Help: on click of Start menu, computer freezes for 20 seconds

[VB.NET]

Greetings, please help me resolve this very annoying issue.

Problem Description: On click of Start Menu in WINDOWS XP, the lower half of the menu shows (Programs, Documents, Run, Shut Down, etc), but the top half (I have 6 shortcuts) appears blank, and the entire operating system is temporarily frozen for about 20 seconds. During this frozen period, system will not respond to anything. After 20 seconds, the top half of the start menu appears ok, and everything is back to normal.

Occurrence: occurs occassionally; mostly after long period of not clicking on start menu. I use my computer about 10 hours each day, and this start menu issue happens about 5- 10 times.

What I've done to solve this: downloaded WinBoost, reduced Registry's default startMenu delay value, but this doesn't appear to be the issue.

PLEASE HELP.

[PeOfEo]

What applications are running when you do this? How much ram is in your system? Do you know your hard drive speed (rpm / average seek time)? Are you doing a lot of writing or reading from the hard drive? Does your computer lag in other ways?

[VB.NET]

Thanks for replying. I should point out, this problem only started RECENTLY, just a few weeks ago, and I don't know what I could have changed to cause it.

What applications are running when you do this?
sometimes no application (other than background app such as Norton antivirus, IIS server, etc), sometimes a few applications such as Eudora, Word, IE.

How much ram is in your system?
512 MB

Do you know your hard drive speed (rpm / average seek time)?
I don't know.

Are you doing a lot of writing or reading from the hard drive?
possibly, but probably not more than before.

Does your computer lag in other ways?
Not really.

[PeOfEo]

Well when I first startup my 3 hard drives will be spinning and seeking data, the hard drive light will be blinking its head off, and that is the only time my start menu lags, and that is because I am too lazy to msconfig my system and kill the programs starting oon startup. I suggest you go to www.lavasoft.de and download ad-aware and run it. Your problem is probably not being caused by spyware, but you might as well run a spyware killer just to make sure.

[the tree]

Both MsWord and MSIE take up loads of processor power and it's not unlikley that you will experience blips while running them both, IMO niether should be used but thats another issue entirely... why don't you try a good old computer clean up? If you go start> all programs> accesorys> system tools you'll find the disk cleanup and disk defragmenter, run them both and most thing ought to go a bit faster.

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by the tree
Both MsWord and MSIE take up loads of processor power and it's not unlikley that you will experience blips while running them both, IMO niether should be used but thats another issue entirely... why don't you try a good old computer clean up? If you go start> all programs> accesorys> system tools you'll find the disk cleanup and disk defragmenter, run them both and most thing ought to go a bit faster. IE doesnt eat up the proc too much. Word doesnt either, only on startup. You are not going to notice any lag on p4 or athalonXP systems. Now if you are running xp on a p3 system or less or celeron I could see it happening maybe. But I do not think it would happen even if you were on a p4 willamette.

[mikebentleyturb]

Hi All
New here but I have the same problem as VB.net I have 4GB ram no activity on HD or processor when I get this delay 21 seconds (intermitently), I think it may be an overlay problem HELP:confused:
Thanks
Mike