Performance Tips

Performance Tips

                These are likely not all the performance tips, but they are made the significant differences on my system. I've seen a lot out there are not made much difference. These are a few I've seen actually help.


How to Increasing Memory


               If you have a Windows95 of 16-32 megs of memory, you will see a significant increase in performance by changing it to atleast 64 megs. Prices have gone down dramatically in the past few years. Your computer won't be swapping to the hard drive nearly as much. The maximum useful memory for Windows95 is 64 megs. It doesn't do well with memory over that and may actually reduce your performance. Windows98 has removed that bottleneck. Currently I have 128 megs and am quite satisfied with better performance.



Get a Faster Hard Drive


              There are newer hard drives that spin at 7200 RPMs rather than the more common 5400 RPMs. This means that you will get to your data reasonably faster. If you can afford it, I would recommend this as well.
           
The first two might cost you some money. On the other hand they will usually provide the most noticeable difference.


Here some things you can do for free


How to Defrag the Hard Drive


             I will do this fairly frequently by Once a month or so. There are a few things I do first to make sure I don't waste time defragging unnecessary files.

• You need to delete the Internet Explorer Temporary Files and History.
• Delete TMP and BAK files.
• Coming to third step first delete any files and directories in the \TEMP and \WINDOWS\TEMP directories
• Defragment without the swapfile. The instructions for this can be found at Defragmenting the Swap File
• Windows98 has a built-in utility called Disk Cleanup. You can run it from either the Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Cleanup or directly run CLEANMGR.EXE

File System Settings


If you have 64 megs or more of memory you increase the performance of your system.

1. Go to Control Panel ->System Properties -> Performance -> File System.
2. Change the typical role of this computer to Network Server.

If you have Win95 SR1, and you do not see a performance increase, occasionally the NameCache and PathCache values are written to the registry incorrectly for the Network Server. To fix the problem:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Server

Make sure the following values are being used:

• PathCache=40 00 00 00

• NameCache=a9 0a 00 00

No New Floppy Detect

              While you are in that section, click on the Floppy Disk tab and uncheck Search for new floppy disks... This will speed up your boot time.

Increasing Disk Performance

• Go to Start \ Settings \ Control Panel \ System \ Performance \ File System \ Troubleshooting
• Check the box Disable synchronous buffer commits.

DMA

              In the Device Manager, go to the settings your Hard Drives and CD ROMs. If any of them will allow a DMA box to be checked, you can try it. I've seen it decrease my CPU utilization.

Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files

             Make sure you don't have any unnecessary device drivers or programs here. Windows95 has most you will need already built into the OS.


Tags : Performance Tips, How to Increasing Memory, Get a Faster Hard Drive, How to Defrag the Hard Drive, File System Settings, No New Floppy Detect, Increasing Disk Performance, Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files, DMA, Performance Tricks, How to increase performance.

Posted in: Computer Tips