One way to speed up your computer is to increase your hard drive’s performance. If you’ve been using your computer for a while, you’ve probably noticed that your computer is getting slower. One reason for this is that your hard drive has gotten more fragmented over time.
This means that as you install and delete things from your hard drive, holes are being created and filled randomly with other files so, say, your video of Madonna might be broken up into thirty pieces all over your hard drive, slowing down its playback.
Well, Windows XP has a Disk Defragmenter that will solve all your woes. It takes the pieces of each file and puts them together again so they can be read in one clean pass.
Be sure to run this program at night since it takes several hours and make sure to close any open programs. Go to Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Defragmentor to access it.
Click the Analyze button. It’ll tell you if you need to defragment your hard drive.
A lot of red is a bad sign. If it says “You should defragment this volume”, click the Defragment button. Come back in a few hours, and your hard drive should be purring.
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October 21, 2008 by
Jason
Right now, I am actually looking for some instructions on how to automatically shutdown the computer by using only the built-in components of Windows Vista, without any additional “shutdown computer” applications (oh boy, there are thousands or even billions of those). I am thinking about using Task scheduler in Windows to set up a computer shutdown command in some way. Any other ideas?
I try to always use built-in functions in Windows to do a task before I use “other” software. Using little applications to perform tasks opens the door to bugs and crashes. Most of the times there are built in functions to perform most tasks. Most people just don’t know about or how to use them. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | 3 Comments »
If you want to reduce the number of unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster, use Disk Cleanup. It removes temporary files, empties the Recycle Bin, and removes a variety of system files and other items that you no longer need.
1. Open Disk Cleanup by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, clicking All Programs, clicking Accessories, clicking System Tools, and then clicking Disk Cleanup.
2. In the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose whether you want to clean up your own files only or all of the files on the computer. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Read More»
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October 07, 2007 by
Jason
The System tool in Control Panel uses currentspeed to do its reporting rather than maxspeed, but the System tool may display the wrong clock speed for the Central Processing Unit (CPU).
As of January 2002, Windows XP uses the currentspeed value rather than the maxspeed value because the maxspeed value was reporting inconsistent values.
After startup, the processor may not correctly reflect its correct speed until a program utilizes processor cycles.
The computer basic input/output system (BIOS) in some laptop computers may throttle the processor because of heat, load, power AC/DC. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Hardware, Windows XP | 4 Comments »