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Utilities

To accompany Darren Yates' Hardware Upgrade feature in this issue the following utilities are offered - for those more daring upgraders out there. Be sure to read any documentation that comes with these programs before trying them out. 

PC User cannot be held responsible for any damage to your system as a result of using any of these programs. Use at your own risk!

 

686 Fast
URL:
http://www.holin.com

686FAST allows you to activate the NOLOCK pin of your CPU, which will improve your computers overall speed by 5-10%. 686FAST works on 6x86 and 5x86 CPUs manufactured by Cyrix, IBM, SGS Thompson and on the 486DX4 by Texas Instruments. It does not work on CPUs from Intel and AMD. It does not work on the Pentium either. Optionally you may active the CPUID command. Important: 686FAST will only work in MS-DOS mode and must not be started from within Windows. Please start Windows after 686FAST.

 

BigDisk
URL:
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/

BigDisk is a solution for your overflowing primary hard drive. It works by combining the available disk space on your system's secondary drives, including removable, network, and secondary hard drives, and making it available to your primary disk drive. You can select the files and folders you wish to redirect manually, or use the program's SmartFile technology, which automatically determines the best files to move. BigDisk creates an effective illusion; files redirected in this manner will still appear to reside on your primary drive. Newly created files can also be automatically redirected to reflect your settings. (From zdnet)

 

PC-CONFIG V8.65
URL:
http://www.holin.com
System Requirements: IBM 286 or compatible with minimum 400 KB free RAM; MS-DOS ver. 3.0 or higher; CGA, MDA, EGA, VGA compatible graphics adapter

PC-CONFIG is principally a program which can list the componenets of your computer without you having to touch a single screw to look  inside

While there are several of this kind of program (let's call them  computer test or diagnostic programs) available on the international commercial market, you will certainly want to put PC-CONFIG on the short list.

The main users of PC-CONFIG are professionionals and interested  amateurs, who like to be informed over the hardware configuration of their computers, be it because they wish to make sure a computer really has what it claims to have before buying it, or because they change the hardware of their computers often and wish to confirm that everything runs properly together.

Detects all the hardware in your PC and shows them on the screen. One of the best sysinfo-programs ever. With CD-ROM benchmark routine! Finds PCI boards, 6x86, K5, K6, NexGen, UMC and PentiumPro CPUs, detects lots of VGA chips, APM functions, Burst Cache, Green boards, Pentium Bug, PCMCIA, EIDE feat. detailed PCI and SCSI info. Reg.version speeds up Cyrix CPUs

 

I_Cache

I_Cache is an XMS disk cache for performance enhancement of almost all physical drives, including IDE, SCSI, floppy-disk, CD-ROM, Magneto-Optical, and ZIP drives. A device driver, I_Cache supports networked operation and doesn't use DOS' Interrupt-13 services. Read/write caching is provided for all the supported drive types. The package includes extensive documentation but requires intermediate-level PC knowledge for installation. Some features are unavailable in the unregistered version. This version is a minor update.

 

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