Speed Up Your Computer

Hi everyone.

Thx for the great advice and file sharing.

Heres a couple of hacks give your system better performance if theres any more interest i will post some more.

Don't have many games or movies so I want to give somthing back that may help a few.

If your not comfortable with your registry then please ignore.

#1

Windows 95/98/ME users ONLY:
"Run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\BIOS

In the right hand pane create a new DWORD Value called "CPUPriority" (no quotes) -> double-click on it -> check the Decimal box -> type 1 -> click OK to save.
This will speed things up by using the fastest priority to the CPU when opening any program, and works on 99% of the PCs I've tried it on.
To reset to Windows 9x/ME default type 3 or delete this Value altogether.
To see your system's real time performance type 0 (NOT recommended by Microsoft!).
In some cases this Registry BIOS key is absent, because enabling the BIOS power management feature (APM) and the Win9x/ME ACPI BIOS extentions may disable it!
Make sure there is a Plug and Play BIOS item listed in Control Panel -> System -> Device Manager -> System devices.

Here are other DWORD Values (Decimal) you can use to tweak your CPU Priority even further (under the same Registry key above):

PCIConcur = 1 (enabled)
FastDRAM = 1 (enabled)
AGPConcur = 1 (enabled) [if your video controller is AGP based].
These settings speed up hardware specific operations by allowing installed devices to use extra CPU cycles: PCI, AGP and/or DRAM based I/O transfers from the motherboard interface/bus/bridge (PCI, AGP, DRAM) [-> to the motherboard chipset/bus/bridge where applicable] -> to the CPU, and the other way around."

MEANING:

"CPUPriority" DWORD valid Decimal values:

0 = The foreground (active) app/game is assigned exclusive CPU cycles (real time priority). WARNING: Use with caution!
1 = All open apps/games (foreground and background) benefit from a few more CPU cycles than loaded Win32 TSRs/DLLs/Runtimes/APIs.
2 = All open apps/games (foreground and background) benefit from even more CPU cycles than loaded Win32 TSRs/DLLs/Runtimes/APIs.
3 = All apps/games/TSRs/DLLs/Runtimes/APIs share same CPU cycles (default, same as "CPUPriority" absent from Registry).

#2
This Registry hack applies to all Windows 2000 and XP releases only.

"When you connect to a web site, your computer is sent DNS -> IP resolver data from your DNS (Domain Naming System) server. This data is stored in a local data cache on your machine so that when you go to a web site more than once, your machine doesn't have to ask for that location every time. Although Win2000 and XP have a pretty efficient DNS cache, you may want to increase its overall performance by increasing its size. To do this, run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters

Modify/create these DWORD [REG_DWORD] values: "CacheHashTableBucketSize", "CacheHashTableSize", "MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit" and "MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit".
The Decimal values that seem to work well are (consecutively): 384, 64000, 301 and 300. There are other parameters within this key, but unless you fully understand how the TCP/IP and DNS systems function, you should leave them unchanged."