How to Speed Up Your PC

How To Make Your PC Faster

This is a tutorial on how to make your PC faster. It’s a mixture of options, tweaks and maintenance, some of which are absolutely essential to keeping your operating system at its best.

It is focused around Windows 7 and Vista but most of it still applies to XP.

Part 1 – Essential Maintenance – General

• Programs & Adware
• Temporary Files
• Defragmenting
• Drivers & Updates

Part 2 – Tips & Tweaks

• Change The Power Plan
• Enable Write Caching
• Disable Indexing
• Disable The Page File
• Disable System Restore
• Enable TRIM (SSDs only)

Part 3 – Optimization & Miscellaneous

• Services & Start-Up Programs
• Disable The Aero Theme
• Disable Unneeded Visual Effects
• TCP/IP
• Better Gaming
• Browsers
• Disable User Account Control (UAC)
• See Your Restart Time

How To Make Your PC Faster

Programs & Adware

• The first step in making your PC faster is removing any unused or unwanted programs or adware. A lot of you are already doing this, but you’d be surprised at how many people don’t.
• In Windows 7, go to the Start menu, then Control Panel, then click Uninstall A Program.
• In Windows Vista, click the Start button, then Control Panel, then Programs, and then Programs and Features.
•  In Windows XP, click the Start Button, then Control Panel, then click Add/Remove Programs.

Temporary Files

Delete old temporary files, I recommend CCleaner. If you’re not already using it, you can download it from from your favourite torrent site.

Defragmenting

For the purpose of keeping the tutorial clean I wont go into too much detail about what defragmenting is, but basically it keeps the files that are stored on your hard disk in order, so they can be accessed more quickly. If you don’t use an SSD, you should be doing this frequently. I’d recommend O&O Defrag Pro, you can get it from your favourite torrent site, or you can buy it from the developers website HERE

Note: I recommend that you don’t have O&O or any other defrag tool starting when Windows start-up. When you run O&O Defrag for the first time, you will get the option to schedule scans but just use it manually every now and then.

Drivers & Update

Keeping your drivers up to date can also give minor performance increases, as well as bug fixes, stability improvements and new features. An updated graphics card driver for example may deliver a few more FPS in certain games and benchmarks.

It’s better if you can download the latest drivers from manufacturers website yourself, you can use THIS to find out what hardware you have. Otherwise, you can use a tool such as Driver Genius or Driver Reviver to download the latest drivers for you. I personally recommend Driver Genius, it works great, but I’ve read good things about Driver Reviver. You can get Driver Genius or Driver Reviver from thepiratebay.

 

How To Make Your PC Faster – Tips & Tweaks

So now that we’ve covered the first part on how to make your PC faster, we’ll move on to the second part, tips and tricks.

Change The Power Plan

The Power settings in Win7 aren’t automatically set for maximum performance. By default the power plan is set for balanced performance and energy consumption, so you might not be geting the optimal performance from Windows. To change the power plan to High Performance Mode, double click Power Options in the Control panel, click the down arrow that shows Additional Plans. Now just activate the High Performance plan and that’s it. Go for the advanced power settings, go to the Hard Disk, then to ‘Turn off hard disk after..’ and set it to Never. This enables the GC to do its job while logged off.

How To Make Your PC Faster With Write-Caching

With write-caching enabled, the storage device determines whether using the cache will save time completing writes. If it will, the HDD signals to the computer that the data has been stored even though it may not actually be in the storage device yet. It improves the throughput of storage operations, which are usually a bottleneck for overall system performance.

To enable write caching, go to the Start menu, open the Control Panel, then System and Security, then Device Manager, expand Disk drives, Double click on the listed HDD that you want to enable write caching for. Click on the Polices tab. By default, “Enable write caching on the device” is checked under the Write-caching policy section. If not, then check it, then check the “Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device” box, Click OK, then click on Yes to restart the computer to apply.

WARNING: Turning off “Windows Write-cache Buffer Flushing on the Device” runs the risk of data loss if there’s a power failure, so make sure you always shut the PC down properly. I’ve personally lost power several times with write caching enable and never had any issue, but it’s something you might want to take into consideration.

Disable Indexing

Indexing creates and maintains a database of file attributes, which causes multiple small writes when creating, deleting or modifying files.
Go to the Start menu, right-click Computer, click Manage, go to Services and Applications, then Services, right-click Windows Search, select Properties, change Startup type to Disabled, click Stop, then Apply.

We also need to stop Windows indexing the HDD.
Go to Start menu, then Computer, Right click on the HDD, select Properties, uncheck Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties and Click OK
Once you’ve unchecked indexing, follow the on-screen instructions, you might have to skip some files you do not have access to.

Disable The Page File

The page file is used by Windows to hold temporary data which is swapped in and out of physical memory in order to provide a larger virtual memory set. Since the HDD/SSD is a lot slower than physical memory, it obviously causes a slow-down. If you have 4GB of RAM or more, you can disable paging by going to the Start menu, right-click Computer, select Properties, then Advanced System Settings, then Settings (Performance), now go to the advanced Tab, click Change, Uncheck Automatically manage, select No paging file, click Set, then OK/Apply. Restart your computer.
Note: If you run out of memory the program you’re using will crash, this is why I say 4GB of RAM or more. It really depends on what you use your PC for though, I’ve disabled the page file on a Win7 machine with 2GB RAM and it’s had no issues at all, even with a lot of things open, like Firefox and Chrome with multiple YouTube tabs playing in each, several Explorer windows, disk defragmenter, Media Player playing, as well several other apps running, simultaneously with no issues at all. Win7 seems to handle memory very well.
If you want to play it safer, you can set a custom size of 200MB min and max.

Enable TRIM (SSDs only)

TRIM is a way to speed up SSD access by performing important housekeeping tasks in the background or on file deletes, rather than leaving it until the system is writing data to the drive

To enable TRIM, go to the Start menu, type cmd in the search-box and press enter. In the Command Prompt, type: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0

To disable TRIM, go to the Command Prompt and type: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 1

To find out if TRIM is working, go to the Command Prompt and type: fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

DisableDeleteNotify = 1 means TRIM commands are disabled)
DisableDeleteNotify = 0 means TRIM commands are enabled)

RAM Disk

RAMDisk is a program that takes a portion of your system memory and uses it as a disk drive. What is the benefit? SPEED! An additional feature of a RAMDisk is that it will never wear out. You can access it at maximum bandwidth 24/7 without fear of mechanical failure, or fragmentation (a RAMDisk can become fragmented just like any other disk, but it does not take a performance hit like a physical disk does when it becomes fragmented).

You can download it from HERE

How To Make Your PC Faster – Optimization & Miscellaneous

So we’ve covered the first and second part on how to make your PC faster, lets move on to the third.

Services & Start-Up

It is an unnecessary waste of system resources if you have unneeded programs and services starting up when Windows starts. To disable them, type services.msc in the search box of the Start menu and press Enter

Stop any unnecessary programs starting up by right-clicking them, going to Properties then choosing the Startup type. If you’re not going to be using the service at all, you can set the start-up type as Disabled, otherwise, choose Manual so they can be started as needed. If you’re unsure what any of them are, you can Google the name of the service.

Some Services You Can Disable
Application Experience
Computer Browser (If your PC does not connect to any network)
Desktop Window Manager Session Manager (If you don’t want the aero effects)
Diagnostic Policy Service
Disk Defragmenter
Distributed Link Tracking Client
IP Helper
Offline Files
Portable Device Enumerator Service
Print Spooler (If you do not use Printer)
Protected Storage
Remote Registry (You can safely disable it for more Security)
Secondary Logon
Security Center
Server (If your computer do not connect with any network)
Tablet PC Input Service
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Windows Defender
Windows Error Reporting Service
Windows Firewall (if you use another firewall)
Windows Media Center Service Launcher
Windows Search (If you rarely use Windows Search feature )
Windows Time (If you do not want to synchronize system time with internet time automatically)
After you’ve disable those services, you can check the Hide All Microsoft Services and disable anything you don’t need. If you’re unsure what any of them are, you can Google their name.

How to make your PC faster – Disable The Aero Theme

Right-click your Desktop and select Personalize, then click the Window Color Tab.
Uncheck the Box called Enable Transparency and then click on Open classic appearance properties for more color options.
A window will then open up. Apply a Standard theme from it.

Disable Unneeded Visual Effects

For this, open the Start  menu, right-click on Computer and select Properties from the right click menu.

Click Advanced System Settings from the left-hand pane to open the System Properties window.

Select the Advanced tab. Then Under Performance, click Settings and then select Custom.

Now untick all the options and select only the last four options, click Apply, then log off and back on.

Better Gaming

If you’re looking to squeeze a couple of extra frames out of your games, download GameBooster.

You can download it from HERE

How to make your PC faster – Browsers

Since the internet browser is one of the most frequently used programs on a PC nowadays, you should choose one that’s right for you, but which one?
Some of the most well-known and best browser are FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer, I’d personally recommend Chrome or FireFox. There’s not too much difference between the two, Chrome is slightly faster out-of-the-box,
TCP/IP
First check that everything is okay with your connection using THIS
If you use a DSL or Cable connection, use this batch script for optimal TCP/IP settings:
Windows 7 users download HERE
Windows Vista users download HERE
If for any reason there’s an issue using those settings, you can use the following batch to revert to your previous settings:
Windows 7 HERE
Windows Vista HERE
Here’s what the script does:

Windows 7:
Code:
@echo off
echo Setting TCP/IP flags…
echo –
echo –
echo This only when running as an administrator,
echo When running as a user, it will only show the current settings.
echo.
pause
echo.
netsh int tcp set global timestamps=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
netsh int tcp set global netdma=enabled
netsh int tcp set global dca=enabled
netsh int tcp set global chimney=automatic
netsh int tcp set global congestionprovider=ctcp
netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enabled
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
pause
cls
echo Current settings:
echo –
netsh int tcp show global
echo Hope you found this useful
pause
Windows Vista:
Code:
@echo off
echo Setting TCP/IP flags – This only works when running as administrator…
echo.
netsh int tcp set global rss=enable
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
netsh int tcp set global congestionprovider=ctcp
netsh int tcp set global timestamps=disable
netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enable
netsh int tcp set global chimney=enable
pause
cls
echo Current settings:
echo –
netsh int tcp show global
echo Hope you found this useful
pause

See Your Restart Time

This app will show you how long in seconds it takes your Windows 7 to restart back to the desktop.
See the instructions and download the app HERE

Param

Enjoy!