Tips for speeding up your PC

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Mave

Mave

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TMS Presents : Tips for speeding up your PC

In this topic :
* Tips about how to 'speed up' your PC, on howto make it run 'faster'.
* Tip on how to make a single program run faster.
* Tip for better game performance.

Please add your own tips in reply, they WILL be added !



  • Free up disk space
    When your PC is running low on disk space, it's running low on speed too.
    Trust me, I know.

    I suggest to keep ~1/5th of your disk space free.

    Besides deleting moving files to an external hard drive, you can also use 'Disk Cleanup', a built in Windows feature.
    This feature is located at Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup.

    DiskCleanup.jpg





  • Defragment your disk(s)
    Disk fragmentation slows the overall performance of your system. When files are fragmented, the computer must search the hard disk when the file is opened to piece it back together. The response time can be significantly longer.

    Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer's hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. With your files stored neatly end-to-end, without fragmentation, reading and writing to the disk speeds up.
    Click to expand...

    I suggest to run this every week, W7 does this automatically every week, so if you have 7 this step is already done for you :wink:

    DiskDefragmenter.jpg





  • Limit the amount of programs that start-up automatically with windows.
    I know this from personal experience, it's better to have almost no programs start-up together with windows automatically, then have your MSN, Xfire, Steam, Firefox, iTunes, and some other crap started up automatically, it really slows your PC down a bit (your PC will be very slow while starting up)

    To edit the list of programs that auto-start-up, go to
    'Run' -> Enter 'msconfig' -> Go to the 'Startup' tab -> Choose what programs to enable/disable.

    StartUp.jpg





  • Stop/Disable any services that you don't need. Tip by Slayer
    Some services are running while you are probably never going to use them.
    You can disable them in order to win some speed.

    For example 'Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service'.
    If you aren't planning on sharing media through WMP, you can disable this.

    To disable items, go to

    Run -> Type in 'services.msc'
    or you can also do this in the msconfig window
    Run -> Type in 'msconfig' -> click the 'services' tab

    From there you can disable a service by clicking the square in the menu ('Stop Service' appears when you hover over the square)

    Services.png





  • Uninstall Unused Programs
    When a program is installed, it creates connections between the program and the operating system.
    Even if you don’t use these programs, they can slow down your system.

    So it's better to uninstall those programs which you don't use.

    To uninstall programs, go to;

    Control Panel\Programs\Programs and Features

    UninstallPrograms.png





  • Make sure your PC is free from malicious software.
    Another great way to speed up your PC, or at least keep the speed is making sure your PC is malware/spyware/virus -free.
    Possibly the best way to do this is to do a full scan in Safe mode.
    I personally suggest you to use Malwarebytes' anti-malware, which can be downloaded here for free.

    Malwarebytes.png







  • Tip for speeding up a single program. Tip by GPow69
    When doing something resource-demanding, open your task manager (CTRL SHIFT ESC) and go to the processes tab and kill any processes that you don't NEED (iTuneshelper.exe, iPodService, etc.) Every little bit of extra memory that can be devoted to your task the better.

    It's easy when you arrange the processes on memory usage, then you can instantly see what program is 'eating' the most resources.

    To kill a process, just click the delete button and confirm.

    TaskManager.png





  • Tip for better game performance Tip by GPow69
    For better game performance (More noticeable on low-end PCs) use a free application called Game Booster

    1.jpg


    Basically, after you click "Switch to Gaming Mode", Game Booster will find all the applications that aren't necessary and give you a checklist of items you want the app to close for you.

    2.jpg


    After Game Booster closes the un-needed apps, it will start shutting down services that don't really do anything but could be eating up performance, such as search services, updater services, etc.
    (This process is very fast and only takes a few seconds)

    3.jpg


    After it's done, Game Booster will minimize itself to the system tray until you're done playing.

    When you are done gaming, open up Game Booster again from the system tray and click "Switch back to normal mode" and it will start all those "unnecessary processes" (search etc) again so your computer will work perfectly normal.

    4.jpg


    Download : http://www.majorgeeks.com/Game_Booster_d5952.html





I will update this topic a lot, if you have tips on speeding up a PC, then please share them in this a reply so I can add them :wink:


Changelog

- 11/05/2010 Removed : Keep your CPU cool.
- 10/05/2010 Added Tip for better game performance
- 09/05/2010 Added Uninstall Unused Programs.
- 06/05/2010 Added "Tip for speeding up a single program.", "Stop/Disable any services that you don't need.", and "Keep your CPU cool."
- 20/12/2010 Added "Make sure your PC is free from malicious software."
 
Hardware related: Keep your CPU cool. The cooler it is the more performance you get out of it.

OS/Software related: When doing something resource-demanding, open your task manager and go to the processes tab and kill any processes that you don't NEED (iTuneshelper.exe, iPodService, etc.) Every little bit of extra memory that can be devoted to your task the better.
 
Go to Run, type in services.msc, and Stop/Disable any services that you will not need open. Like, if you don't share media with other PCs/devices, disable Windows Media Sharing Service. If you have services from older programs that you don't use, disable them.

CCleaner is a great tool for removing non-used programs, and finding registry errors, and other program errors.
 
The same services area pops out when you go to msconfig and pick services.

It is good for Win7 users to tick the "hide Microsoft services". Majority of the services will be gone from the list. I disabled some of mine but I always like to keep my local SQL server with firebird etc running
 
Tell me really. If the registry has many broken and unneeded entries perhaps for even programs that have been uninstalled and when some program attempts to make a change to the registry or read from it does it take a theoretically longer time? Just like the difference between MySQL selecting a row from 1000 rows or a row from 1000000 rows.
 
I've added the new tips !

Also added a little changelog.

I really hope we can stuff this topic full with more useful tips to speed up your PC.
 
Wow, Mave, You have a TON of processes.

This is my process list right after starting up my PC:

24qif06.jpg
 
Yeah, I also have a lot of shit open, and bare in my mind that your PC is fresh and I've been using 7 for almost 9 months now.
 
I think its mainly because you have so many svchost.exe and related processes running that it makes it look really bad :tongue:
 
Andre said:
Tell me really. If the registry has many broken and unneeded entries perhaps for even programs that have been uninstalled and when some program attempts to make a change to the registry or read from it does it take a theoretically longer time? Just like the difference between MySQL selecting a row from 1000 rows or a row from 1000000 rows.
Click to expand...
Unnecessary keys doesn't have an impact on the system, because they will be ignored.
Same problem with your MySQL example: You are expecting that all data is stored in ONE table. The registry consists of several hives and key. So what if they are in different tables or even databases? (rhetorical question)
Moreover, do you know a program which uses that many rows in one key? Only config data is stored there, despite to MySQL tables. (I don't mean with this that config data isn't stored in MySQL tables. MySQL has more a important use of data sets.)
Also benchmark couldn't prove it yet. I tried it myself.
 
For better game performance (More noticeable on low-end PCs) use a free application called Game Booster,...

[m=Mave]Tip was added.
To reduce page load, the rest of this post was removed.
(The tip is already in the first post now.)[/m]
 
Mave said:
  • Keep your CPU cool. Tip by Gpow69
    When your CPU is warm, your performance is running low too.
    It's best to keep your PC in a normal temperature environment.

    Also make sure the ventilator is never blocked.
    This could even result in the melting of certain PC-parts.
Click to expand...

  • Ugh, excuse me, but high temperature on your CPU will only start to harm your working speed when it is seriously overheating.

    Maffia171 said:
    GPow yesterday I told you to use GameBooster and now suddenly you come up with it -_-
    Download link fails btw.
    Click to expand...
    What do you expect?

    GPow69 said:
    This is my process list right after starting up my PC:
    Click to expand...
    Actually you have more running than the ones you listed as well.
 
^ Thanks for your unnecessary input. And what's wrong with telling people to keep their CPU cool? Even if it's not overheating it's good to keep it as cool as possible.

Maffia171 said:
GPow yesterday I told you to use GameBooster and now suddenly you come up with it -_-
Click to expand...

Yes, I know :tongue:
THANKS! It actually works really good :)
 
GPow69 said:
^ Thanks for your unnecessary input. And what's wrong with telling people to keep their CPU cool? Even if it's not overheating it's good to keep it as cool as possible.
Click to expand...
What the fuck. I tell the truth and you call it an unnecessary input. You're sick, dude, too bad you fail. The more even point of what I said is that noone is going to get a new cooler or pasta cooling just because their CPU is 21 degrees, not 20 as you would like. And doing this would not speed up your computer. But this topic is for tips which help you speed up your computer. Compulsive faggot
 
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