Why Does My Laptop Take 30 Minutes to Start Up?
One of the most frustrating situations you can run into is a desktop or laptop that boots up endlessly. This eventually happens, but one sure sign that something went wrong is when your system takes a lot longer to boot into Windows or macOS than ever before, especially if you’re waiting a minute and not a second to start using your computer. …
Lifehacker reader Peggy is concerned about a similar issue, as she describes in an email to 911 tech support :
“My laptop boots up pretty quickly, but it’s painfully slow for a very long time. The task manager tells me that the disk is 100 percent loaded. This takes up to 30 minutes. I googled the issue and tried the first suggestion (high risk) which was to stop SuperFetch. Did not help. So what’s the answer? (Dell laptop about 4-5 years old, running Windows, everything updates automatically.) “
My first thought is that there is some kind of application on your system that either hangs or consumes an absurd amount of resources. And you can check it out pretty easily – just look in the Task Manager to see what’s using your CPU so heavily that you can find it by sorting by column.
If you don’t know what your processor is using, just right-click the application and select Search the Internet to do so. By identifying the culprit, you will have a better understanding of what to do with the program. It can be as simple as uninstalling / reinstalling it to fix any issue, depending on the application.
(Since I can’t see your Task Manager, I can’t be more specific on what to do, especially if you probably don’t want to get rid of an annoying app – Google Chrome, for example, if it’s your browser of choice.)
However, it’s strange that anything that affects your computer eats up 30 minutes (or so) after it boots up. My initial thought is that perhaps some application to scan or backup running crazy, but I can not say I’ve ever noticed that Windows Defender or Backblaze out of order in my own system, to name two examples.
Just in case, consider running a full malware scan. While I doubt you are infected, it never hurts to be sure. Get the free version of Malwarebytes and run a complete “threat scan” on your system. If you’re lucky, you won’t find anything – although it certainly won’t help us figure out why your system is slow.
You should also check all the programs that load when Windows starts up and narrow this list down to the bare essentials. You can do this through the Startup tab of the Task Manager: click it, sort by Status (which should be Enabled for everything if you’ve never done this) and start looking at what programs start when your computer boots. You probably don’t know most of them, but you can always right-click on “Search the Web” just like before.
I recommend disabling anything that is a “helper” application or anything in the background to load another application a little faster. For example, you probably won’t need the iTunes helper utility that loads when your system starts up, or the Adobe helper program. If you’re not using OneDrive, you can opt out of this as well (although you’ve probably turned off the “Start OneDrive automatically when Windows starts” option in its settings.
You can also try running a more kernel version: “TronScript”. This is a community created combination of scripts and actions designed to clean up your system. I’ve never had to use it myself, but it might be worth exploring given the complexity of your situation. Download the utility , read the instructions, and back up your important files first in case TronScript does more harm than good for any reason.
If I were you, I would just say, “Fuck it,” back up your files elsewhere and reinstall Windows from scratch . I usually choose this option when my computer is causing me a lot of grief. It takes me an hour or so to get everything set up again, and the speed of a clean install is generally better than spending countless hours troubleshooting the system with tons of fixes. But that’s just me. Take this path and I am sure that you will fix all the problems your system gives you.
(This assumes that your older laptop is still using a hard drive and not an SSD, you can also pick up the latter for a cheap, file backup, unload your drive, and reinstall Windows 10 on your speedy SSD. It’s not very difficult to do this , even if you’ve never done this before and you will see a significant improvement in performance.)