PCTech Forums

Hey guys, just thinking, how can you keep your PC tuned well so that it performs better ( faster ). I can remember that with my old PC at first it was fast then over the months it became really slow.
Now with my new PC its fast, but only recently i noticed that boot up takes a little longer. And the time for the desktop to restore after playing a game like BF2 takes 6-8 seconds, where within the first few days of this PC it took not even 1.

So maybe there is something wrong? or are there some steps to follow for regular PC tune ups.


Cheers

There are a few things you can do to keep it running faster.

Startup programs:
This is probably the most important thing to look at.
As you add more programs to your system a lot of them will add things to windows startup.
This least amount of thing running at start means more system resources for other things like games.
Most software comes with the option to turn off the startup setting you just have to find it but not all do.
For those you can use msconfig, click Start > Run > type msconfig and press enter.
Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the items you do not want to start with windows.
Don’t get carried away though windows has to have certain things running to work.

Below is a list of what starts on my system use as a guide as to what to leave:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccEvtMgr.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\crypserv.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\navapsvc.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\AdvTools\NPROTECT.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\nvsvc32.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccApp.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe


Defrag:
Run defrag on you hard drive about once a month, for NTFS drives.
Keeping your hard drive and the page file defraged will help the system to run faster.


Installing programs:
Keep it to a minimum, every time you add a new program to windows it creates more registry keys making the registry get larger and larger.
Thus taking longer and longer to load because of the shear size of the registry.
My current registry is just over 21mb, a little large I’m afraid but I have a lot installed that I use.
I’ve seen registries that were over 50mb that’s a lot data to read through.


Temporary File folders:
Keep them all cleaned out, there are three main temp folders you have to worry about, they are:
C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5
C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Temp
C:\WINDOWS\Temp

You won’t be able to delete everything in there like index.dat and a .tmp file or two.

Thanks mate, will foolow thoes steps..

Actually, say if the registry is larger than 20mb, how or wat should be done in order to make it smaller again?

First thing you need to do is run Lilpink's crap cleaner---Google CCleaner and run it.

Then go here and download the erunt file it also has the ntregopt and run them both. One will do a FULL backup of your registry (windows won"t do this it skips several hives )

Then go to and download page defrag and run that

Then defrag the drive and you should be good to go.

I recommend Registry Mechanic, I use it and it has done wonders for my start up times and overall speed, it can compact your registry for faster performance, and also find and fix errors.