hi please could you help me with my daughters dell inspiron 1300 laptop when she powers it on it takes 5 to 10 minutes before the screen comes to the one where she clicks on her account during that time the screen in black this happens each time any one know why and how to fix it please thanks Diane

Here are few things that you can do. (For most downloads use links from the list below).

1: Click Start > run. Type msconfig. Check Selective Mode and click the "startup" tab. Uncheck everything which is not essential. Leave only antimalware programs (if you change your mind latter you can reactivate those programs). Confirm and reboot. Upon rebooting a message will show up. Please check it and continue. For laptop users: do not uncheck items that clearly relate to the operation of the computer.

2: In Add/Remove programs, in Control Panel, uninstall all unnecessary toolbars such as Yahoo, google and others. Latter on you can download them again.

3: If you have Internet Explorer 7 installed as a windows update, uninstall it in add/remove programs in control panel. This will roll you back to internet explorer 6. Latter on you can download it again as a Windows Update.

4: Download and install CCleaner. Do not install the Yahoo toolbar that comes packed with the program. In addition to items checked by default please check "Old Prefetch Data". Run the "cleaner" and "registry" options a number of times until nothing is left to be cleaned. Use the backup option (in "registry") when prompted to do so.

5: Run a thorough scan with updated antimalware programs. Use the link in my list to the malware forum and follow all the preliminary steps. Run full system scans (all files), preferably in safe mode. Run the programs one at a time,

6: Run disk defragmantation. For this operation I use and recommend Auslogic Disk Defrag. Alternatively you can run Microsoft's defragmenter.

hi thank you for your help it seems quite complicating to do all you said to do i hope i can do it ok and not mess her computer up, has she got a problem with spyware ect is that why it is taking so long to start up.

Could be malware (virus etc.). Could be something else. The steps I suggested are simple and harmless.

definatly try everything that The Skeptic suggested above but if it still has that problem you might wanna try backing up any important files on the laptop and doing a dell system restore. you can do a system restore by restarting the laptop and at the first screen press Ctrl + F11 at the same time, you might need to press them a few times and that will bring you to dell system restore menu and you can choose to restore your laptop to exactly how it was when you bought it. but it will erase any personal files you might have put on it since buying it so thats why I said burn anything you want to keep on a cd or something first. I'd do this as a last resort.

good luck.