Welcome to computer tips and tricks
Thanks for visiting this lens. On this page i hope to provide tips tricks and soloutions on how to optimize tweak and repair your pc. Although the majority of this information will be software absed some of it will also relate to optimizing your hardware.
Top 10 tweaks to speed up your windows xp pc
Tip 10: Clear out unused fonts from the (C:\Windows\Fonts) directory. This will speed up the boot process considerably (depending on how many fonts you remove)
Tip 9: keep your pc cool. If your pc is overheating then its possible that your components wont be running at their usual speeds this comes down to several things such as most modern mother boards reducing clock speeds and memory timings depending on the temps of ur hardware so its allways a good idea to keep your pc in a well ventilated area.
Tip 8: Disable the index service in windows xp. The indexing service in windows xp is used to speed up the search function by indexing and creating a list of files which is indeed a useful feature. But how often do you really use the search feature in windows? if its not often then i reccomend you disable this feature to reduce the ram usage of windows.
How to do it:
1. Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs
5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components
6. Uncheck the Indexing services
7. Click Next
Tip 7: Optimise visual style / display settings. On most modern machines this wont make a huge change to your performance overall but on my own intel core duo 2.4 ghz processer i did notice a slight increase in my bench mark scores so its defintly worth doing.
How to do it:
1.Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Click System
5. Click Advanced tab
6. In the Performance tab click Settings
In this menu you will see a list of various effects just untick them and click apply to see the changes its up to you how youconfigure this but i reccomend only leaving "Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop" and "Use visual styles on windows and buttons" turned on as this allows for a good mix of performance and asthestic quality.
Tip 6: kill explorer.exe when playing games. Most new games use a insane amount of cpu / gpu power not to mention using as much ram as you can throw at them. So its safe to say that anything you can do to gain a small fps boost is worth doing and thats why i reccomend this little trick. After running your game alt + tab out or just go ahead and use ctrl + alt + del and in task manager kill explorer.exe and then alt + tab back into your game by doing this we have killed the explorer process and therefore decreased ram and cpu usage slightly. To see how much of a gain you will get before killing the explorer process look at the cpu and memory usage tabs and see how much explorer.exe is taking up.
Results:
Average Crysis fps before killing all unused tasks and explorer.exe
All settings on medium at 1024 x 768: 42fps
Average Crysis fps after killing all unused tasks and explorer.exe
All settings on medium at 1024 x 768: 57fps
As we can see by ending all unneeded back ground tasks we have gained a considerable fps boost from 42 fps to 57 fps this Gain allowed me to increase certain in game settings to High while still keeping the game entirely playable.
Tip 5: Disable unused services. Before attempting this tweak i reccomend you read http://www.blackviper.com/WinXPx64/servicecfg.htm and find out the reccomended action for the service your thinking of disabling.
Depending on how many services you disable you may see a HUGE performance increase.
Tip4: Optimize your desktop load time. On some configurations it may take quite a long time for your desktop to load after logging into windows this can be due to many things such as poor / old hardware but most of the time it can be fixed by simply reducing the amount of icons you have on your desktop you can also remove the desktop wallpaper this will also decrease the load time of the desktop start up and also increase system performance overall.
How to do it:
1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2. Select the Desktop tab
3. In the Background window select None
4. Click Ok
Tip 3: Turn off system restore. I reccomend this tweak to ADVANCED users only!. By disabling system restore you will also disable the service and therefore increase system performance slightly as well as gain back a considerable amount of hard drive space.
How to do it:
Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick 'Turn off System Restore on All Drives'
Click 'Ok'
Tip 2: Dual channel your ram. If your RAM and mother board supports it then i reccomend that you dual channel your ram if its not allready. To find out about duel channeling your ram and to see how this will effect your performance visit http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/133
Tip 1: Maintain your pc. Even the fastest computers can be insanely slow if they dont get looked after. Its very important that you dedicate a few hours a few scanning your computer for viruses and performaning defrags and disk clean ups.
And remember your hardware needs looking after to! At least once a month i reccomend taking the side of your Pc off and getting rid of all the dust to do this i reccomending purchasing a small can of compressed air and just blowing it all out. This will make sure that all your fans are running smoothly and are not being blocked by big chunks of dust.
Tip 9: keep your pc cool. If your pc is overheating then its possible that your components wont be running at their usual speeds this comes down to several things such as most modern mother boards reducing clock speeds and memory timings depending on the temps of ur hardware so its allways a good idea to keep your pc in a well ventilated area.
Tip 8: Disable the index service in windows xp. The indexing service in windows xp is used to speed up the search function by indexing and creating a list of files which is indeed a useful feature. But how often do you really use the search feature in windows? if its not often then i reccomend you disable this feature to reduce the ram usage of windows.
How to do it:
1. Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Double-click Add/Remove Programs
5. Click the Add/Remove Window Components
6. Uncheck the Indexing services
7. Click Next
Tip 7: Optimise visual style / display settings. On most modern machines this wont make a huge change to your performance overall but on my own intel core duo 2.4 ghz processer i did notice a slight increase in my bench mark scores so its defintly worth doing.
How to do it:
1.Go to Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Click System
5. Click Advanced tab
6. In the Performance tab click Settings
In this menu you will see a list of various effects just untick them and click apply to see the changes its up to you how youconfigure this but i reccomend only leaving "Use drop shadows for icons labels on the desktop" and "Use visual styles on windows and buttons" turned on as this allows for a good mix of performance and asthestic quality.
Tip 6: kill explorer.exe when playing games. Most new games use a insane amount of cpu / gpu power not to mention using as much ram as you can throw at them. So its safe to say that anything you can do to gain a small fps boost is worth doing and thats why i reccomend this little trick. After running your game alt + tab out or just go ahead and use ctrl + alt + del and in task manager kill explorer.exe and then alt + tab back into your game by doing this we have killed the explorer process and therefore decreased ram and cpu usage slightly. To see how much of a gain you will get before killing the explorer process look at the cpu and memory usage tabs and see how much explorer.exe is taking up.
Results:
Average Crysis fps before killing all unused tasks and explorer.exe
All settings on medium at 1024 x 768: 42fps
Average Crysis fps after killing all unused tasks and explorer.exe
All settings on medium at 1024 x 768: 57fps
As we can see by ending all unneeded back ground tasks we have gained a considerable fps boost from 42 fps to 57 fps this Gain allowed me to increase certain in game settings to High while still keeping the game entirely playable.
Tip 5: Disable unused services. Before attempting this tweak i reccomend you read http://www.blackviper.com/WinXPx64/servicecfg.htm and find out the reccomended action for the service your thinking of disabling.
Depending on how many services you disable you may see a HUGE performance increase.
Tip4: Optimize your desktop load time. On some configurations it may take quite a long time for your desktop to load after logging into windows this can be due to many things such as poor / old hardware but most of the time it can be fixed by simply reducing the amount of icons you have on your desktop you can also remove the desktop wallpaper this will also decrease the load time of the desktop start up and also increase system performance overall.
How to do it:
1. Right click on Desktop and select Properties
2. Select the Desktop tab
3. In the Background window select None
4. Click Ok
Tip 3: Turn off system restore. I reccomend this tweak to ADVANCED users only!. By disabling system restore you will also disable the service and therefore increase system performance slightly as well as gain back a considerable amount of hard drive space.
How to do it:
Open Control Panel
Click on Performance and Maintenance
Click on System
Click on the System Restore tab
Tick 'Turn off System Restore on All Drives'
Click 'Ok'
Tip 2: Dual channel your ram. If your RAM and mother board supports it then i reccomend that you dual channel your ram if its not allready. To find out about duel channeling your ram and to see how this will effect your performance visit http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/133
Tip 1: Maintain your pc. Even the fastest computers can be insanely slow if they dont get looked after. Its very important that you dedicate a few hours a few scanning your computer for viruses and performaning defrags and disk clean ups.
And remember your hardware needs looking after to! At least once a month i reccomend taking the side of your Pc off and getting rid of all the dust to do this i reccomending purchasing a small can of compressed air and just blowing it all out. This will make sure that all your fans are running smoothly and are not being blocked by big chunks of dust.
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