need help improving comp performance

from Stardock Forums

was wondering if anyone could help me, some how over the years I've had this comp, I got at least 45 background processes running on it, and that doesn't seem right , and it seems to be killing the performance on my higher end games.


Is there any software free or not that could help  get rid  of these processes that are screwing me up?  Hopefully legal of course:)

46,507 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Here is a page from the web archives, that was posted by BlackViper.

His home page seems to be down for construction, or perhaps another reason.

You will find a list of all processes included in an XP w/SP2 Operating System, and columns for user categories showing the service option selected.

You would then use: Start > Run > Type: services.msc > hit Enter > go through the services that are listed in the chart as being safe to disable, and disable it.

Note - I would not recommend disabling the System Restore service, unless you do not use that function.

Some users set up a different profile, or account including profile, for gaming.

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Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

My links are not working for some reason.

One last try http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6121-0.html?forumID=45&threadID=22053&messageID=1269644

This one will go to the posting at CNet, which offers two archive links to BlackViper's page postings.

Otherwise, just do a Google search for BlackViper, and use the link to reviews.cnet.com

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I just tried the trial of win tasks pro, it helped somewhat, but alot of the importent processes still take up at least 31% of memory, would the only way to see performance increase to upgrade ram? I have 512 on now.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Increasing RAM is the single most effective way to see improved performance.

This would help with gaming as well, though the other factor is the video card.

High end games try to take advantage on the "GPU" (Graphic Processing Unit), which acts similar to the CPU (Central Processing Unit) in your computer. This releases the CPU from having to process all video information, and makes the computer much more responsive.

The memory included on the video card is also a factor, due to the fact that your screen refreshes (redraws) its image many times per second (60 Hz = 60 refreshes per second - for example). The information for the change in on screen item locations is stored in memory, which is then accessed by the video card (adapter) to display the information. This is significantly improved if you have a large amount of memory to hold the information (basically like a buffer), and the inclusion of a GPU on the card can process this information without a read/write procedure through the CPU - which takes time.

Long story short:

For good game performance, you will want (1) Good video card, (2) Minimum of 128 MB memory on the video card, (3) 1 GB+ of RAM on the motherboard, and (4) Good cooling system.

Other considerations, though not critical, would be - a fast CPU, fast Front Side Bus.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Well my specs are :


radieon 9600 pro,


512 ram


pentium 4 2.4 ghz


not sure of cooling system.  So I'm guessing  it may be time to upgrade the ram

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Radeon 9600 series are decent cards, and the P4 is just fine, so I would agree that upgrading the RAM would be your best bet for the money.

It should at least give you better performance in general computing, and some improvement in games - depending on the game - and is a very simple procedure.

Note - the cooling system will consist of fans (CPU if one exists, power supply fan, and any case fans). If you have case fans, you will just want to make sure to route the wires in the case to allow the best air flow across the CPU, video card, and motherboard - and then out of the case. This is easily done by getting some compressed air to blow out any dust in the case , fans, and in the CPU heat sink fins - then use one or two "zip-ties" if needed, to hold the wires out of the air flow path.

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you have 45 processes running chances are you dont need them all.

First thing to do is hit start/run, type msconfig then look under startup tab. This is a list of all programs starting up with windows. Uncheck the ones you know you dont need on startup. You can play with this a little and do only a few at a time then restart and do few more. A tuned computer with SP2 can have less than 15 processes but that is bare minimum and some services are disabled. The BlackViper site someone suggested is cool, but becareful what you disable.

More suggestions:
Defrag your hard drive
Keep your spyware up-to-date (i use spybot)
Registry cleaner (registry mechanic) clean your registry


Hardware:
Based on your specs...your hardware is fine.

Turn off all widgets/docks before gaming.

Hope this helps...
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
pc mag has a great program you can buy (like $5) thats called startup cop and its a great way to stop the useless programs from starting when you start windows. you can and they will start if you need them but it helps keep the prosses's on the light side
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
A few of my tips for a better running windows box would be to find out which are vital windows processes and one by one, kill the rest. Some things you might consider are essential like a running AV but it's worth checking if your AV is using heuristics which will hammer performance. Anything over 30 processes and you have too many running if performance is your main goal.

I'd stay away from tweaker type software, especially stuff that runs with Windows, claiming to speed this or that up. In all cases such software just adds to the complexity of windows and you want to be simpifying.

Defrag wont do much, if anything for ntfs but if it makes you feel better

If you have hard drives on different channels, start using multiple swap files, that will increase performance.

If you're running a fairly old install of Windows with service packs and patches on top, think about slip streaming your windows and starting again.

If starting again becomes an option then smart partitioning can really help performance. Keep C as small as possible, re-assign things like my docs to another drive dedicated to constantly changing data (you can use microsofts TweakUI to do this). Dont install games on C, put them on another drive/partition, the less you put on C, the smoother it will stay for longer.

Kill indexing, system restore and every service you dont need. If you think you need system restore then you just haven't begun to get a proper backup strategy in place and that should be a priority.

Adding more ram will help but its debatable whether you'll notice any real improvement without benchmarking it. 512mb is a sweet spot, adding more isn't going to give you much but its still a good idea if you can afford it.

Check how fast your hard drive is, benchmark it and think about spending upgrade money on a new or additional drive if that looks like a weak point.

If you have onboard sound, dump it, get a real sound card that has its own memory. That will help a lot in games. I'd wager that the difference between upgrading a 512mb system to 1gb and upgrading onboard sound to a real sound card is great enough to consider the sound card option first. Modern games need a fair chunk of cpu and ram to do the environmental audio, a card dedicated to this is a big help in gaming.

Keep on top of the latest drivers for your graphics card, big performance improvements can be gained there.

Your system is still pretty powerful and you should be getting decent performance in all games at a reasonable resolution and with mild tweaking to the games eye candy settings.

Hope at least one of these tips helps.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Here are 99 PC performance tips: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1590

I've used most, if not all, of them, and it definitely speeds things up.

As others have said, try to keep your running processes to a minimum. With a little time you can weed out what you don't need better than installing a 3rd party program to do it for you, and you'll become more familiar with your system.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You can also find speed tweaks at speedguide.net, both for your PC and your internet connection if you have cable or DSL connection.

http://www.speedguide.net/

If Black Viper's site is still down, the elder geek has a similar list of Windows services, and tells which you can safely disable.
http://theeldergeek.com/services_guide.htm
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

A clean install of Windows XP does the trick also.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for all the tips, I'm going to start going thru the 99 tips and see what I can do.  Some follow up questions, where can I find the name and version of my mother board, tried Dxdiag but couldn't find it.  Also


where can I find a good registry cleaner?  Heh I just reinstall windows too, got the boot time down from 1:45 to 25 seconds

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you get a tool called Everest it is pretty good at identifying the motherboard http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.php?pid=1&lang=en

If that doesn't help, when your computer starts up look in the corner of the the screen for the the BIOS identification string. Make a note of this and feed it into Google. That should pull up your motherboard model. You can use the PAUSE key to give you more time to write it down. I dont think this works for all chipsets but chance are it will.

As for a registry cleaner, the only one I'd recommend is called JV16 Power Tools. It smokes the competition that I'm aware of but I'm by no means an expert.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
A whole list of registry tools: http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads15.html
I've used Registry Mechanic (it's shareware, so some features are disabled) and RegScrubXP (make sure you make a backup before you make any extensive changes. A lot of people like Erunt for registry backups.
CCleaner (don't have a link, just Google it) is also a decent registry cleaner, as well as cleaning out your temp files, recycle bin, etc...
Sisoftware Sandra will also give your motherboard and chipset info: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download92.html
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
just ran registry mechanic looks like I'm going to need to registered it since, the most of the errors are of course not on the trial verison area