QUOTE(brianhot @ Jul 5 2006, 04:22 AM) cant agree more btw, was looking around the other day when i came across these interresting tweaks. take a look, and let me know what you think.will need alittle more ram myself, to try em out, but sure looks interresting if you ask me.look here.... http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html#3; ok, this is great, much more easy than changing it in the registry #5; must have for everybody (programs are less dependant on explorer)#6; Avoid this ... read more.
How can I increase my hard disk speed in Windows XP/2003?
QUOTE
First Common method is Defragment..
To speed up your hard disk speed we need to configure a special buffer in the computer's memory in order to enable it to better deal with interrupts made from the disk.
This tip is only recommended if you have 256MB RAM or higher.
Follow these steps:
1.Run SYSEDIT.EXE from the Run command. 2.Expand the system.ini file window. 3.Scroll down almost to the end of the file till you find a line called [386enh]. 4.Press Enter to make one blank line, and in that line type
Irq14=4096
Note: This line IS CASE SENSITIVE!!!
5.Click on the File menu, then choose Save. 6.Close SYSEDIT and reboot your computer.
Done. Speed improvement will be noticed after the computer reboots.
Note: The most speed improvement is visible with IDE drives, however there are reports that this tweak also does good for SCSI disks. In any case, it won't harm your system, so why not try it yourself and let me know what you find.
Can someone elaborate on what Irq14=4096 means? Would appreciate it if there is a little bit more explanation on how it achieves the increase in disk speed. Thanks.
Ok, someone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me, but since i'm the first replying, we know what IRQ numbers are, right? and i don't understand why it's #14, but anyways, changing it to 4096 or larger causes it to cache more on the ram, which boosts performance somewhat because of reduced access time on the disk, but as far as i know 4096 is for machines with 512MB ram minimum. Anyone with Tweak XP please post, as there is a tweak in there that does this, and there's the full explanation along with it. Though i'm stuck on the 14, because i thought that IRQ 1 had the main priority, and so on down the line. ...i could be wrong.
Are you referring to the following? Not sure if I got the right snippet:
from TWEAKXP help file
QUOTE
· Core System Performance:
On systems with large amount of RAM (512 MB or more) this tweak can be enabled to force the core Windows® XP system to be kept in memory and not be paged to disk.
· Optimize CPU and Memory usage:
The tweak can be used to force Windows® XP to optimize the CPU usage for applications or background tasks. The memory usage optimization is available for applications and system caching.
· Optimize 'Page-Table-Entry' settings:
Page Table Entries (PTEs) may become depleted or fragmented on systems that perform a large number input/output (I/O) actions. When they become completely depleted, the system may show a 'Stop' error and halt. This tweak allows you to increase the number of PTEs available on the system.
Attention: there is a known problem with this optimization on certain system configurations:
· System Memory greater than 512 Meg. (1 GB of RAM is common)
· Large NTFS disk volumes, or multiple large volumes. (60-100 gigabyte hard drives possibly in RAID arrays)
· AGP graphics with large AGP resource requirements (AGP aperture greater than default)
· Large file transfers
Please read this for further information, and how to fix the problem. Refrain from using this feature again if you have experienced a problem as described on the website mentioned above.
I'd say with decent amount and brand of RAM it would be ok but is it absolute that IRQ 14 is for the main hard disk? what about other hard disks? You can't use the same IRQ for multiple devices can you....?
Personally I wouldn't do this, if you have a lot of ram then why do you need to make your hard drive faster? The only thing that would benefit (In my case anyways) is cutting off a few seconds on the loading time of applications. Overall I think waiting a few more seconds is much better than decreasing the overall performance of your system by using more ram than necessary, also if you change the wrong setting then there you have it, a possible non working windows copy
Well some games are surprisingly slow at loading data when you change maps and such, one game that comes to mind is Vampires The Masquarade Bloodlines, it takes forever to load just small places and the main areas are a real pain.
Plus all they tell you is that you have to have a 1400mb swap file, yeah real great programming... anyway it's probably not worth it as others have mentioned, most of those silly tweaks don't see any visual benefit anyway.
How can I increase my hard disk speed in Windows XP/2003? test and post comments..
Notice from OpaQue:
Post found to be copied
are you kidding with that tweak ??? thats the old system.ini nic card tweak from speedguide. and you just modifyed it for use as a harddisk tweak !!! this tweak does NOTHING in XP, as XP does not use those settings from system.ini/386 enh if we were talking 98 or ME, then that would be a different story. common... dont modify tweaks/think them up, with out a little more understanding.
QUOTE
System.ini IRQ Tweak Windows 9x/ME
The following tweak is not documented by Microsoft, and it is controversial whether it works at all. We have tested numerous times and it shows anywhere between 0 and 10% performance gain, which we consider inconclusive. We have received 100s of responses saying this tweak worked great, and 100s saying it's crazy, or it does nothing at all. We feel we should leave the information posted on the site in order to present our readers with all possible options for optimizing their throughput, however keep in mind we haven't been able to prove the validity of this particular tweak, and are not fully confident in the following information. Feel free to send us mail with your feedback. With all that said, it will not degrade performance of your system, and if you're willing to try and see how it works, here are the instructions:
In Windows 9x, you might be able to reserve a certain amount of RAM for specific IRQs (Interrupt Requests), which serves as a buffer to allow more stable operation of your device. Adding a 4Mb buffer to your Network Card's IRQ would ensure good overall performance and increase throughput with broadband Internet connections, such as DSL and Cable Modems.
Reserving RAM for your Network Adapter might prove very useful, especially during CPU intensive tasks, or while gaming online. For those with 500MHz or slower processors and 128Mb or less RAM, this tweak might show noticeable results at all times, including faster displaying of web pages and higher throughput. Even with fast processors you will get better overall performance, including smoother stream video, better transfers anywhere from 0 to 10%, with more noticeable results during faster transfers. Another good reason for using this tweak would be if you have a PCI NIC sharing IRQs with another device.
Step 1 - Find your Network Card's IRQ
In order to add the entry to your System.ini file, you'd first have to find your NIC's IRQ.
Right-click on My Computer icon on your Desktop, then left-click on Properties (a shortcut for that would be to press the 'Windows' + 'Pause' keys). Navigate to Device Manager and double-click on Computer. Under "View Resources" you will find a list of IRQs, each with description of the device that's using it. Note the IRQ number used by your Network Adapter.
Once you've found the IRQ of your Network Card, you need to reserve some RAM for its use, by adding an entry to the System.ini file. You can edit the file in any text editor, however the easiest way is to use Windows' built in "System Configuration Editor".
Navigate to Start > Run and type sysedit . Find the [386enh] Section in the System.ini file and add Irq[n]=4096 under it, where [n] is the IRQ number of your NIC and 4096 is the amount of RAM you want to reserve in Kbytes. We recommend using 4096, however you can experiment with different values if you want. Save changes in the file, exit and reboot for changes to take effect.
Note: If you choose to try different values, keep in mind that reserving too much RAM for your NIC will decrease the amount of RAM available for applications, while reserving too little might not give the desired effect.
Fig. 2.1 - Editing System.ini
Additional Thoughts
The only negative effect of the System.ini IRQ tweak is that it will reduce the amount of RAM available for running applications a bit, by reserving some specifically for your Network Card's use. The gain in performance usually outweighs the negative effect by far, considering any Computer with 32Mb of RAM or more.
Keep in mind that if you add hardware to your system the IRQ of the Network Adapter might change, in which case you will need to modify the setting in System.ini.
In systems with multiple NICs, you might want to add the setting for both IRQs. Also, you could reserve RAM for other IRQs if you wish, just use common sense and don't forget it reduces the amount of RAM available for running applications.
If you are using an USB device, it does not have a specific IRQ, however you can try adding the entry using the IRQ of the USB Controller.
For internal Cable Modems, you'd have to add the entry using the IRQ of your modem, rather than the IRQ of a Network Card.
#3; ok, this is great, much more easy than changing it in the registry #5; must have for everybody (programs are less dependant on explorer) #6; Avoid this tweak, altough foreground applications get higher CPU priority, background application could hang while doing cpu intensive tasks (gaming, encoding/decoding, ...). You can also forget doing some heavy multitasking on a single or even multi core (if the amount of tasks > the amount of cores).
Most tweaks online are more or less useless (not to mention that most tweaks are to be found a billion times on the net). The only good tweaks are those that disable load on the system (disabling luna/glass/...) or those that change hardware settings (memory timings, FSB, overclocking, ...).
I realy doubt this is going to help (either on Win9x as on XP). A HDD is slow, and RAM is fast. If the computer has to work hard and can't process all data that comes from a HDD, then the small amount of data is saved in the RAM, afterwards it's read a tad faster, but 4Mb @ 3GBs is not even a second.
If the CPU or chipset can handle all data, the buffer is practicaly useless, since data is read right after it's written in the buffer.
It's the same for HDD's with 2, 8 or 16Mb cache. It hardly improves speed, maybe only when it comes to smaller files, but the improvements are small. The only way to improve HDD speed is a) tweaking the filesystem (but the improvement is again very small, and sometimes even not noticable) getting a faster HDD (more recent model, faster spinning, ...) c) creating a (decent) (hardware) RAID array
cant agree more
btw, was looking around the other day when i came across these interresting tweaks.
take a look, and let me know what you think.
will need alittle more ram myself, to try em out, but sure looks interresting if you ask me.
What do you guys think of windows 7? Screenshots Have been posted on wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7) and I Must admit Im Not really Impressed, Looks Like a dumbed
down version of vista...? what are your Opinions?....
This is a sad tale of a man and his machine that would not start again. The story continues with a
sorted affair between two operating systems and a battle to win the love of this man’s heart. My
problems began last weekend when I started my computer after it had been off from the previous
night. Everything went normally throughout the POST but once Windows XP started I heard the dreaded
clicking from the hard drive. After several reboots and a Spinrite diagnostic I gave up and called
the time of death around three in the afternoon. This is not all bad because I had....
its been a couple or more year, Microsoft haven't release a 3rd version of their service pack,
for Micorsoft's Windows XP. In the late 2007, Microsoft had announce of the release of their
Service Pack 3 for Microsoft Windows XP. Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) is currently in
development. As of January 2008, Microsoft's web site indicates a "preliminary" release date to
be in the first half of 2008.A feature set overview has been posted by Microsof and details new
features available separately as standalone updates to Windows XP, as well as features backpor....
I just read How To Login To An Expired Windows Xp System . This gave me a nice Windows Vista
mini-tutorial. Notice!!! I'm not advertising piracy!! It's just a matter of having
the rights to access your files, and it doesn't approve that it restores the full function of
Windows Vista, and besides How To Login To An Expired Windows Vista System 1) Login until you go
unto the windows where it says that the Windows has expired. 2) Click on the purchase new serial
key. (yehey!!! /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="s....
Ok as the other topic said, I am planning to purchase a new computer sometime soon. We have Windows
98 on the old machine and I don't want to throw it out just yet. I need Internet Explorer 6/5.5
for web page testing and obviously I can't run both Windows Internet Explorer 7 and 6 on Windows
XP. So I am planning to transfer the entire hard drive over to the new system. A few issues though:
Will Windows 98 with such "powerful" components? System has 512MB RAM, Intel Pentium 4 3GHz
processor, 7.1 sound card, integrated video card and DVD+RW burner are the main com....
Recently, I have received an "Exploring Windows" email from Microsoft, which led me to an
interesting link called 100 Reasons You'll be speechless. Thought it was related to Windows
Vista, and it was. Here are some of my opinions: 1. It makes using your PC a breeze, if Windows is
responding most of the time. Also, many users have complained about User Account Control, which say
that it makes using the PC not a breeze. I haven't tried it yet, but from others' point of
view, it seems to be intrusive and annoying. 2. Your music may be a click away from your re....
ATTENTION ALL READERS! WINDOWS VISTA IS AWESOME - I REPEAT - WINDOWS VISTA IS AWESOME! I think
Windows Vista is an incredibly good operating system which allows you to do so much more than XP.
The new look, design, simplicity, controls and layout are all fantastic. I've got a clock and a
calendar on the right hand side of my desktop and all my icons easier and clearer to recognise. It
takes under 5 seconds to log in and the graphics are just great. I've got Windows Vista Home
Premium and as long as I install the compatible drivers, all the software works! I'....
Disclaimer from the site: QUOTE Disclaimer: I do not applaud piracy, but I do feel people
should have access to their personal files, regardless of whether Windows has expired or not. This
tutorial should not be used to bypass Windows Activation, nor does it restore full Windows
functionality, but I provide it to those who are in desperate need of accessing files that are
suddenly lost to them through the Microsoft Genuine Advantage activation system. I just
came across this interesting tutorial. By now, everyone is familiar with Windows XP's....
Hi all, I need a help from any one out here! I need to display one confirmation box using windows
startup script! I need to run this script on each and every client system in my LAN! Here is the
requirement: The script should ask the user to click yes to continue or no to exit. If the user
click yes, that should open Internet Explorer with some site , Say google.com and after filling some
forms and after closing the browser, that should bring to regular login screen which says, cntrl alt
del to login! If the user directly preses the no button, that should close the co....
I was upgrading some software and came across a corrupt file that halted the installation process. I
went to see what was wrong with the file, and failed to manually delete it. I tried moving
(cut&paste) it to another location, and the installation succeeded. However, the file is still on my
drive, taking up a KB of space. I know that's not a lot, but where am I supposed to put it? In a
folder created especially for all the corrupt files on my computer? /blink.gif"
style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" /> I've heard
something....
1) Right click on desktop and select add new shortcut 2) In the 'Type Location of the item:'
box type or copy %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation then click 'next'
3) In the 'Type a name for this shortcut:' box type or copy "Lock Workstation" and click
'Finish' 4) Now if you would like go to properties and Change Icon browse to:
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe and I use the red circle with the white x ....
Does any one know where is the encryption key in Windows XP stored. In other words how can one get
encryption key. Or how to retrive the data without the encrytion key. By encrypting a file or
folder, we are converting it to a format that can't be read by other people. A file encryption
key is added to files or folders that you choose to encrypt. This key is needed to read the file. ....
Is it possible to downgrade a Windows Media Center Edition computer to use Windows XP instead?
Someone is having so much problems with this machine and I think it's the Operating System
causing the problem. I told her to reinstall Windows MCE, but I don't think they gave her any
Windows CDs. I think she got it burned from a recovery partition after I told her to look for one.
But that doesn't seem to work. So I'm thinking of downgrading to XP as a possible solution.
Isn't Windows MCE very similar to Windows XP, aside from the extra media features? Th....
Our family computer is running Windows XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates installed and we
constantly get Blue Screens of Death. The most common is DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS in NDIS.sys
and portcls.sys. I have googled this many times and found nothing to help but I have heard the two
files are for the network card and sound card respectively. The computer has the following specs:
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz - Gigabyte 85661FXMP-RZ motherboard with Award v. 6.0 BIOS - NIVIDIA
GeForce FX 5200 - No idea what the network card and sound cards are but we use the net....
I tried in both Windows XP Home and Professional. If you try to make a folder named "CON" Windows XP
renames it back to what it was. So creating a new folder with the name "CON" just renames it to "New
Folder". The bug seems like a variable that got treated as a string or vice-versa. Trying to create
the folder from a cmd prompt failed with an error "The directory name is invalid.". This also works
when you try to create a file called "CON", or "CON.". ".CON" shows up the way it should. Somewhere
I found the reason that CON stands for CONsole which is device name but....
With all the different flavors of Windows, what in your opinion is the best version? Win95, Win98,
Win98SE, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP, Vista, and even remember Windows 3.1? I hear that hardcore Windows
users are in love with Win98SE for some reason? Is there any justification behind this? I mean
this is a version of Windows that is definitely not supported anymore, but is the security and
stability of this version that much better where it doesn't need support? Personally, I really
like Win2000 over any other version. It seems more secure and stable, and I'm pr....
i never used Windows XP Home edition before, in these days i have no way to use it on my work pc,
have no profissional edition and i don't want to buy one, in fact i hate windows at all, i use
linux and it's so good and enough to me, but i must use it noway. after i installed it, it asked
me to activate it, i went into the activation process, finally it told me to call any microsoft
products reseller or something like that to provide me with a new product number as they say in that
message: QUOTE According to our records, the number of times you can activ....
Okay, I am halfway to being able to add the My Videos Folder (the only of the special My folder I
really use) to the start panel. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, make
sure you have the new XP start menu not classic, then open your start menu. The right side is the
start panel, and it should have links to things like My Documents, My Music, My Computer, etc. The
only one you can't add to it (you add features to it from the properties page) is the My Videos
File. No, my method: 1) Knowing Windows as well as I do, first thing after ex....
I heard it is possible to run more than one computers on the same serial of Windows. I also heard
that it can be registered and use all the functions of any legal copy of Windows. Lets say I have 4
computers in my house and don't want to pay $800 for windows on each one if I build them all
myself. I can just put same serial on all of them. But I heard this is also breaking the EULA
agreement with Microsoft which redeems this being illegal or improper use of windows. I would like
to hear your sides on this, or the whole truth behind this. If so does this mean somebody....
Hi, I've recently installed Apache 1.3.34 on my Windows XP machine. Does anyone know how to CMOD
files to specific values? I've read somewhere that if you set the file to 'readable'
that is the equivalent of CHMODing it to 777...is this true? By the way, sorry if this is in the
wrong forum section. I wasn't really sure where to put this.....
Hi, I'm tired of wasting so much time on a site when I have to reinstall Windows from scratch.
Want to speed up the process a little since I have to install Windows XP, any Service Packs, Norton
Antivirus and Microsoft AntiSpyware for the computers. I want to create images of good working
Window states, but have some questions. 1. How much faster would this be compared to reinstalling
everything manually? I will be doing this from an external hard drive. 2. What are the chances of
an image not working assuming that the image created is good? I heard that these ....
Windows XP cmd tip (DOS isn’t dead... it just smells funny) Some command-line folder creation
examples: To create multiple folders at once, add them directly to the "md" command: C:\> md this
is a test To create a folder several folders deep, use: C:\> md this\is\a\test Creating a folder
with a long name requires the double-quote at the beginning: C:\> md "this is a test Bonus tip:
Windows XP supports the forward slash "/" as a folder divider. Unix/Linux users: don't let the
DOS environment get you down. Use a Unix-style CD command to change your present worki....
How to repair disk errors and bad sectors in Windows Xp,2000,NT You can use Windows Disk Manager
tool to check for file system errors and bad sectors on your hard disk. To check your drives:
1- right click on drive and click Properties 2- click Tools tab and under Error-checking, click
Check Now 3- in dialog box select the Automatically fix file system errors or/and Scan for and
attempt recovery of bad sectors check box Automatically fix file system errors ....
Hi, all illegal Windows XP users WILL NOT be able to download any updates or software from Microsoft
website. Automatic Updates will no longer work, because Microsoft will have to ask for your Software
identification.....
How to increase Windows shutdown speed when you enabled “clear Page File at shutdown”? /blink.gif"
style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" /> Note that making
incorrectly changes to the registry may damage your system; please back up any valued data on your
computer. 1) Go to Start menu > Run > and type regedit and click OK. 2) Find following address:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \Session Manager \ Memory Management
3) In right side right click on “ClearPageFileAtShutdown”, select Modify and make value of ....
OK, I'm running Windows XP and my iPod is not detected when I plug it in. The only things that
I could guess are wrong are that I recently had a trojan, known as BackDoor-AWI and that my router
flaked out and I have no internet on the computer in question now. I'm not sure what happened,
but for some reason, McAfee is telling me that it's all screwed up on startup. So it's not
even running anymore. My computer does recognize USB keys, but will not see my iPod for some
reason. Any ideas?....
Looking for increase, hard, disk, speed, windows, xp, 2003
getting a faster HDD (more recent model, faster spinning, ...)