Long Startup Times

[PzkfW]

Windows XP

The time from the motherboard bios turning on, to the Windows XP loading screen is nothing. It's never changed.

When I get to the blue screen, I hit my name. It looks like I've hit my name, the words "Choose your login name" (or whatever it is) go away. Sometimes, this is only like 5 seconds from this point untill I'm at my desktop screen. Other times, it's 45 seconds or more. I have a duo core 2.2 GHz and 2GB of RAM, why is this time so long and random on a 6 yr old OS?

My main hard drive is 5 years old. Could that be the problem? It's only started doing this recently, but everything else is fine. Games have stayed at the same frame rates, and once XP loads up, everything is fast like it should be.

Thanks for replies.

[glc]

It could be your antivirus updating or something like that. Check your startup processes.