things to speed up ur comp

[Weapon]

way are some things u can do settings wise that can speed up ur comp? (not buying more ram, hdd etc...) stuff like defrag, scan disc, etc... what else are there?

[Giancarlo]

Get ad-aware which will clean up your system of spyware... which could be slowing your computer down.

Another site to look at for a registry cleaner is: http://www.jv16.org/

[niv]

Adding generous amounts of space for Windows Virtual RAM. I'm running on 2 GB virtual RAM and sometimes that isn't even enough [system resource leaks in windows is a fact, so just increase the amount of resources].

[Canuckkev]

Well, formatting generally speeds up my computer a lot. Gets rid of all the messy registry keys left behind, and files and whatnot from installed programs that install extra dll's but don't delete them when uninstalled. Just make sure you back up everything...even things you don't think you will need...back them up. If you have a CD burner, its easy. If not...I don't know.

[Toefur]

Yes, formatting is always good.

I did mine the other day, and after having installed again all the things I need... it is running a million times faster.

If you don't have an easy way of backing things up, or can't be bothered (such as myself); just partition your harddrive... so on one partition you can chuck all the stuff you want to keep... and then format the rest, like the partition where the OS and all the programs and stuff are installed.

[guitarnerd]

Yeah re-formating is the best way. Also removing start up items is helpful. As well as your page file (virtual ram). Here is a list of my things I do.
make 1.5gigs of virtual ram.
Go into advanced and make the Pagefile write to the outside track of the HDD
Turn off caching on my hard drives (be careful it can slow it down too)
Turn off auto read on Cd roms
Make sure all my cards are assigned to the right IRQs
I have like 2 start up items
Disable my network adapter when it's not being use
as well as any other un used hardware.
Run ad-aware

[Weapon]

heating is a major problem right? is there a way to check the tempurature?

[guitarnerd]

Your bios has the feature and there is software that can read it from your bios, I think you can look at it in win2k and XP in the manager somewhere also. but it is not as big of a factor as the things I previously stated

[Giancarlo]

Instead of formatting you usually can run the registry cleaner I suggested... but sometimes it is very bad you have to format or you would have to be running the cleaner every five minutes.

[Weapon]

can u explain some of the stuff u mention in more details please? like

Turn off caching on my hard drives
Go into advanced and make the Pagefile write to the outside track of the HDD
Turn off auto read on Cd roms (is this in XP where u choose "take no action?)
Make sure all my cards are assigned to the right IRQs

[guitarnerd]

Originally posted by Weapon
can u explain some of the stuff u mention in more details please? like

Turn off caching on my hard drives
Go into advanced and make the Pagefile write to the outside track of the HDD
Turn off auto read on Cd roms (is this in XP where u choose "take no action?)
Make sure all my cards are assigned to the right IRQs
Well turning off the caching on your hard drives makes it so when you write anything to your hard drive it goes directly to your hard drive not the cache and then to be written, that way once you do something it is done, versus when you have caching on it is still writing to your hard drive after it says its done. If you just to basic stuff like browse I don't reccomend it but for doing high recource projects etc it is a must.
You can go into advanced and make your Pagefile write to the outside of your HDD so it can access and write it faster.
Yeah that is auto read but I believe in device maneger there is another setting so that it will only read the cd rom when you go to My computer and click it
IRQ conflicts may or may not crash your computer but either way they will make it slower. There is really only one way to find out but unplug and plug back in a card and if it assigns it to a different IRQ and you get better performance that is why.

[Weapon]

ooops, sorry what I meant was how do I go about doing them :o like where do I go to get that setting etc...

[guitarnerd]

Originally posted by Weapon
ooops, sorry what I meant was how do I go about doing them :o like where do I go to get that setting etc...
I will try and find a link cause I don't feel like typing it out

[trenzterra]

Hey I was wondering where to set the virtual ram?

[guitarnerd]

Start>settings>control panel>system>advanced>performance>settings

To turn off caching just go to device manager and select the hard drive you want to turn it off on
The page file settings is in the path I just gave above
Turn off auto read in your device manager
and look what IRQs everything is assigned to in Device Manager

To get into device manager on 2k and above right click on My Computer and hit manage, then click on the device manager icon

To do it on any other windows os just right click on my puter and go to device manager :D

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by guitarnerd
Start>settings>control panel>system>advanced>performance>settings

To turn off caching just go to device manager and select the hard drive you want to turn it off on
The page file settings is in the path I just gave above
Turn off auto read in your device manager
and look what IRQs everything is assigned to in Device Manager

To get into device manager on 2k and above right click on My Computer and hit manage, then click on the device manager icon

To do it on any other windows os just right click on my puter and go to device manager :D I'm confused :(

[guitarnerd]

I don't find anything confusing about my posts, what can't you find?

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by guitarnerd
I don't find anything confusing about my posts, what can't you find? what is auto-read and IRQ?

And I don't see anywhere to turn off caching.

[guitarnerd]

In device manager find your hard drive double click it it will be there, in XP it is in policies but I think that is different for other os's

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by guitarnerd
In device manager find your hard drive double click it it will be there, in XP it is in policies but I think that is different for other os's but I still don't see anything that says "Caching"?

[guitarnerd]

Lol, it is there trust me...keep looking

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by guitarnerd
Lol, it is there trust me...keep looking still can'tfind.