Some assistance...

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, the only other thing I can think of is defective hardware. Startup processes could be the problem, but I highly doubt that they would slow it down that much, maybe a couple minutes, but probably not that much. A virus maybe, but even that's a stretch. I personally think it's defective hardware, could you do a hardware diagnostic?

[Reliant121]

I'm going to time it first, I don't put it past my mother to be suffering super hyperbole.

[Nickswitz]

Thats probably a good idea, expect about what Tyyr said.

[stitch626]

Also, at some point try booting it in safe mode and time the difference. A huge difference could indicate a non-necessary startup process problem (or virus).

[USSEnterprise]

Could the processor be downclocking?

[Nickswitz]

Could the processor be downclocking?

Very unlikely, as downclocking only happens hardware on the i series, not sure why, but the lowest they will go is the standard. Although, if it is a defective chip that may be a problem.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Could the processor be downclocking?

Intel chips from the Core 2 series on routinely underclock themselves at idle to save power, but it wouldn't affect the user experience.

Can you tell in the task manager how many processes are running? Running 'msconfig' in the Start menu/search box and unchecking unnecessary startup programs is often necessary on fresh OEM installs (if not uninstalling the offending programs altogether). OEM bloatware wouldn't literally slow it as much as described but if there is indeed a good bit of hyperbole here...

One of the first places I'd go hunting for defective hardware, is the hard drive.

[Tyyr]

Yeah, they downclock at idle, but during start up the system is hardly idle.

[IanKennedy]

It has 4GB of RAM, more than enough.

Is it all working and of a matching spec to the system.

[Reliant121]

Matches what we bought for it, and it appears to be working fine.

It seems to have got a lot faster at the moment. I suspect it's my mum's hyperbole and technology rage.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Matches what we bought for it, and it appears to be working fine.

It seems to have got a lot faster at the moment. I suspect it's my mum's hyperbole and technology rage.

Well most store-bought PC's are maddening with all the pre-installed programs nobody has any use for (but that the OEM gets paid by the developer to include in the factory image ) anyway - particularly when you're first setting it up. Then again, I went way overboard in putting together a powerful machine just to avoid ever waiting for the machine to process something - in reality simply using an SSD as a boot drive rather than a traditional hard drive probably gave me most of the "instant" responsiveness I love in this new build.

[Nickswitz]

I really would love to have a SSD as a boot drive, probably would make for a really fast start up, how large do you have yours, and is it running Win7?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I really would love to have a SSD as a boot drive, probably would make for a really fast start up, how large do you have yours, and is it running Win7?

It's an 80 GB Intel SSD (second generation X25-M); enough for Windows and my programs, then I have a big (2 TB) mechanical drive for data. Yeah, it's Windows 7 64-bit (8 GB RAM) and it does boot crazy fast, and launch programs in a snap.

[Nickswitz]

Awesome setup, I need to pick up 8 GB for my laptop too, because I'm weird like that, although my laptop has no problem with anything I run on it, although it odes have a problem with too much cacheing, so more RAM probably would help.

[IanKennedy]

I'm just about to get a new laptop from work. Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM and 500GB SSD