I have an Acer laptop/netbook and it's about 2 years old. It's crashing about 20 minutes after bootup. I know that too many programs are set to run on startup, but I don't know how to fix it so that they don't do that any more... mostly because I don't know which are necessary to the system and which aren't.
Can anyone help me? If you know of a guide for all WinXP startup programs then that'd be great!! I'd also appreciate a walkthrough of how to keep these programs from resetting themselves when I shut off the system.
Thanks!
~Jennifer
Netbook crashing on startup
Netbook crashing on startup
"If you can read this, you must be really bored!"
Girl Hackers!! Because you don't need a penis to be good with computers!!
-----
Name: Jennifer
Age: 21
Number of n00bz used as cannonfodder: "Now serving #2,364,428!"
Girl Hackers!! Because you don't need a penis to be good with computers!!
-----
Name: Jennifer
Age: 21
Number of n00bz used as cannonfodder: "Now serving #2,364,428!"
If the laptop has been off for a while (such as a day) does it last a bit longer before crashing, then when restarted it takes 20 minutes? If so it sounds like a heat sink issue so you might have to reaffix the CPU's heat sink and/or get some thermal compound and apply it to which I'm sure you can find easily enough in one of California's Radioshack stores 
Does this sound anything like your problem?
Does this sound anything like your problem?
You have two choices.
The first, which will be by FAR the most effective, is back up your important files on an external hard drive and reformat/reinstall XP. You can use ninite.com to get most of your useful programs back very quickly
The second is to run "msconfig" from the start-run menu. One of the tabs (I forget which, it's been a while since I've used windows) will let you disable programs that start on startup. Look through each tab until you see one program that for sure isn't part of Windows. The general rule of thumb is that you can disable anything that isn't Microsoft. Yes, even your ACER things are pretty much useless bloatware.
The reason I highly recommend option 1 is because Windows XP over time just picks up crap, and yeah there are a hundred and one applications that promise to speed up your Windows XP by removing crap from the registry, blah blah blah but none of it really works. Sure, you'll notice some speedup, but not even close to what you could get from a fresh install. The general lowdown is that if you're going to use WinXP, reinstall every 15 months at the most. It's not hard and doesn't take more than an hour or two of unsupervised time.
If you don't have a WinXP install cd, you can pick one up pretty cheap on ebay or download one from TPB. In any case, it's well worth $50 to have a WinXP CD. Trust me. It is.
The first, which will be by FAR the most effective, is back up your important files on an external hard drive and reformat/reinstall XP. You can use ninite.com to get most of your useful programs back very quickly
The second is to run "msconfig" from the start-run menu. One of the tabs (I forget which, it's been a while since I've used windows) will let you disable programs that start on startup. Look through each tab until you see one program that for sure isn't part of Windows. The general rule of thumb is that you can disable anything that isn't Microsoft. Yes, even your ACER things are pretty much useless bloatware.
The reason I highly recommend option 1 is because Windows XP over time just picks up crap, and yeah there are a hundred and one applications that promise to speed up your Windows XP by removing crap from the registry, blah blah blah but none of it really works. Sure, you'll notice some speedup, but not even close to what you could get from a fresh install. The general lowdown is that if you're going to use WinXP, reinstall every 15 months at the most. It's not hard and doesn't take more than an hour or two of unsupervised time.
If you don't have a WinXP install cd, you can pick one up pretty cheap on ebay or download one from TPB. In any case, it's well worth $50 to have a WinXP CD. Trust me. It is.
If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
Yes, quite simmilar. At least the first part. it lasts longer if it's been off a few days, but it freezes up inside of 20mins. then I hafto shut it off and restart it, which works fine, until it freezes again. When it freezes, the fan stops whirring, the 'working' light stops blinking and everything on the screen freezes up except for the cursor. -crosses eyes in confusion-CodeX wrote:If the laptop has been off for a while (such as a day) does it last a bit longer before crashing, then when restarted it takes 20 minutes? If so it sounds like a heat sink issue so you might have to reaffix the CPU's heat sink and/or get some thermal compound and apply it to which I'm sure you can find easily enough in one of California's Radioshack stores
"If you can read this, you must be really bored!"
Girl Hackers!! Because you don't need a penis to be good with computers!!
-----
Name: Jennifer
Age: 21
Number of n00bz used as cannonfodder: "Now serving #2,364,428!"
Girl Hackers!! Because you don't need a penis to be good with computers!!
-----
Name: Jennifer
Age: 21
Number of n00bz used as cannonfodder: "Now serving #2,364,428!"