[quote]Fool proof guide to making a network run fast xp:
Turn off windows themes
Install Firefox
Install the following add-ons: no script, ad block
Install a disk manager that defrags in background
Create an account for daily use that is not an administrator
With this I have a netbook that is snappy, gets 10h battery life, and only gets bogged down if I try to seriously game. I don’t even run an anti-virus program. This takes under 30 minutes ONCE in the lifetime of the computer. I have not had to tinker under the hood for over a year.[/quote]
Questions:
Why is using a non-administrator account faster?
Google Chrome seems faster than Firefox to me. Does no on else think so?
Isn’t disk defragging no longer all that important these days? Furthermore, isn’t having it run in the background just a drag on performance?
Do these tips apply only to netbooks, or are they useful for desktops running Windows 7, too?
Why is using a non-administrator account faster?[/quote]
It doesn’t directly. However it does increase your computer’s security and reduce its susceptibility to having adware, malware, and other nasty bits installed. These nasty bits do have a way of making computers run more slowly.
[quote]
2. Google Chrome seems faster than Firefox to me. Does no on else think so?[/quote]
The race for faster browsers is definitely a hot one these days, with new versions of javascript engines jockeying for benchmark supremacy. Chrome is a very tightly written browser and it can certainly be very snappy. That said, Firefox is also quite fast. Installing a bunch of addons can make Firefox render more slowly, depending on the addons. That said, many addons for FF make up for the slight increases in raw computing time by increasing your productivity. (e.g. it may take your computer time to run the adblocking addon, but it saves you time not having to download the ads).
Disk defragging is definitely important, especially if you constantly install and uninstall and especially if you are using up a significant portion of your hdd space (although it is definitely possible to get into a state where you have many fragments but a low total hdd usage). Background disk defrag doesn’t actually perform defragging all the time, it just silently reorganizes and removes fragmentation when no user activity is taking place.
All of those tips are applicable for any type of computer, even Linux and Mac OS X.
Wow, thanks for the explanations on this. I’m a freelancer without an IT department to fall back on, so this stuff really helps.
Disk defragging is definitely important, especially if you constantly install and uninstall and especially if you are using up a significant portion of your hdd space (although it is definitely possible to get into a state where you have many fragments but a low total hdd usage). Background disk defrag doesn’t actually perform defragging all the time, it just silently reorganizes and removes fragmentation when no user activity is taking place.[/quote]
I have a set stable of programs that rarely changes. Maybe twice a year I try something new. I have ten years worth of MS Word documents and other sundry textual files amounting to 14 GB (and always growing), and 60 GB of mp3 files (sometimes grows). In total I have 132 GB of used space on a 300 GB drive.
(And all of this is backed up on a secondary drive, a portable drive, and an online host – see how careful I am? Schmart, eh?)
So do I really need to defrag? It just never occurs to me, and my current system seems to run really fast.
[quote=“rousseau”]So do I really need to defrag? It just never occurs to me, and my current system seems to run really fast.
Just curious.[/quote]
The one easy way to tell if you need to defrag is simply to open your defragment program and choose the analyze disk option. It will scan the hdd for a few seconds and then report the fragmentation percentage. Usually at this point, most defrag programs will either recommend a defrag or tell you that no defrag is necessary. However, Windows Vista and 7 replaces most of the interactivity of defragging and does it in the background by default. I don’t find its background defragging quality as good as a manual defrag though. If you are on Vista/7, you can get a third party defragmenter like Defraggler. I highly recommend that.
Actually there is a myth maybe that it is difficult to maintain a well running Windows computer. It’s actually not so hard if you just install a handful of programs (a good browser is really like 90% of that) and turn on automatic updates.
You have a harddrive that says “120 GB” and you know you can put 120 GB of files on it. What you don’t realize is how they are stored. It is NOT linear.
say you have:
MP3 = M
Video =V
Game= G
Document =D
when you store them into the drive you think it is like :
[MMMVVVGGGDDD]
But really the computer throws the parts of the files into free space where it can so it could end up:
[MVVMGMDDGGD]
This causes a performance problem because anytime the OS wants to load the movie, it must scan across the whole drive until it finds all the pieces.
Defragging rearranges your harddrive so that all the parts to a file are “next” to each other. Making them easier to access.
If you have a good defragging program that runs in the background, it uses free system resources to keep moving all the pieces of your files “next” to each other. If you look at “task manager” in windows (ctrl+alt+del -> task manager) you will usually see “System Idle Process” at around 98% of your CPU. This is just the part of your CPU not being used. So when the defrag program runs, it is using the computer stuff you don’t need to maintain the system. If you used 99% of your resources, only 1% would be for fragmenting. It has no effect on you.
Google Chrome seems faster than Firefox to me. Does no on else think so?[/quote]
The race for faster browsers is definitely a hot one these days, with new versions of javascript engines jockeying for benchmark supremacy. Chrome is a very tightly written browser and it can certainly be very snappy. That said, Firefox is also quite fast. Installing a bunch of addons can make Firefox render more slowly, depending on the addons. That said, many addons for FF make up for the slight increases in raw computing time by increasing your productivity. (e.g. it may take your computer time to run the adblocking addon, but it saves you time not having to download the ads).
[/quote]
I’ve found Firefox’s last 2 updates to be quite unstable. 3.6.2 and .3 have seen more crashes (for me) than any other version, and I’ve been using it since Firebird days. After 3.6.3 crashed twice within 20 mins of installing, I got annoyed and have just switched everything over to Chrome.
I applied what ya adviced djlowballer - seem my laptop is running better now.
I defragged using defraggler, went back to using Firefox (it loads pages quicker, but eats a lot of CPU, roughly 25 - 40% as I write), created a seperate user account (but still logging in as the administrator, the new account is barebones right now), and ran CCleaner (same software firm that does defraggler).
Any other useful advice? The faster my pc is, the better!
[quote=“cfimages”]
I’ve found Firefox’s last 2 updates to be quite unstable. 3.6.2 and .3 have seen more crashes (for me) than any other version, and I’ve been using it since Firebird days. After 3.6.3 crashed twice within 20 mins of installing, I got annoyed and have just switched everything over to Chrome.[/quote]
Could be related to your addons? On the computer I am typing on right now, I do not have a single crash logged in the Crash Reports folder (entire computer reinstalled in mid-January).
Also, if we’re talking about seniority, i’ve used Firefox since the days it was known as Phoenix.
[quote=“jashsu”][quote=“cfimages”]
I’ve found Firefox’s last 2 updates to be quite unstable. 3.6.2 and .3 have seen more crashes (for me) than any other version, and I’ve been using it since Firebird days. After 3.6.3 crashed twice within 20 mins of installing, I got annoyed and have just switched everything over to Chrome.[/quote]
Could be related to your addons? On the computer I am typing on right now, I do not have a single crash logged in the Crash Reports folder (entire computer reinstalled in mid-January).
Also, if we’re talking about seniority, I’ve used Firefox since the days it was known as Phoenix. [/quote]
Possibly, but I don’t use too many and they are all up to date. I’m mostly liking Chrome so far though, with the exception of the occasional page that doesn’t load.
I’ve switched over to Chrome for a few months now because it has this fine feature of syncing bookmarks through a Google account so I don’t have to rely on an additional step to do it (MobileMe only syncs bookmarks to IE in Windows so I have to run the built-in import feature in FF from time to time).
Chrome also feels faster than FF.
There are also some other tools one can run to optimize his network performance. TCP/IP Optimizer, for instance, can tweak some of the network settings to speed up your internet. YMMV of course.
If you did what I told you, you are at about the best an average user will be. There are advanced tweaking applications available, but you can really screw up your computer so I advise against it.
