready for when i have money to drop on a new radeon

pretty sure its not my system. and if so I have alot of overclocking potential. I've seen people who get the callisto's up to 4 ghz quad unlocked on air, and 5 on liquid
I just haven't overclocked because I haven't needed to at all.

wow that was fast. I've actually never hard of a clean boot. and I forgot how to view the system logs.
I'll try performing a clean boot now

clean boot still hung up on the "microsoft corporation" and little green bar. i didn't time it but it felt like about 2 minutes. I'll read the other links.

Originally Posted by richc46

Run a full antivirus scan
Download and run a full scan with Malwarebytes. Be sure to update both before the scan. Make the complete Scan. Should take a few hours.

already did this eariler today. using malwarebytes and avast

I'm going through the 2nd link you provided step by step. I've made it to using multiple cores on boot (which tempts me to reunlock the 3rd and 4th one, however I'm not sure of their stability, will test when this is taken care of)
problem still persists, continuing the boot suggestions.

I did notice a slightly faster boot once it got past the initial lag, now that its using both cores. which is nice

went through all suggestions. nothing worked. checked my last boot time, says critical.


last boot time: 164203ms

shutdown also says warning but isn't nearly so bad.

last shutdown time: 8167ms