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Introduction
Everyone wants their machine to run faster. We have compiled
all the special tweaks we've made into this one handy article. We focus on
settings that improve the performance of Windows XP and not on user interface
tweaks. Note: You can disable most of XP's user interface candy and increase
performance!
These tweaks are designed for Windows XP both Home and Pro.
Make sure you have at least 256 MB of RAM, any less and your machine will lag
due to use of the hard drive as memory. 512MB is preferred. Backup your System
before attempting any of these modifications!
Microsoft covers
performance in Windows XP. PC magazine found
general application performance is faster on XP than on Windows ME.
BIOS
You need to ensure that you have
configured your BIOS correctly. The BIOS is software embedded on your
motherboard that loads and configures hardware before the operating system.
Failure to do so can easily slow down CPU and disk performance. Consult your
computer or motherboard's manual to ensure that all CPU caches are enabled,
memory timings are set correctly, and that IDE data transfer modes are set
correctly.
You can speed up the boot process by enabling "Rapid Bios Boot" or
"Fast/Quick boot". Also turn off auto detection of IDE devices and detect them
manually. Set System and Video BIOS Cacheable to OFF as well as Video RAM
cacheable to off, as these are legacy operating system DOS settings.
Test CPU performance with PC
Magazine's benchmarks. Test drive performance with HDtach benchmark.
Drivers
You need to ensure that you have
the latest versions of all your hardware drivers. The ones on the original
Windows CD-ROM are usually out of date. Updated Video and SCSI drivers can
significantly improve the performance of your computer.
Video Performance
If you experience slow screen redraws and you are running
the latest drivers for your video card, try selecting a lower quality video
resolution. In the Display icon of the Control Panel, select the
Settings Tab. If the system is set for True color try lowering it to High
Color (16-bit). Many LCDs cannot show a full 32-bit color pallet. You can also
reduce the Desktop Area. Upgrade to a new video card if this does not help.
Using the latest Microsoft DirectX drivers can increase game performance.
Reducing XP's screen effects will also speed up performance.
Goto My computer, Properties, Advanced Tab, Performance Settings, Select adjust
for best performance.
Hard Drive Port
Make sure your hard drive is not connected to the same IDE
port as your CD/DVD-ROM. Each IDE port is programmed to operate at the slower of
the two devices on the port, so you could be slowing down access to your primary
hard drive by leaving a CD-ROM on the same channel. Put your CD/DVD-ROM on the
Secondary IDE port.
Intel Application accelerator lets you
independently set tranfer rates for devices on the same cable.
IDE DMA
Windows does not automatically
utilize faster DMA IDE data transfer modes on IDE slave drives. Programmed I/O
mode is the default setting.
1)) Right click on "My Computer", select the Hardware tab, and Select Device
Manager.
2) Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller" and double-click on "Primary
IDE Channel"
3) Under "Advanced Settings" tab, check the "Device 1" setting.
Set it to "DMA if available"
4) Repeat the step for the "Secondary IDE
Channel" if devices are present there.
SCSI Write
Cache
Many SCSI drives do not have
their write caches enabled. Use a Mode Page Editor such as the one built into
EZ-SCSI to enable Write Caching on all your hard drives. Windows XP allows you
to enable Write Caching in the Properties page of a SCSI Drive.
Minimize Background
Applications and Services
Press CTRL-ALT-DEL while in Windows and bring
up the Task Manager. Notice how many programs are running in the
background. Each program steals memory and CPU cycles. Offenders include: Adobe
Gamma Loader, Fast Find, msmsgs (Messenger), Office Startup, qttask (Quicktime),
System Agent, Real Player, Norton. To stop programs from automatically starting,
remove the file from the Programs - Startup folder, left click on the icons in
the System tray and turn off automatic loading, or consult the help file of each
program to turn it off. Run MSCONFIG to get a list of programs that run on
startup and remove unnecessary ones.
Disable Alerter, File and Print, FTP Publishing, Indexing
Service, World Wide Web Publisher, Messenger, Computer Browser, Routing and
Remote Access, Smart Card, Smart Card Helper, Terminal services, Uninterruptible
Power Supply if they are not being used. You can always turn them off and test
your machine, before setting them to be disabled on startup. Run "services.msc"
from the Run.. menu and Disable any services that are unncessary. BlackViper has
additional information on services.
You can also Configure Virus scanning to only scan incoming
files.
Removed Unused Programs, Protocols, and
Fonts
Uninstall any Programs that
you do not use. Also remove any Fonts that are not used. This will free up disk
space and make the machine boot faster. You should also remove any temporary
files located in the C:\TEMP, c:\windows\prefetch, or C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
directories. Also remove any unused Network Protocols such as NetBEUI or IPX.
Unload DLLs
Windows does not unload dll
files a program has used after it has been closed, to speed up a possible
restart of the program.
Use Regedit to edit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer Add the
DWORD value named: AlwaysUnloadDLL and set it to 1
Virtual Memory
Windows uses your Hard Drive
as swap memory but its default configuration can cause a major loss of
performance with the memory swap file getting moved around.
Select System icon from the Control Panel - Performance and
Maintenance, select Advanced Tab, select Performance areas, and click
on Settings Under virtual Memory click Change. The Initial and
Maximum size should be equal otherwise Windows will keep resizing the
file. The optimal memory setting for users with 128 MB+ is approximately 1.5-2
times the RAM size, users with 64 MB should use a 2 times multiple. You should
also locate Virtual Memory on your fastest drive or striped RAID volume, placing
it on the non-boot drive, can help increase performance. Defragment after
setting this to minimize fragmentation and force the swap file to get located on
the fastest part of your disk. Third party defragmentaters can optimize the swap
file.
Always make sure your system has enough RAM. 128MB is the absolute minimum,
512MB is preferred. You can bring up the Performance Tab of the Task Manager to
ensure that Total Commit Charge is lower than your Total Physical Memory. If
not, add ram.
Memory Tweaks
There are 3 tweaks you can
make to change how XP uses memory.
Open Regedit and Find
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory
Management\
Disable Paging Executive:
XP pages data from RAM memory to the hard drive.
We can stop this happening and keep more data in RAM, resulting in better
performance. Users with a large amount of RAM (256MB+) should use this setting.
The setting we change to disable the ’Paging Executive’, is
DisablePagingExecutive. Changing the value of this key from 0 to 1 will
de-activate memory paging.
System Cache Boost:
Changing the value of the key LargeSystemCache from 0
to 1 will tell XP to allocate all but 4MB of system memory to the file system
cache, allowing the XP Kernel to run in memory. The 4MB of memory left is used
for disk caching, if more is needed, XP allocates more. Generally, this tweak
improves performance by a fair bit but can, in some intensive applications,
degrade performance. As with the previous tweak, you should have at least 256MB
of RAM before attempting to enable LargeSystemCache.
Input/Output Performance:
This improves performance of large file
transfers. If this entry does not appear in the registry, you will have to
create a REG_DWORD value called IoPageLockLimit. The data for this value is in
number of bytes, and defaults to Zero which equates to 512KB on machines that
have the value. Most people using this tweak have found maximum performance in
the 8 to 16 megabyte range, so you will have to play around with the value to
find the best performance. The value is measured in bytes, so if you want, 12MB
allocated, it’s 12 * 1024 * 1024, or 12582912. As with all these memory tweaks,
you should only use this if you have 256MB or more of RAM.
Use your hard drive less for Virtual Memory:
The Windows 98/ME
"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1" optimization does not work for XP.
Defragment
Make sure you regularly
defragment your hard drive with a defragmenter. Windows XP includes one. Keep
your drive defragmented as a drive with even 5% fragmentation can be very
inefficient.
Microsoft has a utility called "Bootvis" that can monitor your
system bootup and optimize its performance. They removed the files from their
site.
This
site has a copy.
Extremetech has more bootup performance tips
Network
Performance
Tweak
XP has a nice tip on adjusting how much network bandwidth is reserved for
different programs.
Offload processor tasks to network adapter's with intelligent
processors.
Open Regedit and Find
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
Edit or
Create the REG_DWORD key "DisableTaskOffload" and set it to 0 to Enable the Task
Offload. By default, if this key is present, it's set to 1 to disable the task
offload.
Details from Microsoft.
Drive
Performance
Some drives have
configurable acoustic levels. They sacrifice performance for quiet. You can
always turn off acoustic management for maximum performance.
Shortening Menu
Delay
You can shorten the delay
when menus open up by using Regedit to edit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Control Panel /
Desktop / MenuShowDelay By default, the value is 400, but changing it to a
smaller value, such as 100, will speed it up.
Other
Resources
TweakHound is a good site to go for more tips.
TweakXP is a good site to go
for more tips.
Windowsxp AtoZ is a good resource.
Windowsxp.nu is also a good
resource.
X-Setup can help tweak
settings.
Cachemem can
help tweak cache - memory settings.
Super Win Software makes several tools for tweaking including
Add/Remove pro
TCP restrictions in Microsoft’s latest Windows XP service
pack—SP2—could slowdown P2P download activity according to a post on
Tech-Recipes. It seems that by design SP2 limits the number of simultaneous
incomplete outbound TCP connection attempts.
Once the rate is reached, subsequent connection attempts are
placed in a queue eventually to be resolved at a fixed rate. Rumors are
already around the internet that this slows down programs that open multiple
TCP connections at once. Port scanners are a good example of this. Some P2P
might be effect as well in theory.
XP TCP FIX http://mitglied.lycos.de/lvllord/download-mirror.htm
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