Startup too slow

[canhoto]

Hi.

When I bought my Macbook (late 2006 model, 2.0 Ghz) I just needed 17 seconds from the moment I pushed the power button until the moment it was ready to work, with desktop and finder ready.

Now it takes almost one minute!

It's true that, at the time, it had Tiger running on it, now it has Snow Leopard.
But it is also true that I upgraded memory: from the included 1 GB to the 2,5 GB RAM that it has now. It surely became faster when I upgraded the memory (I notice that specially on opening applications and finder windows).

But on startup it takes too much time; it takes a lot of time with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel thing (after the logo and the spinning wheel disappear, it's quite fast).

Any solutions?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

How much free HDD storage capacity have you left out of what HDD capacity?
And why don't you sleep the MB?

Btw, have you also checked your Login Items in System Preferences > Accounts > YOUR account > Login Items?

 

[canhoto]

How much free HDD storage capacity have you left out of what HDD capacity?
And why don't you sleep the MB?

Btw, have you also checked your Login Items in System Preferences > Accounts > YOUR account > Login Items?

I have still about 50GB free space of out of 120 GB.

About the login items, I have GrowlHelperApp (twice, I don't know why), Mac_SwapperDemon (I don't know what it is), ChronoSyncBackgrounder and ChronoSync, and Dropbox.

Why do you propose to sleep the MB? What are the advantages? Anyway, I can't do it when I carry it with me (well, maybe I can for a short journey).

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I have still about 50GB free space of out of 120 GB.

About the login items, I have GrowlHelperApp (twice, I don't know why), Mac_SwapperDemon (I don't know what it is), ChronoSyncBackgrounder and ChronoSync, and Dropbox.

Why do you propose to sleep the MB? What are the advantages? Anyway, I can't do it when I carry it with me (well, maybe I can for a short journey).

Do you have some USB stick to dial up into the internet?
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1092147

I sleep my Macs all the time and I even carry them around when asleep, as there can be no harm done that way, as only the RAM is powered, thus no moving parts are moving.
Sleeping a Mac, even overnight, is just more convenient. There is no wait for the startup to finish and you can use the Mac right away, after two or three seconds wait though, maybe not as long with yours.

Or is your battery shot and it will not hold the charge while the MB is asleep?
Normally one hour of sleeping consumes one percent of battery capacity.

 

[canhoto]

I ran Disk Utility to verify disks; there was a minor error, and I repaired it with Disk Utility.

I then performed a maintenance operation with Onyx.

Guess what... now, instead of one minute, I have almost two minutes of starting up!

It's incredible, especially when I compare with my old Power Mac G4, 500 Ghz, 512 MB, in which I need less than 30 seconds to start up...