Here are some things to check.
Are all of the motherboard drivers installed.
In Device Manager are there any uninstalled or problem devices. They will have a yellow exclamation Icon next to them.
In Device Manager under the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers category. Double-click on your primary and secondary IDE Channel. Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, look for the 'Current Transfer Mode' and ensure it is set to DMA if available not PIO mode. If you need to change them then XP will want to reboot, let it.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and bring up the task manager and see what processes are running. Your machine may not need all of these processes running.
Click Start/Run type in services.msc, this will bring up the services configuration window. Do not disable any services unless you are familiar with them and are sure that they can be safely disabled. Make sure the Task Scheduler service is set to Automatic and that is running. It handles the XP prefetcher which speeds up boot and application startup. if this was off then it will take a few reboots to load the prefetch with information for a faster boot.
Click Start/Run type in msconfig, click the startup tab and see what is running at startup. Your machine may not need all of these starting up.
How many USB devices are connected to the machine, it is known that USB devices can slow the boot process. Try disconnecting any USB devices that are not required to operate the PC and see if that helps.
Let us know what you find.
Are all of the motherboard drivers installed.
In Device Manager are there any uninstalled or problem devices. They will have a yellow exclamation Icon next to them.
In Device Manager under the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers category. Double-click on your primary and secondary IDE Channel. Under the "Advanced Settings" tab, look for the 'Current Transfer Mode' and ensure it is set to DMA if available not PIO mode. If you need to change them then XP will want to reboot, let it.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del and bring up the task manager and see what processes are running. Your machine may not need all of these processes running.
Click Start/Run type in services.msc, this will bring up the services configuration window. Do not disable any services unless you are familiar with them and are sure that they can be safely disabled. Make sure the Task Scheduler service is set to Automatic and that is running. It handles the XP prefetcher which speeds up boot and application startup. if this was off then it will take a few reboots to load the prefetch with information for a faster boot.
Click Start/Run type in msconfig, click the startup tab and see what is running at startup. Your machine may not need all of these starting up.
How many USB devices are connected to the machine, it is known that USB devices can slow the boot process. Try disconnecting any USB devices that are not required to operate the PC and see if that helps.
Let us know what you find.
