Tips to Improve System perfomence

[HyperHacker]

I prefer this one. Does basically the same thing.

Hm, would I get better performance if I:

A) Keep the page file on my Windows partition, or

B ) Put it on the other 20GB hard drive in my computer, which is slow (~5200RPM) and I think shares an IDE channel with my DVD burner?

I have 256MB of RAM. I only ever use that drive to store backups and it has 4.62GB free; I could partition it and make one of the partitions a page file since I rarely access it.

BTW, ctfmon.exe only runs for me when I have the language bar enabled. Maybe because I don't have Office.

[edit] Drat you, B) smilie. And drat you too, overzealous censors.

Edited April 23, 2006 by HyperHacker

[Zxian]

I prefer this one. Does basically the same thing.

The Startup Control Panel also has the ability to move startup items from one location to another (i.e. from Startup folder->HKLM/Run).

Hm, would I get better performance if I:

A) Keep the page file on my Windows partition, or

B ) Put it on the other 20GB hard drive in my computer, which is slow (~5200RPM) and I think shares an IDE channel with my DVD burner?

I have 256MB of RAM. I only ever use that drive to store backups and it has 4.62GB free; I could partition it and make one of the partitions a page file since I rarely access it.

If you have two drives but must choose one or the other, then choose the faster of the two. If you can afford it, put a pagefile on both drives. Windows will take care of the rest for you.

[Screwz Luse]

Just out of curiousity, how much power does a computer in hibernate draw? I've been considering going with hibernate instead of shutting off but I don't enjoy spending too much money on power, so just curious.

[Zxian]

A computer in hiberation draws no more power than a computer that is shut down - i.e. zero!

It's why it's such a great advantage to put your computer into hiberation, since you're back at a working desktop within a few seconds. Another great thing is that you don't even have to close your apps, meaning that they'll be ready to go right away.

[Blub]

Same as "normal" power off at least. Mine will still draw a teensy bit of power unless I pull the plug. Thanks to e.g. complementary LED on mainboard (Asus).

Digressing from topic slightly: my most noticable performance gain I achieved by ... upgrading hardware. The most effective way actually

[Guest WebMadman]

Edited July 8, 2006 by WebMadman

[SngBrdb]

I agree with Zxian about where the page file goes and why. One cool thing I discovered: If you ghost a drive onto CD/DVD with Norton Ghost and restore to the partition, Norton will put the paging and system files onto the partition first. So if you set a static pagefile size, ghost and restore, you have your pagefile on the outermost track B)

Has to be ghosted onto CD or DVD, though... doesn't work if you image to another partition for some reason.

As for hibernation, I've avoided it so far, mainly out of ignorance. I still don't 100% trust MS in these areas, and I have too many unanswered questions.

Network state ~ if you have open connections (e.g. my vpn to work or a bittorrent client), returning from hibernation does not return you to the state you were in when you went down. Some proggies will be okay with this, some will probably not handle this gracefully. Which are which? I haven't the foggiest. What about half-open tcp connections ~ closed on hibernate? With MS' new limitations on number of half-open connections, would that block me until the connections were dropped? Dunno.

Also, apps that aren't written to handle power events properly ~ will they corrupt data (a file transfer, download, or someone hitting my ftp site)? Don't know. Are services passed shutdown events, pause events, or just suspended waiting for a time slice of the processor?

If they're suspended, how well can MS guarantee that they will come back to life in exactly the same state and action as when they where put to sleep? What if the service was interacting with the network? Whoever it was talking to will have long since said 'see-ya' by the time you come back online. Too many unanswered questions to trust hibernation completely.

Of course, I never shut off my PC, so it's a non-issue for me

[sogo]

use nlite, and disable prefetch for faster boot times

use nlite, and disable prefetch for faster boot times

[Zxian]

Network state ~ if you have open connections (e.g. my vpn to work or a bittorrent client), returning from hibernation does not return you to the state you were in when you went down. Some proggies will be okay with this, some will probably not handle this gracefully. Which are which? I haven't the foggiest. What about half-open tcp connections ~ closed on hibernate? With MS' new limitations on number of half-open connections, would that block me until the connections were dropped? Dunno.

Network state isn't exactly preserved after resuming from standby or hibernate, but Windows will attempt to restore network connectivity after resuming.

I definately wouldn't recommend running a bit torrent client or anything else that's heavy on connections while entering hibernation or standby, but an e-mail app or instant messenger should be fine. If the program has a problem with these powered down states, then it's their problem - not Windows'.

As far as I understand it, a half-open connection is an unfulfilled connection - so why does it matter if it's closed? The limitation on half-open connections shouldn't impede regular applications. I can still browse the web and download off the internet just as fast as I could before SP2 (maxing out a 5Mbps connection is no trouble for me).

Also, apps that aren't written to handle power events properly ~ will they corrupt data (a file transfer, download, or someone hitting my ftp site)? Don't know. Are services passed shutdown events, pause events, or just suspended waiting for a time slice of the processor?

If they're suspended, how well can MS guarantee that they will come back to life in exactly the same state and action as when they where put to sleep? What if the service was interacting with the network? Whoever it was talking to will have long since said 'see-ya' by the time you come back online. Too many unanswered questions to trust hibernation completely.

You have some valid points here, and I wish I could answer them better for you.

I use hiberation all the time on my laptop. I'll only reboot once a month, or when an application/driver installation requires it. I remember reading in a Microsoft article that even they recommend saving all open files before hibernating, in the event that something does go wrong. I know that I've had to jump up and run, hitting the power button (which hibernates the computer) without saving, and the documents were fine, but for my peace of mind, I try to save things as often as possible anyways.

All in all - hibernation is still probably a better bet for mobile users than a full shutdown. It's a lot more convenient to start up your computer and in the space of 10 seconds have everything up and running. I have yet to see a laptop computer that can match this from a cold boot, and have all the apps that were running still open.

@sogo - That's a whole can of worms that was opened (and closed) about a year ago. Disabling prefetch does not necessarily decrease boot times, and it actually hurts application loading times.

[#rootworm]

use nlite, and disable prefetch for faster boot times

disabling prefetch will only hurt system performance.

what prefetching does is place files into the order in which they are loaded off the hard drive. having these files sequentially placed into the order in which they are needed decreases load times for pretty much all software.

if you're still not convinced about prefetching tho, nlite isn't needed. just disable the task scheduler service, not only will you free up a bit of RAM, but prefetching will be broken until the service is restarted.

Edited July 20, 2006 by #rootworm

[Shoshoni]

I've shutdown prefetch for the software only. The bootup and that other thing is still intact.

@sogo1: I should go with that if I were you.

[#rootworm]

Since the early days of Windows, there are certain things that windows needs to do that it can only do during a normal boot up procedure. Leave a PC on all the time and it's not able to do its built in procedures.

In Windows 98 is was the ol' memory leak. Windows needed to reboot to flush ram and restore the registry.

XP is none the less dependent on periodic reboots.

Leaving an off the shelf PC run 24x7 robs the OS of its chance to flush and refresh itself.

And, the mechanical components like the cooling fans are not designed for a 100% duty cycle.

I always set my hard drives, for instance, to spin down after 15 min's of inactivity, to decrease the power draw and heat dissapation and to save the bearings.

SO, when you're done with it....Turn it OFF.

i'm too am from the oldskool, and used to think the same thing. but since using XP SP2 as a server for ages now, i have to disagree.

first off, i have to say that my services aren't 'mission critical' so that's why i just use XP. although i must say, i think i could turn XP into a hardened server with relative ease.

it's been over 50 days since i last turned my PC off (the only reason it was turned off then was because of a move). the PC is a cheapo one built with bargain parts, the only thing in my favor is high quality RAM.

the pc stays on 24/7. on average i'll reboot once every 2 weeks. this is usually due to a core system change (such as the installation of a kernel mode driver for instance).

my memory usage stays stable over time, in fact the whole pc stays stable over time. so for me reboots are NOT necessary to keep things running smoothly. you could probably power a small city with all the juice my PC wastes