OT: Speeding up a slow computer

Renegade 13 · #1 December 2nd, 2007, 06:48 PM

My computer is a couple years old now, maybe 2.5 years old, and it's started slowing down from when it was new; an inevitable process if I'm not mistaken.

What I'm searching for is a way in which to boost performance, short of a drive reformat. I have my hard drive partitioned into 4 separate drives, C: is the Windows (XP) partition (40GB), with only it and the few poorly designed programs that won't allow themselves to be placed anywhere other than C:. D: is the games drive (50GB), nearly full. E: is the miscellaneous programs drive (50GB), nowhere near full. F: is the multimedia drive (50GB), pictures, music, videos, moderately full. Not sure if all that info's needed, but it can't hurt

I've defragmented all the drives with little effect, and am hoping for some additional suggestions to boost performance. Any suggestions would be most welcome

Thanks!

AstralWanderer · #2 December 2nd, 2007, 09:27 PM

The only comparable option to a Windows reinstall (which doesn't itself require a reformat) is to try to remove obsolete files and registry entries manually - and deleting the wrong ones could require a reinstall anyway. I'd suggest biting the bullet, reinstalling Windows - and using software like Total Uninstall to keep track of (and clear out) the junk programs leave behind in future.

You could try using a registry cleaner, but these will only pick up a tiny portion of the junk present. Clearing out programs that run on startup that you don't need (and disabling unnecessary Windows services) would likely be of greater benefit, if you haven't already done this.

Will · #3 December 3rd, 2007, 01:48 AM

Just about every desktop computer in the past several years has had the bottleneck at I/O instead of processing power. If you want a speedup, the way to get it is to reduce latency with I/O. From what you've said, I can think of two ways to do this:

1) Add more memory. Preferably the max your system allows. It takes microseconds to access data in memory, while it takes milliseconds to access data from disc. Maximizing memory allows you to cache more data in memory, which means you'll need to hit the slower discs less.

2) Split your discs. If you have four partitions on one disc, you still have the latency of one disc. And if you have the disc trying to access game data on disc while Windows is trying to access virtual memory, you got the read heads seeking all over the place on disc. Partitions are great for managing data and having a more modular approach to backup, but it doesn't do you any performance favors. Imaging your C: drive onto a new drive (10krpm helps) should help out a lot.

Fyron · #4 December 3rd, 2007, 03:59 AM

I've heard that some of the larger 7200 rpm drives are starting to approach the read rates of the 10k raptor type drives (at much more palatable $/GB ratios to boot). Notably, the latest 750 GB western digitals.

dogscoff · #5 December 3rd, 2007, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Will said:
Just about every desktop computer in the past several years has had the bottleneck at I/O instead of processing power.

2) Split your discs. If you have four partitions on one disc, you still have the latency of one disc.

Wouldn't it make more sense to move the swap rather than C: ?I guess it depends how much memory he has and how often the swap is used. Does Windows allow you to put your swap drive onto a USB flash drive? They tend to be pretty quick if you have a spare USB2 slot, and you can get a gig or two for pocket change these days. Then you could have Windows on one hard drive, games, programs and data on another and swap on USB, for super-fast performance=-)

But do max out your memory first, as Will suggests.

AstralWanderer · #6 December 3rd, 2007, 06:43 PM

dogscoff said:
Does Windows allow you to put your swap drive onto a USB flash drive? They tend to be pretty quick if you have a spare USB2 slot, and you can get a gig or two for pocket change these days. Then you could have Windows on one hard drive, games, programs and data on another and swap on USB, for super-fast performance=-)

Flash memory has slower data transfer rates when writing than hard disks (see this Ars Technica benchmark page) though reading is faster - the biggest advantage it offers is lower seek times.

A bigger downside of flash memory is the limit on the number of times it can be written to (typically in the tens or hundreds of thousands per block). Having data that is written to very frequently (which a swap file will be) may shorten a flash stick's lifespan to mere months.

Will · #7 December 4th, 2007, 02:22 AM

Quote:

dogscoff said:

Quote:

Will said:
Just about every desktop computer in the past several years has had the bottleneck at I/O instead of processing power.

2) Split your discs. If you have four partitions on one disc, you still have the latency of one disc.

Wouldn't it make more sense to move the swap rather than C: ?I guess it depends how much memory he has and how often the swap is used. Does Windows allow you to put your swap drive onto a USB flash drive? They tend to be pretty quick if you have a spare USB2 slot, and you can get a gig or two for pocket change these days. Then you could have Windows on one hard drive, games, programs and data on another and swap on USB, for super-fast performance=-)

But do max out your memory first, as Will suggests.

IIRC, it isn't normally possible to move the pagefile (swap) from C:. I'm sure there's some hack to get it stored elsewhere, but it's likely one of those annoying things that resets itself all the time, so more trouble than it's worth. As for using a thumbdrive as swap space, like AstralWanderer said, write times are slower. Although the overwriting of data isn't really that big of a deal unless you are doing very memory intensive tasks that start and stop new address spaces a lot (most people don't). It's easier for a virtual memory manager to keep a page in swap even after it's read back into main memory, since if the page is not dirty and is picked to go back into swap, the manager doesn't need to write it again, which increases performance a bit.

And Xrati has a good point as well. Norton et. al. tends to slow things down a lot, since they actively scan files in the background. Not computationally intensive, but very I/O intensive, and that will slow things down a lot. There's better products out there.

Fyron · #8 December 4th, 2007, 02:54 AM

I had no trouble at all moving swap to a different partition when my C was running out of space in the past. Maybe windows decided not to move it back to C due to lack of space, maybe it works as advertised. Hard to say. Still, I've always found claims of actual performance gain from shuffling swaps around to be rather dubious...

dogscoff · #9 December 4th, 2007, 06:52 AM

Well, 2 gigs is plenty for XP, I really don't think your slowdown is due to insufficient ram (unless you have a bad mem stick in there, I suppose). I think it's just Windows rot.

If that's the case, you can defrag and clear the registry and uninstall unwated crap to get some of your performance back but you really need to wipe the hard drive and re-install the OS (or re-install some OS, anyway). It's the only way to be sure.

Renegade 13 · #10 December 3rd, 2007, 05:23 PM

Currently I have 2GB RAM (4x512), and had always assumed that'd be sufficient for a Win XP system

Is it?

I have the drive partitioned mostly for convenience and organizational purposes; it's a hell of a lot easier to access a file when you know at least which partition it's in!

Would removing a bunch of unused programs serve to speed it up, at least a bit? For example, games I no longer play, etc.