Suggestions for speeding up old computer

[Ydoow]

Our workshop\'s computer is old, and slow as poop.

Suggest ways to speed it up as much as possible.

I\'ve been digging through it finding all it\'s specs and such.

OS: XP Pro

RAM: 3Gb (3.3Mb) DDR2 I\'m assuming

PageFile: Either 2Gb or 4Gb.

System settings shows it\'s set to 2Gb max, DxDiag says 4Gb max.

1.2Gb of pagefile is currently being used, I\'d say that\'s average

CPU: Intel Core Duo 2.33Ghz

Harddrive: 74Gb, 47Gb Free (network backup)

So where should I start to speed things up? This is a work computer, so if it gets screwed up, I\'m screwed.

I won\'t be taking anything with potential for damaging the system (Overclocking).

I want to cut down the PageFile to 500Mb, but it\'s tough to see how much RAM is being used exactly.

Task Manager only reports PageFile usage. I setup PerfMon.exe to show RAM usage, but the graph scale blows and makes it hard to interpret.

Currently, a Disk Defrag (probably the first ever to happen to this system) is running.

Surprisingly little Fragmentation was analyzed, but then again the drive is mostly empty (47Gb free).

Edit: This computer is left on 24/7 and only reboots when it crashes, so boot speed isn\'t necessary.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Have you disabled all unused and unneeded services?

Check out Black Viper\'s Service Configurations page for a great rundown of the various services in Window OSes.

Cheers!

Capt\'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Ydoow]

I will definitely look into that on monday (almost quitting time:D) I hadn\'t even considered shutting down extra services.

Disk DeFrag was a remarkable success, and is already noticeably faster.

[Amram]

if a format is allowable(probably not, but covering it anyways), its amazing what will result from that.

Additionally, before completing the format, splitting the partitions, create a small partition in the first few Gb(or few hundred mb, how ever much you\'d want to give it) to hold the swap file, devote the rest as desired. The idea is to give the swap file a nice clean, fairly high performance part of the disk all to itself, no more fragmented swapfile....ever. Create the main OS parition after that partition is made.

If you can devote the space to it indefinitely, define an actual swapfile size instead of allowing it to be system managed. 4Gb should be plenty, depending on what it needs to do i wouldn\'t go under 1gb. If the work related tasks are very low memory usage, it might be possible to operate just fine without a swapfile, so your thought of trying out 500mb should be enough in that case. The system does have a decent amount of Ram. The point of defining its size is to prevent fragmentation caused by the changing size of the swapfile. Windows can get rather....fussy if its current desire for memory exceeds both your ram and swapfile combined.

Being a work computer, there are a fair number of processes that run in the background that might not be necessary for you. Shutting them down won\'t do alot, but i suspect in this case it\'ll be a matter of every little bit that can help. Edit:blackViper\'s site, as mentioned by Cap\'n Skunky is the ideal reference point for that.

Eliminate every little running application that doesn\'t need to be run. if your good with computers, http://www.silentrunners.org/ provides a script that when run will list every single thing set to run on its own, which isn\'t part of the windows default. Every little tasktray item, hidden process, and even browser addons that tie into explorer will be listed, as well as where you find the reference that controls it. Do export the entire registry before you begin, provides a nice safe backup for those Oh Shi.....! moments. It will also list off malware related tasks, processes, and tool bars.

If the boot is a slow and drawn out process, bootvis can work wonders on that for you. http://majorgeeks.com/BootVis_d664.html it reorganises the order in which things are done. in effect, when the system will stop and wait for something, it tries to organise things so that while the system is waiting on whatever it was, it starts the next task to be done. Sometimes you don\'t gain much, sometimes you gain ALOT.

http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.php can tell you just how much memory and swap file is currently in use, as well as the max that has been used recently. That way you can see if it maybe needs more sometimes than you might have set it too.

Being an old install, there\'s a fairly good bet it also has alot of space consumed by useless stuff. If you have the freedom to clear out unused data, http://windirstat.info/ is invaluable in seeing just where your space has gone, and what has consumed it. Maybe there are ALOT of old restore points just sitting there swallowing space. Its not much, but this can help you keep the size of the MFT down a bit, and this helps older HD\'s feel a little more responsive. Again, tiny improvements, but pile enough little things together and you\'ve got something.

Im sure there are more things im forgetting, but that should be enough to show a noticeable improvement at the least.

Edit, ninja\'d by Skunky.

Forgot about blackVipers page, theres your number one reference for which services can safely be killed, and which you need to keep around. its surprising just how lightweight Xp can become, if you trim off all the little things you don\'t need.

[mc8888]

If you have access to task manager, you can change the process\' priority.

If you go:

Task Manager > Processes, then right-click on the KSP process > Priority

you can change its priority to \'High\'. This might have some effect, although it can apparently \'destabilise\' your system, but I don\'t think it\'ll be a problem, as long as you\'re not trying to run anything with KSP in the background.

[Randox]

High priority is normally a safe bet. It normally gets something to run as fast as possible for that machine without being able to take so much that a critical process fails to run. Don\'t use real time though since that could very well cause your computer to BSOD on you if a critical process is unable to run because something else is hogging too much CPU time.

You could also try running CCleaner. I\'m not sure how much performance you can get out of cleaning up the registry, but it certainly wont hurt the computer. I did it on my laptop a while ago and cleared out about 1200 errors, and that did seem to make a difference.

[socket7]

Run MSconfig.

Go into the startup tab and disable any lame crapware starting at boot time.

Protip: If you don\'t know what something does in the startup tab, google it and find out before disabling it. It might be important. ;D

[Ydoow]

Just a heads up, I updated the OP to indicate that this computer is on 99% of the time, and therefore boot speeds aren\'t really important.

As for setting priority via Task Manager; I thought that only prioritized RAM caching and not so much CPU priority. That\'s what I read a while ago at least.

And yes, Formatting the drive, partitioning, or anything of that sort is totally out of the question.

I know partitioning doesn\'t delete data, but I\'m not sure how the network backup configuration is setup.

Breaking compatibility with that would cause so many headaches, and eventually those headaches would lead back to me D:

I work at a Fire Safety shop, the computer has databases on it (backed up remotely) of all the Fire Extinguishers, AED\'s, Fire Doors, Emergency lights, and other things on it. There are well over 4,000 fields for the fire extinguishers alone. Emergency lights could easily be triple that amount, all of it essential to keeping my college within State/Federal Safety regulations and not being fined out the wazoo.

Losing any amount of data means I\'d lose my job without question XD

So when I say I\'m not taking any risk to cause damage, I really really mean it lol.

Heck I\'m afraid to lower the PF in fear that it might make the PC crash too often

[Amram]

fair enough, I suspected that\'d be out of the question, but sometimes work computers hold relatively expendable data, so i figured i\'d go there, lol.

You mention it being up pretty much all the time, does it get rebooted now and then, or shutdown for the night? If not, rebooting more often will help quite a bit.

Your best bet then is probably just to:

Create a restore point

stop unecessary services from loading at startup

stop unecessary task tray apps from loading at startup

stop unecessary tasks from launching

by this point, window\'s memory and processing needs will be alot lower, which will free up more resources for other things.

define the size of the swap file to help reduce drive fragmentation.

trim all temporary files, and remove unused portions of windows http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=31494 -how to enable all the hidden stuff in the add/remove control panel, such as messenger, windows games, and accessibility features. The more empty the drive, the smaller the MFT file becomes, and the quicker windows will respond to things.

There is a small risk of a registry snafu using cleaning apps(just as there is a small risk in changing anything at all really), the restore point will have you covered there, anything goes awol that definitely shouldn\'t, just restore. That said, this can be a source of significant slowdown in older installs of windows so its worth doing.

and you could probably stop there.

It may also be worth checking to be sure the CPU isn\'t overheating. With time both the heatsinks get clogged up, and the thermal paste wears out and stops conducting heat effectively. no need to go pulling the heatsink off or anything drastic. SIW.exe, which I posted a link to earlier can report temperatures. if your getting up in excess of 80 on a regular basis, the CPU/mobo might be throttling itself to prevent a critical overtemp.

If it is overheating, you can clock the system down, which will reduce temps, and make its overall speed more predictable, instead of it getting too hot and going even slower now and then. If this is happening, it should be easy enough to get the average speed above where it is by clocking downwards a little. Will also help the system last longer, current and temperature are both enemies of system life, the less of each, the longer it lives.

Its also fairly painless and low risk to apply new paste, that said, anytime you physically handle the parts, there is risk of them not functioning after.....so, yeah. At the least, its still worth checking for crud and high temps.