January 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: Speed up my PC Series
Part 1
Topics covered:
Operating System Requirements and Recommendations
Basic HD Information and Maintenance tools
Software Tools covered:
Microsoft Diskcleanup or cleanmgr
Microsoft Defrag
Smart Defrag
This is the first of the articles for the series. This may seem like a long series however I want you to understand why and what you are doing, not just shoot a video for you to blindly follow along or a checklist of items to try. I may go into detail in the topics but the purpose of this series is education so bear with me. There are many reasons why your PC may be running slow and we are going to assume in this article that you are running above the minimum recommended hardware for the operating system.
Yes, this article is based on Microsoft technologies, and throughout I will suggest using tools already built into the operating system rather than the all in one fix it software tools that are everywhere these days. Most times even the better ones end up getting you into trouble. If you understand your system and the tools built in you will not only save money and grief, but be much better equipped to handle these and other issues when they arise.
For the record I am running Windows 7, Vista, and XP on my local network. This series will cover these systems only. If you are running an older operating system such as Windows 98 or 95, and that is what came with your PC, it’s time to replace the hardware.
Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for XP
Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
Sound card
Speakers or headphones
Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for VISTA Home Basic
800-megahertz (MHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 800-MHz 64-bit (x64) processor
512 megabytes (MB) of system memory
Note On system configurations that use system memory as graphics memory, at least 448 MB of system memory must be available to the operating system after some memory is allocated for graphics.
DirectX 9-class graphics card
32 MB of graphics memory
20-gigabyte (GB) hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space
Internal or external DVD drive
Internet access capability
Audio output capability
Official Microsoft and CompTIA answers for VISTA Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate
1-gigahertz (GHz) 32-bit (x86) processor or 1-GHz 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
Windows Aero-capable graphics card
128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
40-GB hard disk that has 15 GB of free hard disk space (the 15GB of free space provides room for temporary file storage during the install or upgrade.)
Internal or external DVD drive
Internet access capability
Audio output capability
Official Microsoft Windows 7
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Note: the above answers were for those of you who may want to know the official answers. My recommendations below assume you have at least the recommended hardware and concentrate on RAM, Hard Drive and Video.
A 32 bit operating system can only address a maximum of 4Gig of memory. Because this also includes Video RAM, RAM on your PC Cards, and Motherboard, if you install 4G, you will likely only be able to use between 2.5 and 3.4 Gig of physical RAM. No… it’s not a Microsoft bug it’s a numbers game. If you are running a 64 bit operating system and want to max the ram refer to your hardware documentation. Most times the limit is the hardware not the software.
Current 64Bit Limits for Windows Op systems
XP- 128G
Vista Home Basic – 8G
Vista Home Premium – 16G
Vista Business and up – 128G
Windows 7 Home Basic – 8G
Windows 7 Home Premium – 16G
Windows 7Professional and up – 192G
My Recommendations:
XP 32bit – 1G-Minimum 2G-Prefered
Vista 32bit – 1G Minimum 3-4G Preferred
Windows7 32bit – 1G Minimum 3-4G Preferred
HARD DRIVE RECOMMENDATIONS
SIZE
Too small, as far as the operating system is concerned, will probably not be an issue any longer as it is getting hard to find a drive smaller than 160G unless we are talking solid state. How large a drive you need depends on what you actually use your PC for. Just like memory, large hard drives have become extremely affordable. A good basic rule to follow is to always treat your hard drive like it is only 75% of its actual size. A 500G hard drive should be considered full when less than 25% of the drive is free, (125G). This allows some safety room and enough free space so you’re Hard Drive can be defragged.
What is fragmentation? – A simple answer is that over time as we add/remove software, programs, files, images, iTunes songs, or any type of data, the data is written to areas of the drive that are marked as unused. Over time new files that are written to the disk are not written sequentially, and may actually be in many areas of the hard drive. When this becomes the case the hard drive’s read/write heads must move back and forth across the disk surface to read or write that data, therefore your system spends a lot of time waiting on the drive to visit all the areas of the disk needed just to retrieve that file. You may see this symptom visually as your hard drive activity light continuously on.
The process of putting the files back into sequential order is what we are doing when we defrag the hard drive. To defrag the hard drive we can use Microsoft’s built in tool defrag.exe, there are other third party tools such as I recommend here but the all require hard drive free space to temporally move files in the process. If there is not enough free space on the hard drive it cannot be defragged efficiently or sometimes even at all. You can view the free space on any of your drives by clicking start and then computer, right click on the drive you would like to see and pick properties. On the General Tab you see Used Space and Free Space.
FIG A – click to enlarge in new window
While we are on this screen I want you to notice the File System Spec, shown just above Free and Unused space. Without going into great detail at this time, insure your file system type is NTFS (New Technology File System). In today’s systems there is no reason, unless you want to dual boot your PC, to be using FAT or FAT32. NTFS, among many other benefits, allows your drive to be used much more efficiently. There is also no reason to dual boot with all the free virtual technology available. If yours is FAT or FAT32 and you do not know why…. convert it!
For the sake of keeping this installment a reasonable length – if you need to convert click here.
FIG B – click to enlarge in new window
Before we actually defrag the hard drive we will want to uninstall any unused programs and delete any unneeded files. Microsoft provides us with a nice little utility called Disk Cleanup, shown in FIG B, click on the Disk Cleanup Button FIG A, or type cleanmgr in the start run dialog box.
The program defaults to some safe assumptions including not even emptying your recycle bin, but that’s ok, scroll through the list and select your options, then click ok when finished. Once completed you are ready to defrag the drive.
(Q)Do you have to do this before I defrag the hard drive?
(A)No, but if you do this after defragging the drive, the operating system marks the areas on the drive where you deleted the files as unused, this gives the fragmentation process a head start in messing up our nice sequential written hard drive.
We just deleted all the files we no longer need by using the disk cleanup tool and we are now ready to defrag the hard drive. Click on the Tools Tab then defragment now as shown in FIG A.
you will see FIG C Below
FIG C – click to enlarge in new window
Optionally you can start the utility by typing defrag into the start menu and hit enter. Vista users may have to click through the UAC (U)ser (A)ccess (C)ontrol prompt.
Note: most of the following screen captures are from windows 7, Vista Screens are very similar
to automate this procedure with XP, use the task scheduler – for additional details for XP click here.
FIG D – Vista Defrag Screen – click to enlarge in new window
Windows 7 users will see a similar screen, and will need to click the Configure Schedule button:
FIG E Windows 7 Defrag Screen- click to enlarge in new window
FIG F – Windows 7 Defrag Scheduler – click to enlarge in new window
From this screen you can disable the automatic defrag or modify the schedule by clicking on the Modify schedule button:
This is one of those occasions where I am going to recommend 3rd party software. I do not schedule a defrag I have it done continuously using a Freeware program called Smart Defrag. Details on that software are here.
Hard Drive TYPES
Other Hard Drive Considerations: Most all newer motherboards utilize SATA drive interface technology. SATA stands for (S)erial (A)dvanced (T)echnology (A)ttachment, also known as Serial ATA. There are currently 2 versions SATA1 and SATA2 which are capable of transferring data at 150MBps or 300MBps respectively. SATA3 is coming very soon at 600MBps.
The other Standard which was known for many years as IDE (I)ntegrated (D)rive (E)lectronics is now known as PATA (P)arallel (A)dvanced (technology (A)ttachment or Parallel ATA. PATA Drives use a 40 pin connector and cable that supported speeds up to 33MBps. Newer ATA 66, 100, and 133, drives use the same 40pin connector but an 80 pin ribbon cable. The extra conductors in the cable are used to shield the data conductors. This was the limiting speed factor of the PATA interface. If you happen to be running ATA 66, 100, or 133 PATA drives in your system, insure you are using an 80 pin cable. They will normally work with a 40 wire cable but at 33MBps speeds.
FIG G – Hard Drive Cable Types – click to enlarge in new window
If you are upgrading your system and installing a new Hard Drive, you of course want to choose SATA 2 drives, but your PC must support it. SATA drives only allow 1 device per channel, or cable and EIDE support 2 per channel, or cable through jumper block settings. Most all new mother boards support SATA, many support both and older systems will use PATA or EIDE. You could also purchase an IDE to SATA hard drive Motherboard Adapter Bridge. Look at your motherboard or your system documentation to see if your older system can support SATA.
FIG H – Mother Board Hard Drive Connections – click to enlarge in new window
I will be covering Drive arrays and RAID, (R)edundant (A)rray of (I)nexpensive (D)isks, in a future article for those of you who are gamers and want to really trick-out and optimize your system or an advanced PC user needing Data Redundancy .
In Part 2 of this series we will be discussing memory, including virtual memory and ways of optimizing both.
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