Good/morning evening
There are a few things to consider about attempting to speed up your
computer boot time. Everything that affects your system can be considered at
a couple of levels. First is your computer hard ware.
A) Have you looked into updating your computer bios?
Why? If your computer manufactor updated the microcode into the bios, will
reduce boot up time. And more efficient initialization of hardware will also
reduce your boot time. In addition any USB errors in your current bios may be
fixed. Also reducing startup/boot time. Is your bios set to quick boot? Plug
and play enabled?
1) Each motherboard is different. But have you disable any devices you are
not using? Anything that is initialized requires time. Extra Serial ports?
Usually not used. IEEE 1394, you do not have any devices like a hard drive
connected?
2) How old is your computer? Replaced any of the thermal interface material?
Some processors have thermal throttling which reduces the processor speed.
Have you turned this off? Cleaned up cable management ?
3) Memory speeds. A great resource for memory specifications is cpuz. Is
your memory speed the quickest available for your processor? DDR 3200 is
faster then 2700. Search for more information here. Not to open up a can of
worms bur ddr2 is better then DDR1. Lower memory latencys also help out here.
As mentioned above, a bios update may reconize more memory DIMMs.
Hard drive If you are using an "green" drive. This will spin slower and
slow down your computer system. Most drives are slower then say a Western
digital hard drive. And this is outclassed by a S.S.D. another alternative.
C) Since you have not mentioned if you are using a desktop or lap top.
SSD is better for the laptop. A cache IDE/SATA(depending which you are
using for harddrive) with at least 64 Megs of memory will always help out
your boot times.
Is your hard drive set to use DMA? Some motherboard chipsets do not allow
this to work because of designed in cost reductions.
D) Processor. Are you using the latest processor with a larger cache
appropriate to the programs you wish to run? Photo shop will load up a single
core computer. Dual core is better. Any anti-virus programs running? Tri-core
is better. Also consider buying a can of air and blowing out the fans and the
botherboard
E) Video card. Which card are you using? searching for a better card would
help out. And this brings up drivers. Manufactors generally improve both
performance and reliability of drivers.
Soft ware improvement
Defragmentation I have used various types of programs to restore order to
files on my hard drives through out the years. IOBit.com defrag, is my
current defragger.
Here is some things to look at at the soft ware level
First the Operating System
Is your chipset driver up to date? Intel, Nvidia, and Via usually update
there chipset drivers.
Are you using windows installer 4.5?
Windows scripting host 5.6?
Using dot net 1.1 up to version 3.5?
Looked at using bootvis to optimize start up.
Using direct x and the latest version?
Running Software
Cleaned out your startup folder? Anything like microsoft office slow down
boot up.
technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
Link to look for programs that are being run on startup. If you are
comfortable using regedit. Always back this up before editing.
http://www.anvir.com/windows-startup-programs-xp.htm
Multiple anti-virus programs? Another slow down. Which also brings up
insecure software. Secunia.com will tell you if you have multiple installs of
programs with different versions. Duplicates can cause problems. Each program
is different. Seaching for help will give you the most appropriate fix.
Delay startup of programs in the startup folder links
http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?
http://www.joejoesoft.com/sr.php
http://uk.geocities.com/personel44/maintenance.html
Search for someting called tweak, and clean memory and connectors of your
memory. Reduces contanimates and improves connection speed. Usefull in a lot
of ways. Improving the connection from a lap top battery to computer. Diry
USB connections. Even a pencil eraser will help out in a pinch.
Hopefully this helps you out.
1stknight
"Ant" wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I read that Vista and Windows 7 can be sped up faster by using Flash USB
> sticks/drives (have 256 MB to 1 GB sizes). Can this be done with an
> updated Windows XP Pro. SP3 too?
>
> Thank you in advance.
> --
> "The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to
> the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his
> men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the
> disastrous effects of a siege." --Chapter 3 in Sun Tzu's The Ancient Art
> of War (Translated by Lionel Giles)
> /___/
> / / / Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
> | |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
> _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: philpi@earthlink.netANT
> ( ) or ANTant@zimage.com
> Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.
> 
