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Top Tips for tweaking your Rig to get the best....

 
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YaBlows



Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 28

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:17 pm    Post subject: Top Tips for tweaking your Rig to get the best.... Reply with quote

Hello...

Having listened on Ventrillo for a while and seeing some of the comments in chat, would any of you be interested in a tutorial for tweaking, maxing out your rig? It would be based upon common solutions and "FREE" stuff readily available on the internet...

If there's enough interest (ie at least one person replies!), I'll start putting something together... Anyone with other tips can then add in from your own experience.

Regards

Yablows aka Norfolk-N-Goode
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DaCheese



Joined: 05 Sep 2007
Posts: 1471
Location: GMR Towers, South Shropshire, UK.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Would be very useful please. I'm Norfolk-n-goode at the technical side of this stuff to be honest so would benefit from it greatly.
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Middenrat
actual speed


Joined: 10 Aug 2007
Posts: 2260
Location: Location: Location.

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

would be handy if you could condense the likes of the Tweakguide to sections we actually need Idea
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DanTheMan



Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Posts: 1668

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I could help by answering any overclocking issues you may have, I`m quite handy in that departent
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YaBlows



Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 28

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

COMMENTS AND SUGGESTIONS WELCOMED....


OK - lets break this up into sections - this is based on a "standard Pentium / celeron pc with Windows XP"

DISCLAIMER - Though some of the tweaks and advice do make changes to your set up, and have been personally tested, its always a good idea to make a complete backup of your system - even if you just use "System Restore" to create a Restore point - then if something doesn't work for *YOU* you can always revert back.

SECTION 1 - CLEAN UP THE PC!

90% of system slow downs are due to programs that are installed either with or without your knowledge - look in Add/Remove programs (in control panel) and remove any programs that you dont recognise (excluding and Microsoft updates) or dont use any more...

after that - download a program called "CCleaner" -

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

install and do a cleaner> run cleaner and also Registry > scan for issues > fix issues. (NB you may need to run the registry cleaner a couple of times untill there are no entries left)

reboot the system

Whilst Commercial anti-virus programs are very good - there are freeware alternatives that offer as good / if not better protection with lower "CPU over head"

An excellent replacement is AVAST antivirus FREE Home edition. http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
remember to remove all existing antivirus suites beforehand - in the case of Norton, remember to remove both the suite and "symantec updater" as well.

AVAST is free, but requires registration - however, you wont be spammed to death by giving them your email address, in fact, I havent received any emails from them (to date) having used it for 18+ Months.

upon installation, it'll ask whether you want a full scan on boot up, its advisable to do this - even though it takes a while to do.

OK - next is remove any Malware or spyware that may be lurking - unfortunately, *some* anti-malware and anti-spyware programs available actually install spyware on your system! One notable exception is "A-Squared" - http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

install, update and do a full scan, again this will take a while - look through the results and remove (tick) the items that it considers "bad" - it will give details of what type of "spyware" it finds and severity - personally - I tick everything and remove the whole lot!

after its done its job, reboot the system again and re-run CCleaner and run a registry scan again, this will remove any remnants of any spyware that A-Squared has removed.

Now, de fragment the hard drive, this can be done by opening "my computer" - right clicking on "C:" and then tools tab - again, this may take a while to do.

.... OK - reboot again! make a coffee ( or tea) you're pc *should* be pretty much ready now to start "tweaking" but I'll cover that in the next instalment. However, you should note a difference already if the above programs removed a *lot* of data.
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DanTheMan



Joined: 17 Mar 2008
Posts: 1668

PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tune in later kids, he`ll be back with more tips on the mendips, cillit bang and computer tune-up freebee`s

Good work norfolk
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Middenrat
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok I'm up to speed on that, good work Actuallyquitefolk-n-Goode Laughing
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YaBlows



Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 28

PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PART DEUX...

Well done if you've got this far and not been fazed!

OK - onto some basic tweaks accessible via windows

1) TURN OFF THE EYE CANDY, BUT STILL LEAVE THE PC "PRETTY"

Right click on "My Computer" > Properties - now click the "Advanced" tab under "performance" click "Settings" , on the "Visual Effects" tab, 1st select "Adjust for best Performance" then click "Custom" - now scroll down to the bottom of the list (they should all be unticked) but tick the bottom item "Use visual styles on windows and buttons" - This will keep the "Look of XP" but turn off all the other eye candy - if you leave the "use visual styles on windows and buttons" and click apply - it actually looks like windows 2000! (ah the memories!)

if you havent done so, click on APPLY - now click the "advanced tab" - This only really applies if you have more than one Hard drive, but even so, its worth setting your page file to a fixed size...

click on "Virtual Memory > Change"

a) if you have a single physical hard drive (no matter if its partitioned or not) - Hilight "C:" underneath tick "Custom Size" - now set the Initial size and Maximum sized to 1.5 x your memory - so if you have 2gb - set it to 3072 (or 3000 is close enough) - that sets a page file of 3gb (make sure you have enough space free on your hard drive) Now click "SET" and "OK" and click "OK" again - and finally again - NB at some point during the "OK"'s Windows will ask to restart - let it... this will then reset the page file

b) if you have more than one physical drive (for example C: & D: drive - delete the C: Drive page file (Select C: Drive - No page file & Set) then select D: drive and then Custom Size and set the min and max to 1.5 x your Mb of RAM (eg if you have 1gb then set to 1024 x 1.5 = 1536 (or 1500) - click SET and then OK

What does this do? by setting the page file to a fixed size, windows doesn't waste time when it does need virtual memory by resizing the page file on the fly - its already there. Why set it to 1.5 x available memory? well thats down to conjecture and symantecs.... just do it Razz - also moving the page file to a diffrent physical drive reduces "disk thrash" when accessing the page file - which again results in a speed up.

OK - you should have rebooted again - so welcome back

now lets check that DMA or UDMA is turned on on all hard drives and CD's - sometimes windows has a brain fart and turns PIO (slow but sure) mode if it gets more than 6 concurrent CRC errors reading / writing to a device - its unlikely, but worth checking. How ?

Right click on "My Computer" > Properties - now click hardware tab, and "Device Manager" button

1st check that there are no yellow "?" marks against any item in the list, if there is, right click the item and "uninstall" each item - then "action menu" > Scan for hardware changes - this should rectify any problems assuming you have the drivers installed - if it doesnt - then it needs some more investigation , but its outside the scope of this guide... just ask in the forum for further help....

OK assuming you have no invalid entries click on the + next to "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" you should see "Primary IDE Channel" and "Secondary IDE Channel" - right click on "Primary IDE channel" > properties. on the "Advanced Settings" tab make sure that both "transfer modes" are set to "DMA if available" - under each shoul;d read "current transfer mode" - as long as it reads, "Ultra DMA mode xxx" its fine - now do the same for the "Secondary IDE channel"

If for whatever reason "Current transfer mode" is set to "PIO mode" - go back to device manager - and right click on "Primary IDE Channel" and "uninstall" - when asked if to reboot - say "No" - do the same for "Secondary IDE channel" but when asked to reboot click "YES"

OK - before the coffee and biscuits, one final tweak is the indexing service - what this does is essential randomly / constantly scan your pc and makes a list of files so when you do a search for a filename using for instance START > Search - it looks at its list instead of the actual files, for windows this makes it much faster with searching, but it does create a lot of diskthrash and slowdowns / cpu load when its "doing its stuff" - so turn it off!

1. Click START
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Administrator Tools
4. Select Services
5. Select "Indexing Service" (Double Click)
6. Select General Tab
7. In the Startup type: select "Disabled"
8. Select the Ok button to close the panel


OK - that's the second instalment complete - NEXT is weird voodoo magic with optimising services, and registry changes... so be prepared....

DISCLAIMER - usual blah blah - if you're unsure of anything - ask 1st - if you break it, you didn't read the instructions right Razz

Regards

Norf


Last edited by YaBlows on Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:52 pm; edited 3 times in total
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Pepper
Site Admin


Joined: 12 Aug 2007
Posts: 851
Location: wooops...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for all your efforts YaBlows Wink
I'll take the time to read it entirerly later, but it looks very interresting and usefull, thanks a lot ! Wink

About Norton... using it as antivirus is like... make your comptability with Paint Mr. Green
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YaBlows



Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 28

PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
About Norton... using it as antivirus is like... make your comptability with Paint Mr. Green


Personally, I think the retail boxed version of Norton makes a great door stop... back in the day, Norton was de facto for utilities, but we've come a long was since the 90's Wink Wink

Thanks for the feedback
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