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FIGURE 7-13: PCMark04 running the system benchmark test.

Summary

This chapter was meant to be an introduction to the world of benchmarking. Before you can make your computer faster, it is very helpful to know what your computer doesn’t perform well with. This chapter showed you how to discover bottlenecks using applications such as Performance, Bootvis, Sandra Standard, and PCMark04. Use the information that you gained from this chapter to get the most out of the upcoming chapters. For example, if your computer’s video card does not perform all that well compared to other computers, then you should definitely try decreasing some of the graphical visual effects of Windows XP, as will be shown in the upcoming chapters. The next chapter will start to optimize the speed of your computer from the very beginning, the system boot.

Speeding Up the

System Boot

No doubt you are surprised at how fast Windows XP boots up compared with other Microsoft operating systems. I certainly am, every time I start up the PC. This bootup time is something that everyone

is becoming more concerned about as the need for PC speed becomes increasingly more important. Despite the relatively fast speed of Windows XP bootup time, this chapter will guide you through the steps of making the system boot up even faster. The changes discussed here should help you realize your bootup speed dreams.Your friends will then no doubt be impressed by your PC’s superfast operation.

Windows XP has a lot of great features and visual enhancements that make it the most attractive OS from Microsoft to date. However, with all of the new features and attractive effects, the operating system has a higher system overhead, which means your hardware has to work even harder. If you are like me, and do not always have the fastest hardware, this chapter will help you get the most out of your current hardware by reducing the heavy workload put on it during the bootup process.

Working with BIOS

Every personal computer has a system basic input/output system, or BIOS, which is what takes control of your computer the moment you turn it on. The screen that you first see when you turn on your computer is called the power on self-test screen, better known as the POST screen. If you purchased your computer from one of the major computer manufacturers, this screen is often hidden by the manufacturer’s logo. To get rid of this logo from the screen, just press the ESC button on your keyboard; you’ll then see what is going on in the background. At this stage in the system boot, the BIOS is probing the hardware to test the system memory and other device connections. Once the POST is completed, the BIOS proceeds to look for a device to boot from. Once it finds your hard drive, it will begin to load Windows.

The BIOS also acts as a main system component control panel, where lowlevel settings for all of your hardware devices are made. The device boot order, port addresses, and feature settings such as plug and play are all

chapter

in this chapter

Changing the Boot Order of Your Drives

Enabling Quick Boot BIOS Features

Modifying System Boot Menu

Disabling Unneeded Drivers and System Services

Removing Unneeded Fonts

Defragmenting Boot Files

184 Part II — Increasing Your System’s Performance

found in the BIOS setup screens. For example, if you want to change the order of the drives that your computer checks to boot from, then you will want to modify the device boot order. I have to modify this setting almost every time I install Windows because I want my computer to boot off of the CD-ROM to launch the Windows XP setup application instead of booting off of the operating system on my hard drive.

BIOSs on each and every PC may be made by different companies or accessed in different ways. Nevertheless, the most common way to access the setup screen is to press F2 or the Delete key when the POST screen is displayed. Some computers even tell you which key to push to enter setup, as my Notebook does. If your PC doesn’t allow you to access the setup screen in this way, consult your computer documentation or contact your computer manufacturer for instructions.

While you are making changes in the BIOS, make sure you do not accidentally change any other settings. If you accidentally change a value of a setting and do not know what to change it back to, simply exit the BIOS setup screen as the on-screen directions indicate and select Do NOT Save Changes. Then just reboot and re-enter the setup screen and continue hacking away at your system.

Changing the boot order of your drives

Most computers are set up so that when you first turn on your computer, it will check to see if you want to boot from other drives besides your hard drive. It will automatically check to see if you have a bootable CD in your CD drive. If your computer has a floppy drive, it will check to see if you have a boot disk in the floppy drive. Then, once it has checked all possible locations for a boot disk, the system will default to your hard drive and start booting Windows.

What are the benefits of changing the boot order of your system devices? If you modify the order of the boot devices so that the hard disk is placed at the top of the list, the system does not have to waste time checking other devices for boot records. Just by changing the order of the devices, you can shave anywhere from one to several seconds off of your boot time, depending on the speed of your hardware.

To change the boot order (or sequence, as some call it), you will have to enter the BIOS setup screen that was mentioned earlier.

1.Press F2, Delete, or the Correct key for your specific system on the POST screen (or the screen that displays the computer manufacturer’s logo) to enter the BIOS setup screen.

Working in the BIOS setup screens will allow you to change many critical values that could affect the performance and the stability of your computer. Be careful which settings you decide to change because they may cause device resource conflicts as well as render your hardware unusable. However, there are very few settings in the BIOS that, if set incorrectly, will lead to physical hardware damage. The only feature that my BIOS has that can do that is the CPU overclocking functions. If I set those values too high, my CPU could burn up. Changing basic feature settings such as the boot order will only result in a minor inconvenience if it was set incorrectly. To fix a problem, you will just have to go back into the BIOS and set the right value and everything will be back to normal.

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2.Look for where it says Boot and enter the sub menu.

3.Select Boot Sequence, and press Enter. Figure 8-1 shows an example of the boot sequence screen.

4.If your screen looks similar to that shown in Figure 8-1, then you are in the right place. Next, navigate to where it states “first device” and cycle through the list to where it states “Hard Disk Drive” or “IDE0” (assuming that your hard drive is connected to IDE0). If your setup screen does not specifically state “first device” but rather just lists all of the devices, then all you have to do is select the hard disk and move it to the top of the list. That can be done by using the change values keys, which for my BIOS (made by Phoenix) is the spacebar to move an item up and the minus symbol key to move an item down. The specific keys are different on almost every system but the basic concepts are the same. You want to get your hard disk to the top of the list or listed as the first device from which to try to boot.

5.Once you have made the changes, exit the BIOS by pressing the Esc key and making sure that you select to save your changes upon exit. Once you reboot, the new settings will be in effect.

What are the consequences of changing the boot order? Changing the boot order will not hurt your system in any way if you do it correctly. If, by accident, you remove your hard drive from the list and save the BIOS settings, you will get a pleasant surprise when your computer

FIGURE 8-1: The boot sequence setup screen.

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reboots––a statement that the computer cannot find any operating system. If you happen to get that message, then just reboot by pressing Ctrl Alt Delete and go back into the BIOS settings and make sure that you select your hard drive as a boot device. Once you have done that, your system will be back to normal.

Another possible issue that you may encounter is simply a matter of inconvenience. Once you change the boot order of the system devices so that the hard drive is listed first, you will no longer be able to use system restore CDs or floppy boot disks. If something has happened to your computer and you need to boot off of those drives to restore your system or run diagnostics, just go back to the BIOS and lower or remove the hard disk from the first boot device.

Using the quick boot feature of the BIOS

All systems initialize in more or less the same way. During the power on self-test mentioned earlier, the BIOS checks the hardware devices and counts the system memory. Out of all of the different types of system memory, the random access memory, better known as RAM, takes the longest to be counted. Counting the RAM takes time, and on a machine that has large amounts of RAM, this calculation can take several seconds. For example, a machine that has 512MB of RAM may take up to 3 seconds just to count the memory. On top of the RAM counting, a few other tests need to be done because your computer wants to make sure that all of the hardware in your computer is working properly.

All of these system tests are not needed every time you boot, and can be turned off to save time. Most BIOS’s offer a feature called quick boot. This feature will allow the user to turn off these tests. Other BIOSs only allow you to turn off the memory check, which will still cut down on a lot of time.

To turn on the quick boot feature or turn off the memory check, just do the following:

1.Enter the BIOS again by pressing F2 or the correct system setup Enter key upon the POST screen.

2.Once you are in the BIOS setup, locate where it states Quick Boot or Memory Check, as shown in Figure 8-2. Navigate with the arrow keys until the option is highlighted.

3.Use the Change Value keys to cycle through the options and select enable for the quick boot feature or disable if your BIOS has the memory check feature.

4.Once you have made the changes to the setting, exit the BIOS by pressing the Esc key and make sure to save the changes upon exit.

Use of the quick boot feature or the disabling of the memory check will not harm your system. In fact, there are even some computer manufacturers that ship their computers with these settings alread1y optimized for performance. The only downside to disabling the tests is the rare situation in which your RAM self-destructs; the BIOS will not catch it and you may receive errors from the operating system or your system could become unstable. If you notice that your system becomes unstable and crashes frequently or will not even boot, try going back into the BIOS and re-enable the tests to find out if your system’s memory is causing the problems.