In need of oddball performance tips / tweaks...

[Sgt.Fox]

Hi Guys,

Basically, i'm in need of some very good, yet fairly unusual (or just very effective) performance tips / tweaks. They can be for any piece of hardware, i.e. the pencil trick on AMD XP CPUs and re-flashing certain 9800SEs.

I'm most interested in things that could be classed as 'hardcore' tweaks - all in the areas of System Drivers, Win XP optimisation, the best graphics settings (in XP and the BIOS), physical hardware mods and even internet speed boosting.

If you could offer your advice it'd be much appreciated.

[Nox]

www.google.com

seriously though, there is too much out there to list on even one website dedicated entirely to it...

Though I wouldn't recommend using the word 'hardcore' when googling (apparently )

can you narrow down you search, at the moment you're asking for a literal library of stuff, ie 'can you give me all part numbers for every item in every car thats painted black'

Nox

[Sgt.Fox]

www.google.com

seriously though, there is too much out there to list on even one website dedicated entirely to it...

Though I wouldn't recommend using the word 'hardcore' when googling (apparently )

can you narrow down you search, at the moment you're asking for a literal library of stuff, ie 'can you give me all part numbers for every item in every car thats painted black'

Nox

Well, howzabout this: The most effective (and interesting) tweaks, in your opinion. I'm running up an article involving 50 performance tips and tweaks.

I have a fair amount myself but... it's always best to do a little community searching...

[mad_allan]

from another forum

Two of the most resource hungry services on Windows XP can be disabled which will greatly improve performance.

1. System Restore - If you don’t use it then disable it. Personally I turn it off on all my drives except my Windows partition. This saves some HD space but keeps my C drive monitored, but for max performance increase turn it off altogether. By default, System Restore Service uses a LARGE amount of disk space to store rollback points. On large hard drives, this could be well over 10 to 20 GB.

Q. How do I turn off System Restore Process?:

With the default Category Control Panel:

1. Head to Start
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Performance and Maintenance
4. Select System
5. Select System Restore Tab
6. Check "Turn off System Restore"
7. Select the Ok button to apply the settings

-------------------------------------------------------------------
After that, Disable and Stop the System Restore Service:
Start > Run > services.msc > System Restore Service > Stop and Disable


========================================

2. Indexing Service - It uses about 500 K to 2 MB in an idle state, not to mention the amount of memory and CPU resources it takes to INDEX the drives. I have it turned off altogether. Blackviper would always recommend getting rid of this!

You can disable the service from:
Start > Run > services.msc > Indexing service > Stop it, then choose ‘disabled’ fro the startup option.

You can remove the function via the "Add / Remove Programs" icon in the control panel (Windows Setup Programs) to get rid of it altogether

========================================

Turn off Automatic Updates.
If you want to be in charge of your updating and also know exactly what you’re installing (always a good idea!) then u can free some resources and disable automatic updating.

[Note: It is very important that if you decide to disable the Automatic Updates Service, you check the Windows Update site often to ensure the latest critical updates and security patches are installed.]


With the default Category Control Panel:

1. Head to Start
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Performance and Maintenance
4. Select System
5. Select Automatic Updates Tab
6. Select "Turn off automatic updating."
7. Select the Ok button to apply the settings

After that go into Start > Run > services.msc > Automatic upadates > turn it off and disable it from statup

========================================
Remove Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop Sharing.…..unless you use them obviously!

Take note: Remote Desktop Sharing is NOT available with Windows XP Home. You may request assistance from someone ONLY using Windows XP Pro.

With the default Category Control Panel:

1. Head to Start
2. Select Control Panel
3. Select Performance and Maintenance
4. Select System
5. Select Remote Tab
6. Uncheck both "Remote Assistance and Desktop Sharing" options
7. Select the Ok button to apply the settings
======================================

Slow Shutdown Problems on XP

Specify the Response Time for Hung Applications (All Windows)

This setting controls the amount of time to wait for a response from a hung application before the system task manager automatically terminates the task.

Create a new String value, or modify the existing value, called "HungAppTimeout" and set it according to the value data below.

User Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
System Key: [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
Value Name: HungAppTimeout
Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Value Data: Time in milliseconds (1000 = 1 second)
----------------------------------------------
Stop Windows from Clearing Pagefile

start>run>gpedit.msc>computer configuration>windows settings>security settings>local policies>security options>"Shutdown: clear virtual memory pagefile" CHANGE this to disable. Reboot. (It won't stop it from clearing the page file first time you reboot, straight after you have changed this setting.)
-----------------------------------------

what graphics card you running? if it's nvidia, try this:

go to "run" in start menu, type "services.msc" look for "NVIDIA Display Driver Service" and stop and disable it. this service isn't needed and is commonly the cause of slow shut downs with nvidia drivers.

also go to "run" in stat menu, type "regedit" then go to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr
entVersion\Run

then just delete and key that relates to software you know you don't need starting up, but remember to back up your registry before doing this in case you balls up

[mad_allan]

Also:

Service tweaking: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

[PMM]

Hardc0re tweaks... were talking Voltmods / cooling

Vcore / Vdimm / VDD / Gfx vmods / PSU / volt mods
cooling using a Phasechange coolers , on CPU / Gfx even as far as
the northbridge or smaller scale via peltier cooling northbridge, water cooled ram

other things like bridge manipulation / capacitor changes / tweaking programs
like nforcetweaker a64 tweaker for memory.

All your software tweaks can be got from places like http://www.tweakxp.com.. http://www.mdgx.com/
the blackviper site posted above is good for setting up machine profiles
in terms of services. your hardware tweaks some you'll get here others your better dropping into a more hardware savvy set of forums more extreme overclocking set of forums