Almost certainly a dust issue on the inside. Also, the vast majority of notebook pcs are designed to sit on a flat surface for maximum heat dispersion. The tips above about using flat surfaces under the notebook are highly recommended. Also, you can run a program called msconfig to modify your boot programs. Go to start, run, type msconfig and hit enter. The startup tab lists the programs that are set to run at boot. Modifying this list may improve your wait time, although you should be cognizant that these programs may be something you need to run.