Network Connection Hardware problem? or Windows XP slowness problem?

[jacksonc]

Hi,

I start up my computer and for some reason the wireless connection and other programs seem to take a little longer than the sound, antivirus and other programs.  This causes the Windows Explore not wanting to start.

Is this just XP being slow? Will this improve if I upgrade to Windows 7? Is this a hardware flaw?

Laptop Specifications:
Hard Drive: 160GB 7,200 RPM
RAM: 2GB (1.75) Upgrading soon to 3GB
Main processor: AMD Athlon X2 2.2GHz Dual core
Brought in Jan 1

Any other information you may need please contact me.

[Geek-9pm]

No, the problem has something to do with you current software installation. From the information given in your post, it sounds like a program is trying to get on the internet and is slowing down the system from its start up chores. Did you recently do something new with your PC? Maybe a large download? P2P files sharing can really slow down you machine when it starts. Do you do that?

[jacksonc]

Um I am not really sure.  I thought it might be something to do with the programs slowing it down.  If I upgrade to windows 7 will this help go away or even better go away completely? Oh and Does windows 7 support USB RAM?

Thnks for the help.

[dahlarbear]

I start up my computer and for some reason the wireless connection and other programs seem to take a little longer than the sound, antivirus and other programs.  This causes the Windows Explore not wanting to start.

Is this just XP being slow? Will this improve if I upgrade to Windows 7? Is this a hardware flaw?

1.  Not really sure what you mean...  You have plenty of system memory (RAM) for Windows XP; so that shouldn't be an issue.
     a.  How long does it take for your system boot to be ready for use (steady down)?
     b.  How long does it take if you boot your system to "Safe Mode" or "Safe Mode with Networking"?
     c.  Perhaps the system is scanning your network looking for mapped drives and shared resources...
     d.  How often do you verify the integrity of and defrag the file systems?
     e.  You can use "Startup Manager" software to control what automatically starts at system startup and login.  You can usually cut that list down to the bare minimum.  Most software applications can be started on demand (manually) when you "actually" need to use them.  See Mike Lin's Startup Control Panel.
     f.  Another useful program is SysInternals (now owned by Microsoft) Process Explorer.  It is the task manager program Microsoft should have provided with Windows.  If you can get it started early enough, it will show you which program is running when and how much CPU it's using.

2.  What security software are you running?
     a.  Firewall
     b.  AntiVirus
     c.  AntiMalware
     d.  AntiAdware

3.  I have no idea whether Windows 7 will be an improvement.  I also believe this is a software configuration issue, not hardware.

Oh and Does windows 7 support USB RAM?

4.  If by "USB RAM" you mean something like "Vista ReadyBoost", the person who wrote this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost page believes it does.

[patio]

If he's using readyboost that may actually be the cause of the slowdowns...
With 3G of RAM and XP i'm not sure why it's needed anyways.