quite long start up time... is avast! the problem?

background:
the booting sequences always ends with msn messenger before i can open anything. like say when i click on 'my computer' it'll be showing that flashlight icon until msn loads. so this means i judge how fast my computer is starting up by timing when msn pops up at the end of the sequence.

the reason why i'm suspecting why avast is creating the problem is because:
during boot up, i try to see if things keep on popping up on my taskbar, telling me that a new program has been loaded during the start up sequence. then for some reason it always pauses for a loooong time (around 20 secs) after avast has loaded with the driving 'stop sign' attached to the icon (i do hope u guys know wot i mean... it's the 'stop sign' attached to the bottom right hand of the avast icon), then the 'stop sign' disappears and then msn loads almost immediately.

now i'm THINKING that it's cuz it's trying to connect to the internet to update its database (i don't use a router, so the comp isn't connect to the internet 24/7 but only when i ask it to connect) and since there's no internet at startup it takes a long time for it to realise that. so then i disabled the automatic update hoping that it'll stop trying to connect to the net, same thing. so then i TRIED to disable avast during startup (so i can just manually start it once i've connected to the internet) but then there's no such option in avast's settings!

any suggestions as to wot i can do? is there a good way to really diagnose the underlying problem to the slow start up time? sigh maybe it needs a reformatting already... which i wonna avoid...

TIA

hmm... after reading the poll of AVs i'm tempted to give AVG a try now... since it takes up less resources too...

 

Use HiJackThis or StartUpList to see whats really starting up

Read this:
How to Optimize a Notebook Computer

And try this if you want to optimize your dual core system:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

 

thanks for the quick reply

i already did the optimising long time ago, but thanks for the link anyways

now as for hjt and startuplist... i'm not sure how to use them... i found a tutorial for hjt so i think that's fine for now (will try to run that later instead) but am not sure how to use startuplist? it just shows a list of stuff and i'm not sure what i can do with them... thanks!

 

If you suspect that it's Avast trying to auto-update, there should be an option to turn that off or set to manual update. You could do that and see if it changes your boot time, too.

Also some simpler things to try if you haven't is defrag the drive if you haven't in a while, run msconfig and see what is set to run at startup, and if you have a lot of programs installed that can slow down start up time, even if they don't start up at bootup.

What slowed my Compaq down was the monthly check for driver downloads from HP. I just turned it off and check on my own. That helped boot up time a lot.

 

i did that already... and now i only have like 10 or so things checked at startup under msconfig... but then there're still 45+ processes running during start up...

i've actually uninstalled avast! and found out that this isn't the problem... it's one of the things that wouldn't run during start up... i pretty much immediately bring out task manager when the computer is in windows, loads a lotta processes up to 19, then takes a long time (10-20 secs) to then suddenly go to 25 or sth, then another 10-20 secs to hit 35, then another 10-20 secs to get the rest and then now msn pops up and i can now do wotever i want... but before all that 45+ processes load up nothing responds...

i'm going to run HJT and hopefully someone there can help me

 

When you run HJT, do scan and save log. You can post the log here (I think that's OK) for feedback. Or you can post over at http://www.malwareremoval.com/. It's a forum-based site with folks who are very knowledgeable about HJT, or other malware that might be slowing you down.

Have you run Adaware and Spybot S&D?

 

i already ran it and posted it over at spyware info forum, though it seems it takes on average 5 days to get the first reply, THEN they follow up sorta closely, like once a day

ya i ran it with adaware, spybot s&D, AVG and HJT, have logs for both AVG and HJT as per requested by spyware info

maybe i should post it over at malwareremoval just to get a faster reply

thanks for the suggestions though, i am most grateful