Laptop Slow Bios Boot (Toshiba Windows 7) Help

[muddyfox470]

All,

A good friend of mine is due to go to uni shortly and I'm heading on the train down to her place to help sort it out so it is all working fine before it hits the uni network.

It's a little bizarre, but from having a quick look around it is looking like it could be a bad bios update or some hardware/driver incompatibility.
My reference:

I'm hoping to get it done asap so I can get it done as quick as possible, and get back home as I've another fairly busy week planned (I'm on an a demanding course with work at the moment).

Anywho...

I don't know the exact Toshiba laptop model, but will update this post shortly.

Having spoken to her on the phone for 2 hours , I have found out that; there doesn't seem to be any virus/malware issues. After boot the laptop uses approx 4-600mb of RAM, but in total the laptop has approx. 3gb. It's a dual core laptop and was sold with windows 7 installed, so should be more than capable of running the OS.
I got her to have a look in msconfig startup and there were less than 8 programmes listed, I disabled the majority (ituneshelper etc); but this wouldn't really help much. The laptop had been reinstalled (fresh) about April of this year - without all the standard bumf that comes with a new laptop, but after the first couple of months it has got worse [I am thinking something to do with an autoupdate or something]

The problem is:

From powering on the computer to landing on the desktop it takes anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes to get there.
The time is all taken up with the boot, i.e. it tends to take 1 minute from entering your password at the windows prompt but from a cold boot to the login screen takes ages, hence it more likely to be a bios of hardware problem.

However sometimes the computer seems to hang, is slow to respond, open windows etc. I.e. pressing the start button to search will take about 10/15 seconds.

Does anyone have any ideas or experience of what could be causing this?

All help would be gratefully appreciated; I'll let you know what I managed on the train home.

My links for reference:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...7-adf77e8f3a6f
http://forums.computers.toshiba-euro...54395&tstart=0
http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-5...ctory-settings
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/72...w-windows-boot
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...eshooting.html

Thanks again

Ian

[muddyfox470]

The model is L505-S5982

I've downloaded the Toshiba Software Installer to try and auto update driver files, and it's in the process. It is horribly slow.

But I don't think there is anything wrong with the bios, it booted almost immediately to the windows sign (before the login screen) then took an age to actually get into the log in screen, and calm down onto the desktop.

[muddyfox470]

What a hassle.

Finally just got a new harddrive after trying to restore to the out of box state, only to find that during the installation the recovery partition was corrupt. Had some good fun with some toshiba error codes, one resolution F3-FF00-0006 makes me laugh as to fix a broken harddrive you have to be in windows! Then I also got: F3-FF00-0020

New harddrive, borrowed an installation disk and good as new.

Seems that the laptop once fell from a windowsill so could have developed from that. Just thank god that Maplin had a cheap offer of £50 for a 320gb sata drive. Not the cheapest, but at least I could get it in and done asap.

Essentially, computer would take 10-15 minutes to boot, whilst in windows it would appear non responsive despite low resource use (memory and cpu fairly free), copying files to an external harddrive would copy at about 1-2mbps and it was doing my head in, as it took me 2 hours to install some new drivers, in case it was a driver incompatibility or antivirus conflict. Fortunately the user didnt have too much to back up.

[Behemoth]

This is why I say to people to avoid Toshiba Laptops, they aren't all that robust and they are a nightmare to sort out when things go wrong.

[Kumagoro]

Personally i find toshiba ones to be some of the easiest to repair, they use standard parts are easy to get into.

[Behemoth]

You must be talking about ones that are about 3/4 years old. They made some cracking bits of kit back then, but now in all honesty Toshiba is a brand I try to avoid at all costs. I just feel the buildd quality of their current consumer market kit is very poor.

[Kumagoro]

Compared to Advent/fujitsu siemens and Compaq/HP, common toshiba ones are a pleasure to take
apart and fix. The nightmare four above also seem to suffer from gpu failures more than the rest.

[Behemoth]

Advent, don't get me started on those. I've had the missfortune to own two of them in my lifetime. If I was given the choice of using a 486 DX2 66 or a new Advent Laptop I'd take the 486. Never again will I own an Advent.

Where I used to work I always found that the faults people reported with their laptops (any brand really but Toshiba were what we got most of back) was due to how they treated their laptop.

"Oh the hinge has broken" says the customer as he hands it to me wide open by the top of the screen. Yeah pal, no wonder !

"My daughers laptop is very hot and slow, can I have a new one please ?"

"Where does she use it?"

"Oh it sits on her bed all night and it's switched on all day" If I had a pound for everytime I heard that one I'd be rich !

[chuckskull]

"Where does she use it?"

"Oh it sits on her bed all night and it's switched on all day" If I had a pound for everytime I heard that one I'd be rich !

Ugh I have a passionate hate of that one after fixing my little brothers laptop about 5 times now.

He likes to leave it on his duvet all day switched on while he's at college or use it on the carpet which I'm pretty sure gets hoovered about once a year.

When it start's shutting down from overheating, his solution; turn the automatic shut down off...

[Behemoth]

Which reminds me, I need a cooler for my laptop, it's getting rather hot. Please don't ask where it's been used on occasion.