subject: Make My Comp Faster – Tips For a Faster Computer? [print this page] Make My Comp Faster Tips For a Faster Computer?
Given the instruction Make my comp faster, these are some of the things that would go a long way to achieving that.
1. Remove extra toolbars from your Windows taskbar and from your Internet browser.
2. If you use uTorrent to download torrents, you can increase the download speeds by tweaking the settings.
3. If you are technically savvy and don't mind taking a few risks, you can try to overclock your processor.
4. If you search on Google a lot or Wikipedia, you can do it much faster on Vista by adding them to the Vista Start Menu Instant Search box.
5. If you have a SCSI drive, make sure the write cache is enabled. You can do so by opening the properties of the SCSI drive in Windows.
6. Disable automatic Last Access Timestamp to speed up Windows XP.
7. If you don't care about all the fancy visual effects in Windows, you can turn them off by going to Performance Options.
8. Make sure that you have selected "Adjust for best performance" on the Performance tab in System Properties.
9. Learn how to use keyboard shortcuts for Windows, Microsoft Word, Outlook, or create your own keyboard shortcuts.
10. If you know what you are doing, you can install several hard drives into your machine and set them up in RAID 0, RAID 5, or other RAID configurations.
11. If you have a desktop background, make sure it's a small and simple bitmap image rather than a fancy picture off the Internet. The best is to find a really small texture and to tile it.
12. Disable the Windows Vista Sidebar if you're not really using it for anything important. All those gadgets take up memory and processing power.
13. Remove unwanted pre-installed software from your new PC.
14. Run DOS programs in separate memory spaces for better performance.
15. Turn off system restore only if you regularly backup your Windows machine using third party software.
16. If you have a custom built computer or a PC that was previously used, make sure to check the BIOS for optimal settings such as enabled CPU caches, correctly set IDE/SATA data transfer modes, memory timings, etc. You can also enable Fast/Quick boot if you have that option.
17. Shut down XP faster by reducing the wait time to kill hung applications
These tweaks should satisfy expectations of the most ardent of the make my comp faster requesters. Good Luck!
