Topic: Upgraded My Computer

[addicted2dvd]

Today I upgraded the memory in my computer... I had what was an extremely slow machine.. was taking up near 5 to 6 minutes to open DVD Profiler. 

I went from 256mb of memory and maxed it out for my old computer... going 1gig of memory... I just now turned it off and even though it still seems to take XP a while to open.... when I went to open DVD profiler it opened in less then 2 minutes... so it definitely a big improvement!

I know... it is still a pretty slow piece of junk... but I just can't afford to get myself a new computer any time soon... so I decided to upgrade the one I have as much as I can instead.

So since Christmas I...

Went from a 20gig hard drive and added a 180 gig hard drive.
Went from 256mb of ram to 1gig
bought a digital camera

I still want to...

get a scanner
get a printer

And then I think I will be at least happy I can do everything I want to do.

[DJ Doena]

Grats! Hope, it'll last for a while.

Maybe you've already done it, but it helps to disable all the visual effects to make XP faster.

Press the Windows Key + Pause (upper right side of the keyboard). It opens the System dialog.

Then there has to be a tab called "More" or "Extended" or "Advanced" or something similar (sorry, I have only a german OS).

When you go to this tab there should be three settings buttons, on in a frame "system performance". When you open it, there is a radio button group where you can choose between optimal display, optimal performance or custom.

I'd go with optimal performance and then activate only those things you don't want to lose.

[addicted2dvd]

Thanks Karsten!

[Najemikon]

Here's three points to improve things:

1) Remove unnecessary enhancements. Right click 'My Computer', click 'Properties', 'Advanced', then the 'Performance' 'Settings' button. Select the 'Adjust for best performance' radio button, then check 'Use Visual Styles...' at the bottom of the list. This will switch off all the fade into views, drop shadows, etc. Windows will at least feel a lot faster, while the visual styles checkbox means it still looks like XP. If you are really fond of some of the options, tick them as well, but don't tick all of them; you just don't need it.

2) Adjust virtual memory to a fixed size of 1.5 x physical memory. Stay on the same window as above and click the 'Advanced' tab and the 'Virtual Memory' 'Change' button. Click 'Custom Size' and set both 'Initial' and 'Maximum' values to "1500" (1.5 x 1000mb of physical RAM). Virtual memory uses the hard drive as a buffer so setting it to a fixed size means it does so more efficiently.

3) Stop Windows loading rubbish. This is the biggie! Click 'Start', 'Run' and type "msconfig". Click the last tab ('Startup'). This lists everything Windows loads on boot-up and the fact is, you need almost none of it. Look out for virus scanner objects, anti-spyware services, maybe Internet connection elements and leave those alone. Everything else, untick. Common rubbish are graphics system tray icons, PDF helper, Realplayer, Quicktime, digital camera monitors, etc. All this is unrequired and will load quickly enough when you use a related file. No sense having it clog your memory.

Note that there is nothing considered system essential in here, so click all you want. Also, on a restart, if you do notice something missing that you need, just rerun msconfig and the entry will still be there, so just tick it. Actually while on the subject of restarts, after using msconfig you will get a message saying "you have used the system configuration blah, blah, blah...". Check 'Don't show this window...' then close it.

By the way, what anti-virus are you running? I find both Norton and McAffee slow PCs down to a crawl. If using either of these consider swapping for one like AVG. It's free and I haven't seen any performance drop while using it.

[addicted2dvd]

Thanks Jon... I will look into all the above. I am using AVG anti-virus now.

[Halo2]

Jon's advice is great. The only thing different I'd suggest, is the size of you page file. You say you upgraded to a 180GB hdd.

Is this in addition to your 20GB or did it replace it?

Did you partition the new drive or is it one large volume?

If you kept your 20GB hdd and added the 180GB hdd, using it for data, put the page file on the hdd not containing your OS. XP will complain, but, unless you use the minidumps to analyse any crashes, it is best to have the page file on a seperate hdd/partition from the OS. This also what I would suggest if you replaced your old hdd and partitioned your new drive.

Setting your page file to 1.5 times memory allows for the minidumps and is the recommended minimum size. On systems I setup, I set the size to the maximum, 4GB (4096). I also set initial equal to maximum. This way, if the OS needs to increase the size frm the initial size, you don't take a performance hit while it's doing it and you hace one contigouse page file.

Select the hdd you plan to install the page file on, if you have more than one hdd/partition. Remove any page file on that hdd/partition, reboot if necessary. Windows will complain, don't worry. Once the system is rebooted, defrag that drive, good advice for all drives. If the drive has never been defragmented, run it at least 3 times in a row. After that is done, create your page file on the hdd/partition You will have a 4GB contiguous page file.

Windows will allow multiple 4GB page files on multiple hard drives. The benifits of this have been negligible in my experence. One 4GB page file on the fastest hdd, not containing the OS, have proved to return the best results, in my experince.

[soapbox] Deframenting often also increases perfomance. Depending on use, I suggest it at least once a week. More if you are constantly adding/changing files, less if you see no serious fragmentation. XP uses a lite version of Diskeeper 9, I think. I use the full version of Diskeeper 2008 Pro. It has significant improvements in speed over the default lite version XP uses. It is my prefence. There are others out there, you decide if you want to use the default version loaded with Windows or purchase a replacement. The only thing I would suggest is don't use any Symantic/Norton product. This is personal bias based on personal use. Ever since Windows 95, the Symantic/Norton products I have used have proved to me to be resource hogs that decrease performance. [/soapbox]

[richierich]

Thanks Jon for the tips, just utilised them also on my laptop so loads of points sent your way 

[addicted2dvd]

Thanks again to everyone who gave us some tips... computer seems to load faster now!

[Najemikon]

Thanks Jon for the tips, just utilised them also on my laptop so loads of points sent your way 

Thank you very much! 

Halo's explanation of how to do the swap file is spot on though. I'd forgotten Pete previously mentioned an extra hard drive.

I have my swap file on the first, dedicated partition of a second drive. I also have a 'downloads' partition where I redirect every temporary or downloaded file I can think of (Windows temp, Internet cache, etc). If I suspect any kind of problem, my first step is to scrap everything on there. Speeds up security scans. I also redirect all my data files to a separate partition. That way drive C: with all my apps runs sweet as a nut and when I reinstall, I can format drive C: knowing I won't have lost a thing.