Author Topic: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!  (Read 10429 times)

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Offline DavidR

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #15 on: November 20, 2011, 11:38:12 PM »
I changed mine by editing the registry in XP Pro, not really something that you should play with. You could google change prefetch settings XP and see what it turns up, I think that is how I found it first time.

The max isn't actually 4 but 3 as the value starts at zero 0 = disabled, 1 = prefetch application files, 2 = prefetch only boot files (I have mine set on) and 3 = prefetch everything.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters EnablePrefetcher

More http://winxp-expert.blogspot.com/2010/12/change-settings-for-your-prefetch.html.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.2.6105 (build 24.2.8918.824) UI 1.0.799/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

ady4um

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2011, 01:51:42 AM »
I'd like to comment on a couple of things, not just for the current OP, but for other readers, so to be clear.

My comment on prefetch was just an example. There are several of those. Many so called "cleaners" are useful when you know what exactly is your goal. Running them just with the defaults is not a good idea. I know other users recommend them as a general cleaning method. I have enough experience with them in several different situations, and IMHO they are not "for general use" or "for general cleaning goals".

If you want to "clean" something specific, great. Other than that, I would avoid using them as a frequent "cleaning method".

Now, you said that you use CCleaner, WinUtilities, Glary Utilities and Defraggler. Some of their functions are overlapping between them. All of them may cause some undesired effects in certain situations, so all of them, at least in part, comply with what I just described: you should use them with a specific goal in mind and not as a general "as is" "cleaning" method.

About the free space in your HDD, what I meant is that, under Windows, a partition that has more than 70 to 80% of used space is going to show you delays (to say the least). Even if you have, say, 100GB of free space, if that is a partition of 500GB you would be still at 80% of used space, and Windows (re)acts "differently" under those circumstances.

Finally, you mentioned testing / trying out other security tools and coming back to Avast. You definitely should run the respective removal utilities of each and all versions of any previous security tool. They tend to leave remnants (after "uninstalling" them using "Add/Remove Programs"), and some of those can conflict with Avast (affecting performance too).

A partial list of removal utilities can be located at http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/. For better results, the removal utility should be ran under Windows Safe Mode.

Southern Man

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #17 on: November 22, 2011, 01:38:14 PM »
I changed mine by editing the registry in XP Pro, not really something that you should play with. You could google change prefetch settings XP and see what it turns up, I think that is how I found it first time.

The max isn't actually 4 but 3 as the value starts at zero 0 = disabled, 1 = prefetch application files, 2 = prefetch only boot files (I have mine set on) and 3 = prefetch everything.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters EnablePrefetcher

More http://winxp-expert.blogspot.com/2010/12/change-settings-for-your-prefetch.html.
I'd like to comment on a couple of things, not just for the current OP, but for other readers, so to be clear.

My comment on prefetch was just an example. There are several of those. Many so called "cleaners" are useful when you know what exactly is your goal. Running them just with the defaults is not a good idea. I know other users recommend them as a general cleaning method. I have enough experience with them in several different situations, and IMHO they are not "for general use" or "for general cleaning goals".

If you want to "clean" something specific, great. Other than that, I would avoid using them as a frequent "cleaning method".

Now, you said that you use CCleaner, WinUtilities, Glary Utilities and Defraggler. Some of their functions are overlapping between them. All of them may cause some undesired effects in certain situations, so all of them, at least in part, comply with what I just described: you should use them with a specific goal in mind and not as a general "as is" "cleaning" method.

About the free space in your HDD, what I meant is that, under Windows, a partition that has more than 70 to 80% of used space is going to show you delays (to say the least). Even if you have, say, 100GB of free space, if that is a partition of 500GB you would be still at 80% of used space, and Windows (re)acts "differently" under those circumstances.

Finally, you mentioned testing / trying out other security tools and coming back to Avast. You definitely should run the respective removal utilities of each and all versions of any previous security tool. They tend to leave remnants (after "uninstalling" them using "Add/Remove Programs"), and some of those can conflict with Avast (affecting performance too).

A partial list of removal utilities can be located at http://singularlabs.com/uninstallers/security-software/. For better results, the removal utility should be ran under Windows Safe Mode.

Thanks for the useful tips and advice!

southern man

Offline DavidR

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #18 on: November 22, 2011, 01:44:02 PM »
You're welcome.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.2.6105 (build 24.2.8918.824) UI 1.0.799/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

hake

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #19 on: November 28, 2011, 12:36:31 PM »
Thanks for the thoughts which have helped me to mitigate what is probably the same problem with my XP Pro SP3 system.  It's been a bother for over 3 years.  It is a relief to at last have an explanation and a mitigation for the difficulty.  I think that I can now soldier on with XP for a while longer before having to submit to the illusion of security afforded by Windows 7  :(

hake

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Re: PC bootup painfully slow up to 5 mins with avast 6.0.1289..help!
« Reply #20 on: November 29, 2011, 11:25:12 AM »
Problems with Avast! free 6.0.1367 compelled me to do a clean install of 6.0.1289 (including using aswclear.exe).  I had previously had a history of updating from Avast 5 onwards so any legacy of this would have been zapped.  Doing a clean install seems to have had a beneficial effect on system startup.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2011, 08:35:58 PM by hake »