See PC Speed Tweaking Myths - The Dont's! For the opposite article.
There are lots of myths and clever tips on how to improve system performance, But some either don't work, Give bad results or even stop some parts of the system working.
The tips below are all completely safe, Completely recommended and will not stop anything working. More extreme tweaks can speed things up marginally such as disabling wireless zero configuration service if your not using wireless and print spooling service if you don't have a printer etc..
The problem with these tweaks is they only increase performance by the tiniest amounts. Plus in the future upon adding a printer or wireless card, You'll be posting on a tech support forum like this one asking why your printer or wireless don't work. Forgetting the tweak you performed months ago.
These are all very basic and things everyone should be doing. I'll start with the most important, Going to the least important.
1) [size=22]De-fragment:[/size]
De fragmentation speeds up the computer massively and is totally harmless. It should be done by everyone.
What is fragmentation? When windows is asked to write a 40MB file to the hard drive it does so. Then it will write further files in front of that on the disk. If it's asked to delete that 40MB file there is now a 40MB space on the disk. Between files. When windows is then asked to store a larger file, 60MB for instance, It'll write 40MB into that space, and the remaining 20MB after that, in the next big enough free space.
Very quickly windows will become fragmented, When it's asked to retrieve that 60MB file, It will have to wait while the read/write heads of the hard drive go to the first 40MB section, reads that, then reposition on the disk to read the second 20MB remaining chuck of the file. When files become fragmented into sometimes hundreds of pieces this slows the computer massively. Increases the heat output of the hard drive, Lessens it's life expectancy and overall reduces performance.
De-fragmenting the computer weekly will take each fragmented file, placing them in contiguous blocks, rather than separate pieces. Speeding up the file system exponentially.
For Vista: Vista defragments automatically but there is better performing de fragmentation software available. Such as Diskeeper
For XP: Open my computer, Right click on Drive C: (Local disk) then click properties. After clicking the tools tab at the top, Click Defragment. You can analyse but there is little point. In essence, The more red the more you need to defrag. Click defragment. This will take anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple hours depending on how long it's been since your last defrag. The longer it takes to defrag, The higher the performance boost you'll notice. You can use your computer while this is going on. Perform this task weekly.
2) [size=22]Free up space, Clear the unessential files[/size]:
Freeing up space doesn't sound like it would improve performance, More just allow you to store more data. But it does. When windows is asked to store files, It needs to look for the next available space on the hard drive, Or fragment the file if no contiguous space is available. Clearing up the hard drive making sure it's never more than around 70% full will reduce the time taken to allocate space for files on the drive. Speeding up the computer quite a bit.
There are lots of ways to do this, There is the manual way, Involving going around several parts of the computer and doing the clearing yourself, Or you can use software, Which does the job for you. The best tool for that job is CCleaner It's totally freeware and is quickly becoming a global leader in it's field.
This will clear temporary files from your browser cache, windows temporary files from installations and software running. This will free up much more space to allow windows to quickly decide where's best to place files.
As a secondary measure, Clearing all but the most resent system restore point can free up gigabytes!
To do that, It's the same procedure for both XP and Vista.
Open My computer, Right click Drive C:, Click disk clean-up, (A progress bar will appear, This may take some time) When the screen appears following the progress bar, Click the "more options" tab from the top. Click the bottom option, "System restore". This may time a few seconds, the window will appear to not respond during that time, Then you can click ok. It is recommended to defragment after this process.
3: [size=22]Uninstall All unnecessary Software[/size]:
Over time, we all install software then forget about it and never use it again. If you have anywhere near 50 or more installed. You can speed up the system by removing ones you no longer use. Each software can have thousands of registry keys and can take up lots of disk space, Removing some software can have massive speed boosts.
To remove software or check what's installed.
Open Control Panel, Click Classic view from the left side pane(vista only), Click "add and remove software" wait while the list builds, Clicking to highlight unwanted software will show an "uninstall" button. Again, It's recommended to defragment after this process too.
4: [size=22]Reduce Start-up Items[/size]:
Look at your clock, Does it have many more than around 5 icons next to it? If so, Think about removing some from start-up.
These icons in the system tray are software running in the background. By stopping the unnecessary ones from running, You'll free up memory, Processor time and make the system more responsive. You may even disable some nasty software in the process.
Press the Windows Key then R or click run in your start menu, Type msconfig.exe then hit enter.
The window that appears is the Microsoft configuration utility. Click the start-up tab from the top.
Deselect any of the items you don't think are absolutely necessary. Things such as Firewall, Anti virus, iTunes or MSN can be left on, Most others should be deleted. If your not sure which are safe to delete. Post a screen shot or list of the items your unsure about here.
After deselecting these, Click OK, You'll be prompted to restart, Save any work then restart the system. When the system starts your "clock area" should be much more empty, Your system, a little faster too.
Hope you find the guide useful, Don't forget to post your thoughts below.
There are lots of myths and clever tips on how to improve system performance, But some either don't work, Give bad results or even stop some parts of the system working.
The tips below are all completely safe, Completely recommended and will not stop anything working. More extreme tweaks can speed things up marginally such as disabling wireless zero configuration service if your not using wireless and print spooling service if you don't have a printer etc..
The problem with these tweaks is they only increase performance by the tiniest amounts. Plus in the future upon adding a printer or wireless card, You'll be posting on a tech support forum like this one asking why your printer or wireless don't work. Forgetting the tweak you performed months ago.
These are all very basic and things everyone should be doing. I'll start with the most important, Going to the least important.
1) [size=22]De-fragment:[/size]
De fragmentation speeds up the computer massively and is totally harmless. It should be done by everyone.
What is fragmentation? When windows is asked to write a 40MB file to the hard drive it does so. Then it will write further files in front of that on the disk. If it's asked to delete that 40MB file there is now a 40MB space on the disk. Between files. When windows is then asked to store a larger file, 60MB for instance, It'll write 40MB into that space, and the remaining 20MB after that, in the next big enough free space.
Very quickly windows will become fragmented, When it's asked to retrieve that 60MB file, It will have to wait while the read/write heads of the hard drive go to the first 40MB section, reads that, then reposition on the disk to read the second 20MB remaining chuck of the file. When files become fragmented into sometimes hundreds of pieces this slows the computer massively. Increases the heat output of the hard drive, Lessens it's life expectancy and overall reduces performance.
De-fragmenting the computer weekly will take each fragmented file, placing them in contiguous blocks, rather than separate pieces. Speeding up the file system exponentially.
For Vista: Vista defragments automatically but there is better performing de fragmentation software available. Such as Diskeeper
For XP: Open my computer, Right click on Drive C: (Local disk) then click properties. After clicking the tools tab at the top, Click Defragment. You can analyse but there is little point. In essence, The more red the more you need to defrag. Click defragment. This will take anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple hours depending on how long it's been since your last defrag. The longer it takes to defrag, The higher the performance boost you'll notice. You can use your computer while this is going on. Perform this task weekly.
2) [size=22]Free up space, Clear the unessential files[/size]:
Freeing up space doesn't sound like it would improve performance, More just allow you to store more data. But it does. When windows is asked to store files, It needs to look for the next available space on the hard drive, Or fragment the file if no contiguous space is available. Clearing up the hard drive making sure it's never more than around 70% full will reduce the time taken to allocate space for files on the drive. Speeding up the computer quite a bit.
There are lots of ways to do this, There is the manual way, Involving going around several parts of the computer and doing the clearing yourself, Or you can use software, Which does the job for you. The best tool for that job is CCleaner It's totally freeware and is quickly becoming a global leader in it's field.
This will clear temporary files from your browser cache, windows temporary files from installations and software running. This will free up much more space to allow windows to quickly decide where's best to place files.
As a secondary measure, Clearing all but the most resent system restore point can free up gigabytes!
To do that, It's the same procedure for both XP and Vista.
Open My computer, Right click Drive C:, Click disk clean-up, (A progress bar will appear, This may take some time) When the screen appears following the progress bar, Click the "more options" tab from the top. Click the bottom option, "System restore". This may time a few seconds, the window will appear to not respond during that time, Then you can click ok. It is recommended to defragment after this process.
3: [size=22]Uninstall All unnecessary Software[/size]:
Over time, we all install software then forget about it and never use it again. If you have anywhere near 50 or more installed. You can speed up the system by removing ones you no longer use. Each software can have thousands of registry keys and can take up lots of disk space, Removing some software can have massive speed boosts.
To remove software or check what's installed.
Open Control Panel, Click Classic view from the left side pane(vista only), Click "add and remove software" wait while the list builds, Clicking to highlight unwanted software will show an "uninstall" button. Again, It's recommended to defragment after this process too.
4: [size=22]Reduce Start-up Items[/size]:
Look at your clock, Does it have many more than around 5 icons next to it? If so, Think about removing some from start-up.
These icons in the system tray are software running in the background. By stopping the unnecessary ones from running, You'll free up memory, Processor time and make the system more responsive. You may even disable some nasty software in the process.
Press the Windows Key then R or click run in your start menu, Type msconfig.exe then hit enter.
The window that appears is the Microsoft configuration utility. Click the start-up tab from the top.
Deselect any of the items you don't think are absolutely necessary. Things such as Firewall, Anti virus, iTunes or MSN can be left on, Most others should be deleted. If your not sure which are safe to delete. Post a screen shot or list of the items your unsure about here.
After deselecting these, Click OK, You'll be prompted to restart, Save any work then restart the system. When the system starts your "clock area" should be much more empty, Your system, a little faster too.
Hope you find the guide useful, Don't forget to post your thoughts below.
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