288 replies to this topic

[alfaphlex]

Having been disappointed with the speed of the 16mb ssd, I searched and tested out every possible method to boost the performance for my 900. I gathered it all up and decided to post it all for any users that want to boost their XP performance.

These steps have really made a night/day difference for me as now I get no input lag and refresh delays occur much less and for way shorter periods when they do. I can't even imagine how much faster XP would be on a 4gb ssd installation. Using these tips, you can install XP on your 2nd ssd if you chose a different OS for your 4gb.

In case anyone is wondering, XP boots in under 20 seconds on my 16gb ssd.

Notes
assumption: you have 1gb RAM. Feel free to halve or double the values if you have 1/2 or twice the amount of RAM respectively.
* = these steps require restart to take effect. you can choose not to restart until later though.

1) Install nLited XP
Get rid of Windows junk before even installing it. Follow guides here or here

2) Disable paging file*
Right click on My Computer and go to:
Properties->Advanced->Performance:Settings->Advanced->Virtual Memory:Change
Select "No Paging File" and click Set.

3) Disable indexing
Go to into My Computer and right click->Properties on C: drive.
Deselect "Allow Indexing Service to index..."
Select "Apply changes to subfolders and files"(this might take a while)

4) Disable the NTFS Last Access Time Stamp*
Go to Start->Run and type in "regedit". Hit enter.
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Right click and New->DWORD Value and name it "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"
Double-click on it and set the value to "1".

5) System cache*

Cacheset
Download Cacheset
For Cacheset performance explanation, see post #33:

How to restart with your desired Cacheset settings
-Right click on cacheset.exe and "Create Shortcut".
-Right click on the shortcut and select "Properties".
-In Target, AFTER the closing quotation, write your min and max desired limits separated by spaces (same you would have set in Cacheset. Should look something like this:
"path/to/cacheset.exe" 4500 100000
- Click "OK" and drag shortcut into Start->Programs->Startup

Memory Usage
Right click on My Computer and go to:
Properties->Advanced->Performance:Settings->Advanced->Memory Usage
Select "System cache"

6) Install a Ramdisk
Download it here. It's free and has a gui.
Set it to about 192-384mb depending how much you plan to use for firefox/ie caching (steps 7 and 8).
Make sure Media Type is "Fixed Media".
This will be used for some of the following steps.


7) Redirect TMP/TEMP directories to Ramdisk
Right click on My Computer and go to:
Properties->Advanced->Environment Variables
In User Variables, set TMP and TEMP to "R:\Temp". Do the same for TMP/TEMP in System variables.

note: "R:" is the default letter for the Ramdisk in previous step. If you set it to a different letter, change accordingly.

8) eeectl
Download it here.
Replace text in eeectl.ini with code in first post of this thread.
The 100mhz fsb gives a noticeable boost to the 16gb drive. Read thread for details.

9) Improve Startup speed
There is a free Microsoft utility that analyzes your entire startup process up until everything is load into Windows. It's called Bootvis. Download it here.

-Install and run Bootvis

-Go to the Trace menu and select "Next Boot" or "Next Boot + Driver Delays"(if you want to check driver load speed, for now the first option should be fine)

-It'll show a "Trace Repetitions" window, leave it as it is (set to only reboot once) and click OK. Upon pressing OK, it'll immediately go into a reboot process, so close/save anything you were doing beforehand.

-Don't do anything until Bootvis opens again. Make sure the "Process Creates" option is checked on the left side. The "Process Creates" window shows you exactly what applications run at startup and when. If there's any applications you see starting up that you don't want, remove it from your startup using either the Registry or MSConfig methods. If there are any applications you're unfamiliar with, please google it before changing anything as it might be a system application (ie- explorer.exe, svchost.exe, ctfmon.exe).

note- You can just skip the whole Bootvis part and remove startup programs using registry/msconfig methods, but bootvis is helpful in telling you which applications take longer to load, including the ones you might want.

10) Firefox
Type "about:config" in the address bar and hit enter.

cache
You have 2 choices:

a) redirect cache to Ramdisk:
Set "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory" and change value to "R:\cache" (R: is your ramdisk drive).
Set "browser.cache.disk.capacity" to about 50000 (50mb).

if "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory" does exist: right click->new->string->"browser.cache.disk.parent_directory"->"R:\cache"

or

b) disable cache altogether:
doube click on browser.cache.disk.enable. It should turn bold and value = false.


precache
Explanation here(at the very bottom of the page)

Set "browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers" to 0

11) Internet Explorer
Redirect cache to ramdisk
Go to: Tools->Internet Options->Browsing History->Move Folder
Select your ramdisk drive.
Set disc space to about 50mb.

note: IE7 will log you off automatically after this step.


I hope any of this info helps. Feel free to post up any tips not mentioned here and I will update my 2nd post with your tips. In case anyone was wondering, my XP boots in under 20 seconds on the 16gb.

Enjoy!

Edited by alfaphlex, 04 August 2008 - 02:03 AM.

[alfaphlex]

*reserved for additional user posted info*

Firefox 3 Hiccups after every page loads
Due to way FF3 keeps track of all your history/cookies/etc in databases, after every page load it momentarily locks itself up to prevent data corruption while writing to said databases. Unfortunately, the writing is slow enough on the 16gb to make this small lockup noticeable.

You can get rid of the hiccups by going to "Tools->Options->Privacy" and deselecting "keep my history for...". You will immediately see a difference in page loading. Unfortunately, FF3 will no longer record your history.

If you want to keep your history or want even faster browsing, use FF2. I'll post an update if/when I find a better solution for FF3.

For more details see post #14 below.

Point Opera cache to Ramdisk
-Go to your Opera folder and find the "operadef6.ini" file and open it.
-Under the [User Prefs] you can add the following the line: Cache Directory4=R:\Opera*
"R:" = your ramdisk drive

Edited by alfaphlex, 04 August 2008 - 01:40 AM.

[dancheng]

Good info.

Just a couple pointers:

1. Disable NTFS from updating the last access of a file or directory on each access. This causes NTFS to do a write for each file read operation and writes are always slower, and with SSD storage might not be a good idea, for this you need to set NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate in your registry. See the guide HERE
2. Disable Indexing of the SSD. See the guide HERE

Edited by dancheng, 24 July 2008 - 09:41 AM.

[alfaphlex]

dancheng, thanks for the reply.

I completely forgot about disabling the index. That was one of the first things I did on mine. I didn't know about the NTFS tip though.

I'm going to put both of those in the first post since they very essential, especially the indexing.

[markraphael]

alfaplex do you have the 900 with 4gb+16gb ssd or the newer model with the single 16gb ssd?

[markraphael]

Alfaphlex i read your posts on the other thread so don't bother to reply. I will try your solutions on my sister's 16gb, hopefully all these tweaks will make it a bit usable. I agree with you that the performance of the 16g is unacceptable for the $400 price tag.

[fragmore]

Mine works fine right out of the box.

[Pingii]

Thank you!

Will help alot when I get mine on monday.

[hgoor]

Quote

alfaplex do you have the 900 with 4gb+16gb ssd or the newer model with the single 16gb ssd?

That is actually a 4gb + 12gb model and it comes stock with XP. Price is the same but they 'steal' 4gb to pay for the XP license.

So just get a 20gb model for the same price and replace Linux with XP and you save money and space.

Just my 2 cents...

[alfaphlex]

Quote

Quote

alfaplex do you have the 900 with 4gb+16gb ssd or the newer model with the single 16gb ssd?

That is actually a 4gb + 12gb model and it comes stock with XP. Price is the same but they 'steal' 4gb to pay for the XP license.

So just get a 20gb model for the same price and replace Linux with XP and you save money and space.

Just my 2 cents...

hahah, I only wish! The 16gb 900 I'm referring to is the 20gb (4gb fast + 16gb slow) with a stolen 4gb, except that the 4gb missing is the fast 4gb ssd drive.

So it's only one very slow 16gb drive.

[afamily]

I currently have a 900 20g (4 + 16) and had done most of these and thought it was pretty quick. I went back and made sure all these were done and now it's even faster. Thanks for the guide.

I just ordered a 16g to evaluate. I will follow this guide when I get it and will post my results.

[singraham]

I have done all this except for nLite (stock XP), the eeectl mod, and system cache on my 900 16G (bios 802), and I can report that it has made a great improvement. Programs still take longer to load than on my brand new Dell (work laptop), but once running they are very quick. No hang time while writes are happening....EXCEPT in Firefox 3. Even with the cache on ram disk it still hangs on every page. Firefox 2, however, is VERY fast.

Edited by singraham, 25 July 2008 - 02:00 PM.

[alfaphlex]

Yeah singraham, FF2 is lightning fast compared to FF3, especially on the 16 ssd. There's something wrong with the way FF3 loads pages. What I think (and makes most sense) is that FF3 updates one of its sqlite database files after loading pages, because that's when that pause always seems to occur.

I'm actually looking into it right now to see if there is some way to stop that. Until then FF2 is great, especially with the FasterFox addon.

Edited by alfaphlex, 25 July 2008 - 03:21 PM.

[alfaphlex]

After some testing, I can confirm the hiccups in Firefox 3 on the 16gb ssd are due to multiple writes to FF3's sqlite database files. There's a places database with 11 tables.

One of them writes a single entry for every unique "place" you visit and its respecitive stats(i.e- eeeuser.com and forums.eeeuser.com would each be their own place)

Another table keeps your history and writes an entry for every page you visit, unique or not. Keeps track of visit date, session, etc.

Firefox writes to both of these tables after every page is loaded. Older browsers only kept records of every page you visit, but FF3 also updates stats in the places tables (i.e- visit count). If the page you load writes cookies, the cookies database will get written to as well.

FF2 does pretty much the same (1 less step), but it would write/update the history/cookies files in the background. It seems as if FF3 locks itself up while writing to the database to prevent data corruption. Apparently the ssd drive is so slow writing small amounts of data that it makes that small lockup period noticeable.

You can get rid of the hiccup by not letting Firefox write those entries into its database. To do this go to Tools->Options->Privacy and uncheck "keep my history for..". You will immediately see a difference in page loading.

The problem is that you lose your history. I wil try to find a way (if possible) have firefox keep the history without having to update the other table.

Best option for fast browsing (if you need a history) on the 16gb ssd is to use FF2. FF3 with no history is just as fast.

*updated post #2 with this info*

Edited by alfaphlex, 25 July 2008 - 05:25 PM.

[swaaye]

It seems that the Realtek driver does some stuff on boot that slows things down. It does some writes I think, because it seems to lengthen the time of "write lock" I call it, when the SSD is lit solid at a point during login. Uninstalling the driver makes a noticeable difference to login time. Unfortunately, I can't see any way to improve this without getting rid of sound.

[themaster]

alfaphlex:
What amount set min and max in Cacheset?

TheMaster

[spiff_man]

I'm also wondering >> alfaphlex >> What amount set min and max in Cacheset?

Or maybe someone else have an idea of the best settings?

[ranger47]

On "5) System cache" What values do you set the program to?

[afamily]

If you can live without all those audio clues then you can Disable Windows XP Sounds. Having sound effects set for common Windows XP tasks slows your system down. This affects startup and shutdown speeds the most.

Instructions - To disable all Windows XP task sounds go to "Start", "Settings", "Control Panel", "Sounds and Audio Devices", select the "Sounds" tab, under "Sound Scheme" select "No Sounds".


Note this only affects the even sounds not the sounds your games media software produce.

[tekio]

Great post!