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| Need a PC Boost? Try winROCKET and RAMrocket
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Download winROCKET now, and give your system the #1 cost-effective performance boost available today. After only a few clicks, you'll have less waiting, and more time for the important things in life.
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Download RAMrocket today to defragment and recover your system's memory. RAMrocket actually boosts the physical memory available to Windows! Easy to install and use.
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| Tweaking Your Computer |
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Tweaking Your Computer
Using computer tweaks can help you work much more productively. Changing a few settings may help your computer get closer to its' maximum speed. We used these tweaks with an older P-III class computer running on Windows 98. Since there is a vast array of PC configurations, these tweaks and tips may not work with your particular computer setup.
Tweaking require a bit of caution. You should ALWAYS take note of your existing settings BEFORE you make any changes. There is always risk of your PC not booting properly or at all when you change certain Windows settings. We are NOT responsible for any problems you may encounter by using the information on this page - you will be changing the settings on your computer at your own risk. The tweaks and information provided is for your consideration only and is not guaranteed to be accurate. Please read our disclaimer before proceeding.
Tweak Easily and Safely
We feel the safest way to tweak your computer is to consider a pc accelerator software solution which will tweak your computer with a few simple clicks. This software is a great investment versus expensive upgrading costs.
These tweaks require you to be at least a little computer savvy. If you are new to computing - please go to your Windows Help (Click Start, then Help) or read your manual. You can easily return after you have familiarized yourself with your PC by book-marking now.
Virtual Memory Settings
Your computer possesses a certain amount of physical RAM memory. Windows will begin to use a Swap file (Virtual Memory) when the physical RAM is full. Under the default setting, this Swap file is controlled by Windows to shrink and grow to its needs. This will reduce performance especially on slower machines.
If your computer has to access your hard drive to read and write to the swap file, there will be a stutter in performance. Compare this to zooming in and out of physical RAM and you can see where buying more RAM can give you much faster performance.
To change your Virtual Memory Settings, click on Start, Settings, Control Panel, then open System, select Performance, and click Virtual Memory. Click the white circle beside - Let me specify my own virtual memory settings.
Confirm the proper drive is selected and set the Minimum to - this is a topic for debate. Some believe you should double your physical RAM and add 10%. However, if you start to go higher than 255, you may experience performance losses when playing graphic intensive games. I am set to 250 and I have 192 MB of RAM installed. If you run a lot of games, 250 is probably your best option.
The Maximum setting is already set to the available space on your drive. It's best to leave it at this value. Many new graphic intensive games may require a large swap file, so it's best to keep it at the max available space. If you already changed this value by accident, simply click the Cancel button and start over. Make sure you leave the Disable virtual memory box BLANK.
Next, click OK and a box will pop up asking you if you're sure. This will Reboot your computer and close this page (did you bookmark?). Once you start up again, it's a good idea to de-frag your drive to optimize your system completely. But first... is your De-frag utility moving your files around? See our next paragraph for details.
De-fragging - Organized Chaos?
De-fragmentation of your hard drive is imperative for proper performance. If your machine seems sluggish and slow, it may be in dire need of a de-frag session. Your hard drive constantly has files written and erased to it. When large files are written to a drive, the drive may place fragments of the file in many different spaces that were left available by smaller files being deleted. This spreads the data of files over the entire scope of the disk. When the drive head goes to retrieve the file, it has to voyage over many areas of the disk to retrieve it, thus hindering performance dramatically. By de-fragging your drive, all the file fragments will be rejoined into complete and unbroken files again.
You should shut down all open programs before de-fragging your PC. The de-frag utility is found by clicking Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.
For Windows 98 users, there is an option in the Settings that will Rearrange program files so my programs start faster. Yes, that is the way to go if you're running mostly office or business software. However, if you're an avid computer game player, you will receive more benefit by NOT using this option. Why? You want all your game graphic texture files grouped in one block so the drive head doesn't have to move so far to load graphics during game-play. Rearranging your game files will slow down performance.
Thank you for visiting - please support our site by bookmarking it and telling your other computing friends about us.
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