boot up problem

If any on can shed some light on this it would be appreciated. When I cold boot my PC (Intel Celeron running windows XP) my desktop appears, however there is a delay of around 2 minutes before the little welcome chime plays and my startup applications load.

bump

[MyMindIsGoing]

Are you sure it is that long? It happens the same for me (but alot shorter time) if there is no dhcp server answering my request for a ip. You might have a longer time out than usuall though. Do you even have dynamic ip configured? If it is not that, did you install any new hardware or new drivers recently? Is the HD working while the computer stalls? You gotta give alot more info.

Fair enough, I'll answer what i can, and again i appreciate the help. I estimated the actual time, and it isn't consistent. sometimes it boots right away, most times however it is between 1-2 minute wait. Not sure if I have dyanamic IP as I don't know what that is (not much of a tech guru)
I haven't installed any new hardware recently
The hard drive does not run during this freeze time, it just sits there as if it's waiting for something. You can click on desktop icons but nothing loads until the freeze ends.
I am the only PC on a wireless network using a cable modem and linksys router.

[MyMindIsGoing]

[ QUOTE ]
I am the only PC on a wireless network using a cable modem and linksys router.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am no expert at wireless networks, but if I had the same problem I would start looking here. Go to the manufacturer of the nework interface card and download the latest drivers and install them.

Before you do that, you can try another thing: see if you can bring up task man while the computer stalls. Press control-alt-delete and chose "task man" (if it even lets you do that) then click tab preformance and click menu view and check "show kernel times" then check the cpu usage. If it is maxed out, press tab processes and look at what process that is eating the cpu time, that one will have the highest number (99 most often) in the cpu column.

thanks, I'll give that a go.

My guess is that you have too much loading at startup. Go to start --> programs --> startup. You should delete any entries here that you do not need to load at startup.

Minimize programs loading into your system tray (the area on the taskbar where the calendar appears); these all eat up processor power while loading and RAM once loaded.

Also, go to Start --> Run, then type 'msconfig' without the quotes. You can disable some of the programs under the start up tab. DON'T disable anything if you are not sure what it does.

Two other good ways to speed up your system are to
a) backup your information and do a clean install of windows;
b) clean your registry manually (or by using a program like jv16 powertools). Don't mess with the registry without backing it up or without knowing what you're doing.

hope this helps.