[alwrmcusn]

When I first purchased this computer (HP m9150f) it booted up in 75 seconds.
Over the past few months that has increased to 290 seconds (4 minutes 10 seconds).
I try to keep the machine as lean as I can. During the past couple of months I have done the following things in order to speed the boot process but nothing has made a difference. I’m stymied at this point.
1. Defragmented several times
2. Run anti malware, spyware, virus checkers over and over. They are always negative.
3. I have trimmed my MSCONFIG startup to the most basic items. I can provide a list of what’s active.
4. I have used Black Viper and a couple of other sites to guide me in redoing my SERVICES list.
5. I keep the computer updated….. Vista 32bit SP1, there were three new updates just this morning (Nov 26th), I keep all drivers updated.
6. I do not use anything that I consider “shaky” software such as bit torrent, instant messenger etc.
7. I have used MSCONFIG to set the computer to “No Gui” boot.
8. I have tried turning on the external HD only after the computer boots up. Not much of a help, only about 3-5 seconds.
There are probably a few more things I've tried but don't recall at the moment.
The majority of the boot time is taken up by the black screen with the scrolling progress bar near the bottom center. What the heck is happening during that period??
My computer has Wireless connectivity even though it is a desktop. I do not use that and connect via Ethernet cable instead.
I have made several attempts to locate assistance with this before and usually find that the basic response is to Defragment (done that), try the “No Gui” boot (done that), Cut down the MSCONFIG Startup list (done that), check and reconfigure the Services listing (done that). If there are any additional things that I should look for or if there are any Startup/Services things that I might have missed or not known about I’d welcome the information. I can provide a HiJackThis log if that would help.