NS05's Guide To An Optimized PC.

]Kevin

Hello, and welcome to my guide. If you follow this guide, I guarantee you'll see improvement in your PCs response time, allowing faster loading times and less system freezes. This should also free up a lot of your CPU usage which should help increase your FPS in-game and give you less lag.

Before we start:

To start off, you'll need two programs, both of which are free for download. You'll need ccleaner and defraggler. Make sure when you install these programs that you untick any options for add-on programs. You wont need them.

Read All Steps Carefully

Running a disk cleanup:

I'm sure many of you have done this before, but probably not the best way possible. Disk Cleanup has more useful options for cleaning up disk space. To open the program on Windows XP, click Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk cleanup. Choose the C: drive. On Windows Vista and Windows 7, just click Start, and type "disk cleanup" in the search box. Open it, then choose the C: drive. Now go to the MORE OPTIONS tab, and click "cleanup" for the System Restore/Shadow Copies. This will delete all the older restore points, except for the most recent. Your system may be unresponsive for a couple minutes, depending on how many restore points your system has set. Now go back to the main tab, and tick all the boxes listed. Then click "OK". Say yes to any questions asked.


Running ccleaner:



This handy program is known as "crap cleaner", and does exactly that. This free powerful tool will scan your system for unnecessary files and remove them. First open ccleaner. Go to the options tab, and then click advanced. Untick the box for "Only delete temp files older than 24 hours". The go back to the main cleaner tab. Make sure you have the following settings ticked. If you have settings that are not shown here, ignore them:



Before you click "Analyze", make sure all programs and browsers are closed. After that, click "Run Cleaner". Now go to the Registry tab. Click "Scan for Issues", then click "Fix selected issues". Using the registry cleaner usually takes a few scans to find all issues, so repeat the process until no more are shown.


Removing unnecessary programs:

Open up ccleaner, and go over to the tools tab. This will list all programs installed on your machine. A general rule is "If you don't use it, why do you need it?". Most machines come with programs pre-installed at the factory, depending on your brand. So you may see many programs that say "Toshiba", "Dell", "HP", "Acer", etc. Pretty much most of these can be removed safely. Just don't remove anything that is system driver related. Such as sound, wireless, chipset, ethernet, video drivers, etc. If you have a question on what a program is, or what it's for, just Google it.


Disabling Programs on startup:

On Windows XP, click Start-> Run-> type "msconfig" and hit enter. Go to the STARTUP tab. On Windows 7 and Vista, click Start, and type "msconfig" in the search box. Open the single result. Go to the STARTUP tab.

After you have the program on the STARTUP tab, you have the ability to shut off and turn on which programs start automatically when windows starts up. More programs enabled means longer startup times, and more memory usage. On most systems it's safe to simply click DISABLE ALL and apply settings. If you use a wireless adapter, you may need to check the list for any programs that match the brand of your adapter. Make sure to leave that enabled. Apply settings, and click OK. It will ask you to restart for the settings to take effect.


Disabling system services:

This is more advanced, and takes a bit of time to complete for an inexperienced user. On Windows XP, click Start->Run-> type "services.msc" and hit enter. On Windows 7 and Vista, click start and type "services.msc" in the search box and open the single result. A guide to disabling system services can be found here: http://www.blackviper.com/category/guides/

Simply find your operating system in the list and select it. Then scroll down, and you'll see a chart with services and settings listed. I'd recommend following the "SAFE" column for beginners, and the "TWEAKED" column for advanced users. For reference, here is my services list from my system running Windows XP SP3:




Disabling Page Filing:

This will save more disk space by freeing up the space reserved for system page filing. This should only be done on systems with at least 3.25GB of memory in Windows XP, and 8GB of memory on Windows 7/Windows Vista. Failure to follow this rule can result in system instability and crashes! You have been warned!

On Windows XP, right click on My Computer, and click properties. Go to the advanced tab, and click the "Settings" button under "Performance". Go to the Advanced tab again, and click the "change" button under virtual memory. Set all drives to "No Paging File" and click OK. You will need to restart your system for the change to take effect.

On Windows 7/Vista, right click on PC and click Properties. Click Advanced System Settings on the left, then click "Settings" for Performance. Go to the Advanced tab again, and click the "change" button under virtual memory. Set all drives to "No Paging File" and click OK. You will need to restart your system for the change to take effect.


Running a disk defragment:



Open up defraggler, and select the C: drive. Click analyze, and then "defragment". Depending on how messy your drive is, this can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. I'd recommend letting it run when you decide to go out somewhere, or when you sleep.


Disabling visual themes:

Simply set your visual theme to Windows Classic. While it may not look as pretty, it'll use less memory and CPU/GPU power. This will lead to better system performance.