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March 2002• Vol.13 Issue 3 Page(s) 50-54 in print issue | |
20 Speed Tweaks Some Of Our Favorite Ways To Boost PC Performance |
The desire to do more and
do it faster is one of the constants of modern life. Moore’s Law is an example of this principle in action; computing power is on a steady ride to the stratosphere, and in spite of recent industry troubles, there’s no end in sight. The vast majority of users cannot afford to keep pace with Moore’s Law and purchase the fastest, meanest PC every year. If you are afraid Moore’s Law is about to leave your rig in the dust, fear not. There are plenty of tweaks you can easily implement to speed your system up and take full advantage of its components.  Optimize Your Hard DriveMany of us have experienced the frustration—or perhaps even panic—that comes with misplacing an important file on your own hard drive, and poorly maintained drives can be a considerable drain on your PC’s performance. But these things don’t have to plague your existence. 1. Get organized. Create a folder called Data or Stuff and use it exclusively to store data files. Better yet, if you have multiple hard drives or partitions, designate one for data storage only. This will make it much easier to find your files and will make data backups easier. Separating your OS (operating system) files from your data files will also keep your data intact if your OS ever dies, requiring you to format the partition and reinstall Windows. 2. Defrag your drive. Perform drive maintenance regularly, starting with Windows’ Disk Defragmenter (or a third-party utility, such as Symantec’s [http://www.symantec.com] Norton SystemWorks or McAfee Utilities from Network Associates [http://www.mcafee-at-home.com ]). Over time, file fragments litter your hard drive’s disk(s) as you save and delete files. If an application needs a particular file and the disk is highly fragmented, it will take longer to copy the file to system memory. If you see a lot of disk activity during normal computer use, it may be time to defragment your hard drive. You can launch Windows’ Disk Defragmenter utility by clicking Start, Programs (All Programs in Windows XP), Accessories, System Tools, and Disk Defragmenter. Select the drive you want to defragment, and click the Settings button to adjust other program settings if necessary. Later versions of Windows, such as Windows Me, also give you the option of optimizing your hard drive so your most frequently used programs launch quicker. 3. Clear out digital detritus. Disk Cleanup is another useful tool for optimizing your hard drive. Windows and other applications create temporary files used during normal operations. These files can accumulate over time, so it is useful to periodically delete them. Start Disk Cleanup by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Disk Cleanup. Disk Cleanup asks you to select a drive. Select it and click OK. The utility quickly analyzes your disk and presents you with a dialog box containing a Files To Delete list that shows you how much drive space files in various areas (your Recycle Bin, your Temporary Internet Files folder, etc.) are monopolizing. Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. 4. ScanDisk to the rescue. It’s a good idea to periodically check your hard drive for errors by running ScanDisk (click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and ScanDisk). The ScanDisk dialog box provides two types of tests, Standard and Thorough. Unless you have plenty of time or suspect serious problems, choose the Standard option. You can also choose to have ScanDisk automatically fix any errors it finds. Choose this option and click OK to begin the process. 5. Update your file system. If you are using the OSR2 (OEM Service Release 2) version of Windows 95 or a newer Windows version, you should consider formatting your hard drives using the FAT32 (32-bit file allocation table) filing system. FAT32 gives you significant space savings, and it works better with larger drives. Windows 98 users can convert their hard drives to FAT32 by using the included (and aptly named) Drive Converter utility. Click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Drive Converter (FAT32) to get started. Click Next, select the drive you wish to convert, click Next again, and click OK to begin the conversion process. If you are using Windows 2000 or WinXP, you may benefit from converting your drives to use NTFS (NT file system). NTFS volumes feature sophisticated security and error-fixing features unavailable in FAT16 or FAT32. 6. Do some role-playing. To access some straightforward ways to enhance your system’s performance, right-click the My Computer icon on your Desktop and then click Properties. Click the Performance tab of the System Properties dialog box and under Advanced Settings, click the File System button. At the File System Properties dialog box, click the Hard Disk tab, then select Network Server in the Typical Role Of This Computer drop-down menu. This will maximize your drive’s performance by increasing the memory Windows uses to cache frequently accessed files and folders. Patch Up The HolesMicrosoft has released myriad patches throughout the years in support of its Windows OSes. Win95 and Win98 users must periodically check Microsoft’s Web site for updates to keep their systems running at full speed. With the release of WinMe, however, Microsoft streamlined this process by introducing a feature called Automatic Update, which lets your computer automatically look for updates when connected to the Internet. 7. Update on the fly. To turn on WinMe’s Automatic Update feature, click Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click the Automatic Updates icon. Click the Automatically Download Updates And Notify Me When They Are Ready To Be Installed radio button to fully automate the process. You can also tell Windows to notify you before looking for updates, or you can update WinMe manually. Optimize Graphics
8. Crack that whip. To ensure that your video card is giving you 100% effort, right-click My Computer and select Properties, then click the Performance tab and the Graphics button to access the Advanced Graphics Settings dialog box. The Hardware Acceleration slider should be at Full, or all the way to the right. 9. Color me faster. Lowering your computer’s color depth setting is a great way to conserve system resources. Right-click an open spot on your Desktop, click Properties, and click the Settings tab in the dialog box that appears. Depending on your video card and its driver software, there may be three or four options in the Colors menu: 16 Colors, 256 Colors, High Color (16 bit), and True Color (24 bit) (or 32 bit, in some cases). If you choose 256 colors, Windows will use a 256-color palette to display on-screen graphics. You may find that some graphics and Web sites don’t look as crisp in 256 colors. If this bothers you, use the High Color (16 bit) setting, which uses a 65,536-color palette that is virtually indistinguishable to the naked eye from the True Color setting. 10. The right tool for the job. If you find that your computer’s performance is less than optimal, start by updating your video card’s driver software. Browse to your video card manufacturer’s Web site to download your card’s latest set of drivers. Hardware driver downloads typically come in the form of compressed, self-extracting executable files. Double-click the downloaded archive to extract the driver files to a location on your hard drive. After downloading and extracting your card’s latest drivers, right-click your Desktop and click Properties to access the Display Properties dialog box. Click the Settings tab, and then click the Advanced button. The dialog box that appears lets you adjust the various settings available to your video adapter. Click the Adapter tab and then click the Change button to update your video card’s drivers. If you know the location of the drivers, select the Specify The Location Of The Driver (Advanced) radio button and click Next. If your driver files are located on removable media, such as a floppy diskette or CD, select the Removable Media option. Otherwise, select Specify A Location and click Browse. A folder tree lets you select the folder that contains the driver information file (*.INF) Windows needs to complete the install. Click Next and then Next again to install the driver Windows found. After the installation is complete, Windows will prompt you to restart your system.
Size Up The Swap FileWindows uses chunks of open hard drive space called virtual memory to extend available system memory beyond the RAM inside your PC’s case. In order to ensure that sufficient virtual memory exists, Windows sets aside a portion of your drive, called a swap file, that other applications can’t access. 11. Take the wheel. By default, Windows manages virtual memory by automatically adjusting the size of the swap file. However, you can sometimes boost your PC’s performance by manually setting the size of your swap file. The trick, of course, is deciding what size is best for your usage habits and applications. One rule of thumb is to set your swap file size to two and half times the amount of RAM you have. For example, if you have 32MB of RAM, set your swap file size to a minimum and maximum size of 80MB. (If you have more than 64MB of RAM, a swap file between 100 and 200MB should be sufficient.) To adjust virtual memory settings, right-click My Computer, click the Performance tab of the System Properties dialog box, and click the Virtual Memory button. In the Virtual Memory dialog box, click the Let Me Specify My Own Virtual Memory Settings radio button and select the hard drive that you’d like to use. Next, set the size of your swap file in megabytes using the Minimum and Maximum fields and click OK. Click Yes to confirm your changes and OK to exit the dialog box, then click Yes when Windows prompts you to restart your computer. CD-ROM TweaksSome programs spend large amounts of time accessing data from your CD-ROM drive, so it stands to reason that wringing every last bit of performance from the drive is a good idea. 12. Release the disc brakes. To maximize your CD-ROM drive’s performance, right-click My Computer, then click Properties, the System Properties dialog box’s Performance tab, and the File System button. Click the CD-ROM tab in the File System Properties dialog box, then select Quad-Speed Or Higher in the Optimize Access Pattern For drop-down menu. 13. More cache, please. In the same window, you’ll see a Supplemental Cache Size slider control. Slide this all the way to Large (to the right) to increase the memory Windows allocates for caching CD-ROM data. Boot Time SavingsOne of the longer waits in computing is the seemingly interminable wait for Windows to get going each time you reboot your PC or turn it on. The good news is it only takes a few minutes to shave some time off this process. 14. Open-tray surgery. Take a look at the icons in the System Tray on the right end of your Taskbar. As you install programs on your PC, the number of icons in your system tray will likely grow. But any program that doesn’t serve a useful purpose is wasting precious system resources. To uninstall deadbeat System Tray programs, check your StartUp folder by clicking Start, Programs, and StartUp. If any programs use the StartUp menu to launch, they appear within this menu. Right-click any unused program items and click Delete. Remember, this deletes StartUp’s shortcut to the program, not the program itself. 15. Quick boot. Recent BIOSes (Basic Input/Output Systems) often include a quick boot or quick POST (power on self test) feature. To check yours, restart your PC and enter your BIOS setup program by pressing a particular key during startup. Your system may flash a prompt with the proper key (often F1 or DELETE) during its startup routine; if not, check your users manual for instructions. Once you are in the BIOS, carefully follow all instructions to navigate, view, and change its settings—a mistake here can potentially cripple your system, so handle with care.
Slim Down The Registry Windows uses its system Registry to store information about your computer, including application, user, and hardware settings. As you install more applications and devices, the Registry grows larger and can become fragmented, making it difficult for Windows to access information it needs. 16. Cut the dead weight. In such cases, a good starting point on the road to recovery is uninstalling unused programs. Whenever possible, use a program’s own uninstall routine to ensure the removal of all program files and Registry keys. If none exists, click Start, Settings, and Control Panel and double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon in your Control Panel window. Click the Install/Uninstall tab in the resulting dialog box, scan through the list of installed programs, and get rid of the ones you don’t want by highlighting them, clicking the Add/Remove button, and following Windows’ instructions. (Note that in some cases, you may have to remove some program items manually.) 17. Fewer bells and whistles. Some Windows features can drain your system resources, as well, so if you find some you don’t use, give ‘em the ax. Navigate to the Add/Remove Programs dialog box as in tip No. 16 and click the Windows Setup tab. Windows components appear in the Components window grouped into categories, such as Accessibility, Accessories, Communications, and others. Highlighting a category shows you the purpose of its contents, the number of components currently installed, and how much hard drive space they take up. If all the components in a category are installed, Windows places a black check mark inside a white checkbox next to the category name. If only some of the available programs are installed, Windows displays a black check mark inside a gray checkbox. To add or remove specific components, click Details and select or deselect the checkboxes next to the appropriate items, and click OK. Click Apply back at the main dialog box to uninstall the items you marked for removal. Fatten IE’s CacheInternet Explorer uses file caching to store copies of frequently visited Web pages to aid in offline browsing and, more importantly to this discussion, quick retrieval on subsequent visits. In such cases, IE works with the copy of the Web page stored in its cache file and downloads only the parts of the page that have changed. With today’s giant hard drives, allocating some extra cache space for your browser makes sense. 18. Cache advance. To adjust the size of IE’s cache, launch IE, click the Tools menu, and click Internet Options. Click the Internet Options dialog box’ General tab, click Settings, and click the Automatically radio button under Check For Newer Versions Of Stored Pages in the Settings dialog box. Slide the Amount Of Disk Space To Use slider to indicate the appropriate amount of cache space (you can probably get away with reserving 50 to 100MB with today’s gigantic hard drives) and click OK. Tweak Your ModemWhether you’re among the majority of Internet users who still use dial-up Internet access and analog modems, or you’ve made the switch to a high-speed, broadband connection, you’ll doubtless welcome a little more speed. 19. Realize your potential. Dial-up users need to squeeze every drop of speed out of their connections. First, verify that your modem is connecting at the maximum possible speed. Click Start, Settings, and Control Panel, then double-click the Modems icon; your modem will appear in the resulting dialog box. Click Properties, then check the setting in the Maximum Speed drop-down menu near the bottom of the General tab. It should be set for 115,200bps (bits per second) for a 56Kbps (kilobits per second) modem, or at 57,600bps for a 28.8Kbps modem. Sometimes, Windows sets the default maximum speed setting to 9,600bps, grossly underutilizing your modem’s capabilities. 20. Less is more. The MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) is the largest-sized data packet, in bytes, a network can transport. This is important because Internet routers typically feature 576-byte MTUs, and if your computer is sending larger MTUs, routers and your computer must negotiate to a lower value, which slows down transmission speed. Win95 and Win98 default to MTU values of 1,500 bytes, so it’s a good idea to modify this value. To verify this setting in Windows 98 or later, right-click the Network Neighborhood (My Network Places in WinMe) icon on your Desktop and click Properties. Click the Network dialog box’ Connections tab and highlight Dial-Up Adapter in the installed components window, then click Properties to launch the Dial-Up Adapter Properties dialog box and click the Advanced tab. Select IP Packet Size in the Property window, then indicate the packet size you want in the Value drop-down menu to the right. Your choices include Automatic, Large (1,500 bytes), Medium (1,000 bytes), and Small (576 bytes). The Automatic setting sets a value of 576 when transmission speeds are 128Kbps or less, and a value of 1,500 when transmission speeds exceed 128Kbps. Win95 users will have to access their system Registries to modify the MTU size. The Tip Of The IcebergThese are just a few of the many tweaks you can perform on your system to enhance performance and maximize your hardware’s potential. You’ll find numerous Web sites offering hundreds more; these tips run the complexity gamut and some, if implemented improperly, can result in damage to your system. Read carefully before implementing any of these tweaks. If a Web site hosts a discussion group, read the group’s posts to see what others have done. There are also a number of utilities that help you tweak your system’s settings; many (such as Xteq Systems’ X-Setup; http://www.xteq.com) are free. But whether you use a nifty utility or are a do-it-your-selfer, the best part about system tweaks is knowing you don’t have to settle for less than the very best performance your PC can provide. 
by Sixto Ortiz Jr.
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