Firefox (and others) veeeeery slow to open

polybear

Hi,
I have a tower pc (dell) that for some time now has been playing up. It has very little additional software programs loaded, and very little is selected to run at startup etc. All virus sweeps etc. come back negative. It's running XP.

The problem is: The pc has been switched on (and left for plenty of time eg sometimes half an hour) to boot up fully. When I try to open up Firefox (IE is no better) it takes AGES to open up (eg minutes rather than seconds). However, once it has been opened up once and then closed down, subsequent openings can be measured in tens of seconds.

Firefox has been reloaded etc without improvement.

Any ideas please, as it's driving me nuts!! Many thanks.

polybear

debitcardmayhem

Firefox is probably checking for updates at start up, go to options advanced update , that will hopefully it will speed up 1st time. Don't use IE much so I will need to think about that one.

busenbust

try disabling all FF add-ons too perhaps; update to the most recent version too.

jbreckmckye

Update checking is possibly the issue. You can disable checks for updates (you might lose security updates until the next time you manually check, but that's a risk for you to assess).

Firefox is always a bit sluggish to initialize. You could use an executable packer to compress it. This means less data has to be spooled from the HDD when you open FF. The machine has to spend time decompressing, but this is faster than reading the extra data from the drive.

That said, you'd have to decompress Firefox ('unpack') to update it. UPX is the typical executable packer. Don't confuse 'packing' with 'zipping' - packing leaves an executable stump, so you can start Firefox as per usual. Zipping would just mean copying a decompressed Firefox to the disc again, gaining you nothing.

kevsan

If you are leaving the machine for up to 30 minutes to startup,
why don't you just have firefox automatically start on boot - that way it will be loaded when you come to use it.

Just copy a shortcut to the program file into your startup folder and your done.

gonzo127

Really you shouldnt have to leave your system that long to boot up, and then still wait to load up your browser, it would do my nut in if i had to wait longer than 1 - 1.30 min to boot and get into my browser with any of my systems

have you done the usual Malwarebytes and hijack this scans and then post up the logs?

also can you post up your system specs and which operating system you use

calvinwhite78

which version of FF you are using now?

is it stable or RC version?

closed

post your physical ram, commit charge, and peak commit from task manager, performance, and follow gonzo's advice.

polybear

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Firefox is probably checking for updates at start up, go to options advanced update , that will hopefully it will speed up 1st time. Don't use IE much so I will need to think about that one.

Hi all,

Many thanks for the replies - you've cracked it!! I disabled the "check for updates" in Firefox (also disabled check for add-on updates whilst i was there) and now the pc boots much faster (probably around the 90 second mark).

Whilst the pc was booting up I opened up task manager so I could monitor the CPU usage graph - I didn't attempt to open up FF until the usage dropped right off (that way I knew the boot up process was complete). FF now opens up in 20-25 seconds the first time it is opened; any subsequent openings are around the 5-10 second mark, which is excellent.

I only use this pc as a spare, mainly because it's the one linked to a printer and scanner (I have a laptop for general email and surfing etc). but it now seems like a completely new computer because the performance seems much faster simply by unticking those options.

More importantly the OH has been having the same trouble, and after unticking the same boxes it seems her pc is sorted also (I've previously even resorted to reloading xp and all other software from scratch without success). Which means a lot less earache for me!:j
Many thanks - it's much appreciated.

polybear

calvinwhite78

Thanks good. happy browsing!

Francesanne

polybear wrote: »

Hi all,

Many thanks for the replies - you've cracked it!! I disabled the "check for updates" in Firefox (also disabled check for add-on updates whilst i was there) and now the pc boots much faster (probably around the 90 second mark).

Whilst the pc was booting up I opened up task manager so I could monitor the CPU usage graph - I didn't attempt to open up FF until the usage dropped right off (that way I knew the boot up process was complete). FF now opens up in 20-25 seconds the first time it is opened; any subsequent openings are around the 5-10 second mark, which is excellent.

I only use this pc as a spare, mainly because it's the one linked to a printer and scanner (I have a laptop for general email and surfing etc). but it now seems like a completely new computer because the performance seems much faster simply by unticking those options.

More importantly the OH has been having the same trouble, and after unticking the same boxes it seems her pc is sorted also (I've previously even resorted to reloading xp and all other software from scratch without success). Which means a lot less earache for me!:j
Many thanks - it's much appreciated.

polybear

It took over 20 minutes to get into Firefox today, so you're not alone having those problems. I've just followed the advice you've been given and fingers crossed.