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optimization?

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by ngen255

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Hi all. I was just wondering, are there some general tips on optimizing memory? It seems that everytime I use my computer, my system is slow or whatnot. My friend's computer is nearly identical to mine, has the same number of running processes, has basically the same programs running, but runs way smoother. My system is:

WinXP Pro Service Pack 1
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ 1.9 GHz
512 MB DDR 2700 non-ECC
20 GB system hard drive 60 GB storage drive
NVidia GeForce FX 5200
GA-vt7600 -L motherboard

Also, my friend's computer loads up a game for Warcraft 3 faster than mine. Yet, his computer is a pentium 4 2.00 GHz 512 mb ddr 2700 nvidia geforce 4 mx? Would be grateful for any help on helping my system be all it can be. On 3dMark2001, my score is about 1000. Some other people with the same configuration as mine without overclocking get way higher scores? How come? Any help would be appreciated.

9 replies

by ngen255

Also, my media player is sometimes very slow. I will click on it to start it up, but nothing will happen for a while. However, when I press ctrl-alt-del, I see wmplayer.exe in running processes. Then, if I click on a media file to start up the media player again, it will work. What's up with that?

by ngen255

Also, I run anti-spyware software and update it often, so I am fairly certain it is not that. I have a firewall and an antivirus up, too.

by rcom

Dang! Should of got the intel :)

No seriously.

Check the mother board settings and make sure all is correct for the hardware installed. If you're overclocking the CPU change to the correct settings.

To be protected while you troubleshoot make sure to disconnect from the internet.

Stop the virus scanning and firewall software.

Disable uneeded services and/or startup programs.
The link below is to a site that goes into full detail on what services are needed and whch can be disabled.

http://tinyurl.com/78u

Run msconfig.exe and uncheck as much as possible. Reboot as requested. Re-enabled one at a time to see which one is causing the sluggishness.

More than likely, with the virus and firewall disabled performance will be much better. Unfortunately these have to be running.

Delete cookies, temp-internet and .tmp files. Open the Properties for Internet Explorer and go through the deletion processes. For the .tmp files do a search for them. Delete them all. Leave the folders that end with the .tmp extension because they may contain needed uninstall info.

Scandisk and defrag. If the drive is having problems the PC can run slower.

Since you have 2 drives in the system creating a swap file on the secondary drive will help speed things up. The default size should be 1.5 times the amount of ram. So in your case the total size would be 768. Put one page file 384 MB on the C drive and another 384 MB on the D drive. The OS can now use both at the same time. Explained in full at the following link,

http://tinyurl.com/f8q4

This link is a good site to find out what each startup process and file does.
http://tinyurl.com/2ht39

Now that everything is stripped down the PC should be ripping. If not there's other issues that may be related to hardware.

by boli

well 1st thing i see is u have an AMD and your friend has Intel!!!

there is a REAL difference! although SOME AMDs can outperform Intels...

your hard drive might be the lagging component (i know mine is in my P4 PRESCOTT system[anoying]) if you get a faster boot hard drive lika a SCSI or SATA then it will probably match/beat ur friends (apart from ur CPU)

your graphics should be slightly worse:
Nvidia's FX series at low end are better 'studio' cards
The MX series are slightly older but very good gaming cards!

in the end why dont you overclock? you have an AMD and there good for overclocking just make sure it doesnt set on fire! ;)

by kennethsf

The processors are on par so no worries here.

I'd take a look at your hard drive. Usually 20Gb units were not that fast as newer 60-80Gb drives (not because of size, but because of platter speeds, cache optimization, and plain simple technological development along the years)

Are both hard drives connected to the same IDE line? Try connecting one to the first controller and the other to the second one, both as master.

Also, take a look at your prefecth folder in your computer. (usually on c:\windows\prefecth) it will contain names of executable files along with a short number string and a .pf extension (like FIREFOX.EXE-030B768A.pf for example) A good way to improve program loading is to do the following routine:

Clean the prefetch folder contents. Reboot the machine. Reboot it again (you need to let the machine sense the order your boot programs load) then start the programs you most usually run one by one, closing the first before running the next. After you have done this, go to Start > Run and type

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

(this has to be run on a single line)

this will record the data windows has collected about your boot-up programs and the optimized physical location info for the programs you run the most.

Now, on the same start>run... box type cmd an press Enter.

If windows is installed on the c:> drive then type

%windir%\system32\defrag.exe /b c:

If not, substitute C: for the drive letter you have installed windows into. This will optimize your boot process (windows will load faster)

after that has run, type

%windir%\system32\defrag.exe /v c:

Run this substituting the c: part with each drive letter you have. Wait for the first task to run before running the second.

By doing this, you will let windows find the best location for your programs to be on your hard drives, and then letting hem run faster.

You can also go to http://www.safer-networking.org/ and download the

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