Tips To Speed Up Your Workstation

[Dr.Hard]

Hi There...

You all must be owning a machine at home and I am sure many of you won't be liking the way the machine is revving and you sometimes cannot own the kind of a machine which you might be using at work... I thought about giving some simple tips to make that box sitting at your home to work faster for you ... Trust me..all the tips that I am throwing out here has been tested and I have been neck deep into this for 12+ years now.....

Ok To start with ... If you are "still"  using windows to work on maya, max what ever then I would recommend to disable some services which eats up processor time and memory... 

Hmm some warning now... disabling some
services can cause installed applications to fail, so I recommend you to disable unnecessary services one at a time, and test out the applications which you use regularly to ensure they still function correctly before you touch another one.


1. Computer Browser

[Do you have a network at home? do you use the network view? if not you don't really need this service]

2. Distributed Link Tracking Client

[Again if you don't have a network at home and if you dont have a domain or somthing at home then you dont need this service]

3. Distributed Transaction Coordinator

[Keeps a tab on which database is getting accessed in your system.. hmm do you have oracle in your machine then you might need it else you don't ]

4. Fax Service

[You know what to do]

5. Indexing Service

[Unless you have a special need for a full text index searching of all local
files in your hard drive , I recommend disabling it. For everyday usage this really speeds up the comp.]

6. Netlogon service

[If you are logging onto a domain then leave it running . Otherwise set it to Manual mode]

7. Network DDE

[Again if you have a network running at home with "windowsNT3.5" I am sure you wont have one running with that.. turn it to manual mode]

8. Print Spooler

[If you dont have a printer then set it to manual.. this saves up lots of memory]

9. Remote Registry Service

[Do you want your machine's registry to be modified remotely by someone? if not then turn it to manual start]

10. Runas service

[Generally this service is used by the admins in a network to install something in your machines with out logging off. At home you are your admin and you have the super power to do anything so you can safely set it to manual mode of startup]



Ok... this is for the first post. Keep checking this thread.. I will definitely  give some cool tips to make your home comp faster n faster n ...I hope this post will be helpful in making your pet workstations faster and will make your research, your demo reels, games or what ever faster and better....

10 More will follow in my next post ......

-Dr.Hard

[dynafx]

Dr. Hard - Those are wonderful tips & i'm already started doing those. awaiting your next 10 tips.



if you could provide a graphic picture(screengrab), like what exactly
where to do etc., bcoz, not all will be knowing these and how &
where to do these . That might really help lots of people. just a
thought.

[Abhishek]

Hey Dr. Hard [nice Nick],

Great tips !! I was looking out for something like that as my PC has gon way too slow and needed some experts guidence for that. Just had a question in my mind regarding your tips no. 1 and 2.

Since most of us use the internet that connects our ISP through our LAN card, or basically through a LAN. Wont it affect our connection to the ISP if we stop the services of Computer Browser and Distributed Link Tracking Client ?

Looking for more tips from you. Can u share some software specific points too ?? Will be great !!

[Dr.Hard]

Since most of us use the internet that connects our ISP through our LAN
card, or basically through a LAN. Wont it affect our connection to the
ISP if we stop the services of Computer Browser and Distributed Link Tracking Client ?

The browser service is used to maintain the list of computers you see in
the Network Neighborhood. If you dont wish to see the list of computers then it is perfectly safe to disable this service. For a regular TCP access such as browsing or P2P clients such as Limewire many of these service are not needed.

Windows being a "EveryOne's" operating system is designed to support everything anyone would ever connect to it. But we all end up turning on all these services with ever using it. This takes a lot of the CPU cycles which you wouldn't want it to.

Distributed Link Tracking Client service sends information of files moving between NTFS drives in a network domain. A single pc connected to internet does not need this service. Infact if speeds up your disk access considerebly as the list of files you copy,move is not being audited and sent across the TCP block. Was it too technical.. let me know can simplify some more 

DynaFx.. it is very easy to configure the services in the windows..

1. Click Start
2. Click Settings
3. Click Control Panel
4. Double click Services
5. Select the service you want to modify
6. Click the Startup button
7. Select Disabled or Manual under Startup Type


Or

1. Right click on "My Computer"
2. Select the option "Manage"
3. Expand the option "services" ( look at the image attached)
4. Now in the right side pane you will find all the services listed.
5. Select the one you would like to tweak.
6. Right click and select "Properties"
7. In the drop down option "Startup Type"
8. Select option manual for the service I have mentioned.
9. Remember "One At A Time"

10 More Tips to fasten the machine in my next post...  hmm need some feed back.
Have some simple tweaks to fasten the graphics port of your machine... imagine all the games you can play which you could have never played in that machine.... ...




-Dr.Hard

[kippu]

i belong to the "if its not broken, dont fix it " category ....in my past whenever i have decided to "tweak" the computer , i have ended up wasting a lot of time on other things that tentatively follow up on me ......its "windows" we are talking about ... anything can go wrong



but hey good tips..... btw ..is there any physical time or memory on how much these unwanted services take up ?

[andy_maxman]

if its windows - the one thing i kill for sure are the so-called 'windows  ornaments'

deskptop>properties>appearance>effects and kill all of them...

try it out...have all of them 'on' and minimize a window and put all of them 'off' and then minimize a window....and that is a big help when applied to anyother package as refreshing gets much  quicker this way and not the windows animated way...

[Dr.Hard]

Hey Ppl ..

This time it is some more tuning tips to make your workstations faster than before...
Its all about the unwanted service which M$ runs in your machine which you would never want to run...  Hey but make sure you have read the warning message in my first post before attempting all these below...

Hmm  now we get down to stop some unwanted programs eating up our processor...

1.Alerter service

[This service is alerting the administrators if there is any error in the service which  your workstations provides like anything wrong in the shared folder etc.. hey just think you run your home workstation for you or for everyone else connected in a network along with you? if you dont have anything to do with the errors which come n go when you do something with a shared folder then you can set it to run manually]

2. Clipbook service

[This service has been around since the time windows NT3.5. This is for sharing the clipboard "a peice of memory used for keeping the contents when you press ctrl+c. This can be safely disabled coz no program running now uses this service.]

3. Performance Logs and Alerts

[If you keep a continous tabs on your comps performance and you are able to understand the gizmosic log of it then you can keep it running else it is safe to set it to manual mode of startup. As I have seen this service eats up good amount of CPU cycles.]

4. Routing and Remote Access

[This service is for providing routing services to compters in local area along with you if you belive in social service and want to give routing services to any of the computers in your lan then you can leave it running else better to set it to manual mode. It is also safe to stop it if you are on a DSL internet link]


Try this out one by one and see the performance of the machine. Remember One At A Time!!!

Will further post tips for....

Speedin up your disk for faster read and write....
Faster memory cache for better graphics....
Use your USB drive as your Machine Memory !!! I am Sure you guys will love this .. Hmm A Little more work on it and you all will be able to use your USB disk as your computers memory....

Keep checking and post your feed back on this thread!!!

-Dr.Hard

[dynafx]

Originally Posted by Dr.Hard

Speedin up your disk for faster read and write....
Faster memory cache for better graphics....
Use your USB drive as your Machine Memory !!! I am Sure you guys will love this .. Hmm A Little more work on it and you all will be able to use your USB disk as your computers memory....


-Dr.Hard

Thanks for all your tips.

USB drive as machine Memory !!!!!!!!!! that sounds great. awainting more posts from you

[Dr.Hard]

Hi Fellas...

Long time... Now for some solid tips (Hmm I guess I should call these as Tweaks?) to make your XP machine faster.. atleast 20% faster than before... tried and tested methods.. only for anim ppl....

As usual Dr.Hard says " TRY ONE AT A TIME "

Tweak 1 : Disable XP Themes

[Right click the desktop and
select Properties.In the dropdown
listbox under Theme:, select Windows Classic and
Apply]

Tweak 2 : Disable XP Visual Effects

[Open the System
Control Panel box
On the Advanced tab,
select Settings in the Performance tab
On the Visual
Effects tab, select Adjust for best performance
and Apply
Turn on (select)
Smooth edges of screen fonts
Turn on any other
options you think you cannot live without and
Apply]

Tweak 3 : Disable Last Access Timestamp(Trust me this really makes difference!)

[Everytime you access a file, read it, write something the file gets accessed again later by the OS to record the last accessed date and time. If you dont want this
feature then do this in the command prompt

(Works only in XP with SP2 maybe with out SP also check it out)

FSUTIL behavior set
disablelastaccess 1


To enable back the last accessed time stamp marking do

FSUTIL behavior set
disablelastaccess 0

]

These were the simpler tweaks.. Next Post will be with superior tuning tips dealing with registry meant for expert users but hey .. wait I will make it simpler and easier.. check out my next post... post back your feedbacks if any!!!

-Dr.Hard

[myth]

hey dr hard,,,,

great tips dude... but it will be more helpful if u can put some screen caps along with ur text...

waiting to know more

[Dr.Hard]

Hmm.. how do I put in images? I don't have enough webspace in my website... can anyone let me know some way to do this?

My next tweakin tips will be for serious comp users who work in the home comps extensively and wish to do the work easily and faster.... specially for XP 

-Dr.Hard

[dynafx]

Originally Posted by Dr.Hard

Hmm.. how do I put in images? I don't have enough webspace in my website... can anyone let me know some way to do this?

My next tweakin tips will be for serious comp users who work in the home comps extensively and wish to do the work easily and faster.... specially for XP 

-Dr.Hard

use PHOTOBUCKET for uploading the images & link the url here. Screen grabs will make life easy for many of them,

importantly, all the tips you are posting has to be only in admin rights?

[brajesh]

hi nice tweaks to make pc faster. most of ur tips were known to me and I always  follow them. it seems we are similar minded.

a good way to make pc startup in less than 5 seconds.

Instead of shutdown I always use to hibernate my PC and then  turn off my ups.

to hybernate click start -> shut down ->when  three buttons appear press shift and icon will change to hibernate and click over it .Next time u start ur pc u will get it in the same status such as max/maya oped  if u were copying some file it will continue further and so. it is realy great feature. try it and u will never turn off your PC.

I have configured when i press my power button of pc it hybernates insted of shutdown

 

 

[Sampat_Shetty]

gr8 tips i was facing some above problems

thanx

[Dr.Hard]

Hi Fellas..

Time for some serious tweak for your windows XP machine. Try this out and you would see atleast 10% increase in the machine response. Try this only if you have a Gig of memory or more in your home computer, remember "HOME" computer. Don't try this at your workplace.. your admin might not like you fiddling with the machine settings...  .. Do this and you can always tell him that your home comp is faster than the machine at work !!!!

As many of you have told I have kept some images so that these tweaking tips would be useful for everyone with out much of "fiddling" knowledge in the comp. My P4 with 1Gig memory on XP proff is faster than a Athlon of the similar config after this tweak.

For people with Patience level <10 ... GoTo Step 1 directly

People with patience level > 100.. read through and understand what you are going to tweak..

Some "Gyan" tips before we get started to do what we want to do here....

Gyan Tip 1:

An entry called "DisablePagingExecutive" in the
registry prevents the kernel ( its the basic brain of the OS) from being copied to paging file of your hard disk. The tweak which I am putting out here causes the OS
to cache the kernel and its supporting "shisya" programes to RAM instead
of the disk, which makes XP far more faster. Just imagine the core part of the OS loads and operates from the RAM it self so there is a real response difference.

Gyan Tip 2:

"RAM" is faster than "RAVAN". Hard disk our "RAVAN"( Goes super corrupt all the time in the time of need) and we know it is slow...making the comp also slow. So we move the important work to faster part of the machine through this OS tweak. RAM transfers things in and out of it in the speeds of 1Gig per second and the hard drive transfers somewhere between 40 to 60 MB per second. Now you can guess the performance difference.

Follow the steps one by one to tweak the XP to do what we want to do. I am mentioning the steps one by one with the supporting images for newbies. If you know many of these steps then please skip to where you can make out.

Step 1:

Open the registry editor by typing regedit in the run option.




Step 2:

Expand the directory structure as shown in the image below till you come to the folder called "Control". Follow the expanded folder structure in the image...



Step3:

Expand the folder "Control" and scroll down till you find the folder called "Session Manager". Expand the folder "Session Manager" and select the folder called "Memory Management" as shown in the image below.



Step 4:

Now in the right side pane find a value called "DisablePagingExecutive". Right click on it and select the option "Modify". Once clicked you will get a small window like the one shown below...



Now in the text box called "value Data" change the value from "0" (zero) to "1"(one) as shown the image above and click "OK" to save the settings.

Wait ... still one more step to go..

Step 5:

Now in the right side pane find a value called "LargeSystemCache". Right click and select "Modify" . You will see a small window like the one  below.  Modify the "Value Data" from "0" to "1" like you see in the image below.. Click ok to save the settings.



Step 6:

Restart the computer to apply the settings.




Now for some simple testing... hey did you restart before testing? if not restart then go ahead reading from here

Open any application you would use normally once. Don't see any changes in the speed? wait ... close the application and re-open it... you will see the performance difference directly....


Post back your feed back if you find this post useful. More Gyan oops sorry ... more tweaks to follow...

-Dr.Hard

Dr.Hard39051.3488194444

[sudhir gaikwad]

@DR.HARD its nice to reieve such good tips i have followed all of them rite from the start.....some of them wrere alreaedy have been followed ,rest settings have been followed sucesfully,,,,stil my comp is just 1o % faster....any more tips let it come...thanx for the above
Gyan Tip 2:
ur gyan tip 2....?????.....did the tweaking make any diffrence??/

[murtaza007]

thanks for all these useful tips but can u pls help me that wer can i find all these settings mentioned above pls reply

[anusankar]

this is my post before my experiment...i dont knonw wat miracle comes to my pc? a bit fear on heart......

[dynafx]

on behalf of DR.Hard

Dr.Hard is out of action due to professional schedule, he had promised to comeback with more tips , soon.

[sajeelshukla]

thanks for the tips guys gonna try this stuff out over the weekend