PC optimization software ?

[lemonisdead]

Hello,

I am looking for any (more) ideas to "boost" my PC. In fact, I did bought a PC to run B4A separately before to buy B4I.
Previously, I did use B4A on a Mac using Parallels. The 32bits version was pretty responsive. On the PC, the system is not as responsive. But the new PC has a lot of more RAM, etc.
Of course, I have uninstalled all the "companion software" installed by the manufacturer and I even upgraded to 8.1 Pro.

So, for now, I have tried a lot of "magical" software advertised to boost the PC.

• The first one is iolo System Mechanics that I owned and used on the virtualized system on the Mac but it is no utility to boost and on the PC seems to be outdated (facial look)
• The second is AVG TuneUp : great improvement, system more responsive (in fact I am able to start in 9 seconds and open B4A very quickly). But its disadvantage is the "power management" : when the PC is run on batteries, the software put it in a "economy plan" and the PC is sloooowww. AVG did not reply to my support request asking how to disable that behavior.
• The third is Virtual Technician from Emies : not fantastic at all. Changes a lot of settings but no improvement.
• Then I have tried Windows Doctor : changes a lot of settings. Got a Windows update not listed in the Windows update software (???). Well not, impressive
• And currently, I am running PowerSuite from Uniblue : seems to accelerate (a little) the system. But the system starting is very long...

Well, I knew nothing was perfect but I am really disappointed. Perhaps do you have any advice about a software I did missed ? Thanks

 

[KMatle]

I only use CCleaner to clean my pc. Any other won't have any affect except you de-install other software. WIN8 is much more responsive than WIN7. I prefer 64Bit versions because of the more RAM you cann youse (4 GB is too less for a fast pc with WIN8). I have a i5 notebook with 12 GB and WIN 8.1 64Bit and a "normal" hd. It starts much faster than my son's WIN7 + SSD + 16 GB.

At the end it doesn't matter if a pc starts in 10 or 20 secs.

 

[lemonisdead]

At the end it doesn't matter if a pc starts in 10 or 20 secs.

You are almost right but what "makes me crazy" with that PC is the fact that I have to wait till the system has completely started before to be able to launch B4A and start coding. Even if I put most services in "Automatic / Deferred", it could be long. And when I put it in "deep sleep" instead of power off, it is longer.
Perhaps should I go to an SSD to replace the HD...

 

[WAZUMBi]

I use a separate laptop for development with B4A, php, and other programming platforms.
It's an older one - AMD A6-3420M with 4gb of ram.
It takes a few minutes to load but I have no problems after that.

I use my custom PC's for graphics and video editing. One is an Intel i7 and the other is an AMD FX 8350. Both have 32gb of RAM and 120gb solid state hard drives to boot up with and 1tb of serial ATA hd space for storage. Both use Windows 7. Windows 8 is garbage.
They take literally 10 seconds to boot up and I can use them within seconds.
I use an older Intel i3 to listen to YouTube and Netflix.

Anyway, I don't use any 'cleaner' software. I only use antivirus software to be safe.

Bottom line for me?
If you want the absolute fastest PC, make it yourself. Name brand PC's use too much proprietary software.
Some, such as Gateway (now owned by Acer) and E-Machines even us proprietary hardware to limit your upgradability.
Amazon and Ebay are a great place to peace together an awesome custom PC for a fraction of what you would pay retail.

Learn how to 'clean' your own machine by de-fragmenting, clearing cache, web history, delete unwanted/unneeded software, and what not. Be careful of what you do on your development PC.
Obviously you must be diligent and suspicious of any unfamiliar website or email.
This gives you more control and security of your data....

No matter what you do Windows always seems to cling to older legacy crap and slow you down so:
Every six months or so I wipe out my computer (backing up of course) and re-install everything from scratch.

 

[sorex]

Hard to guess without knowing what kind of PC you actually have and whats on it.

There is a lot of new laptops that actually run way slower than those a few years ago.

the reason?

they use slower processors just to have machines in lower budget ranges. (250-400 euros)

multi core machines tend to be slower than single cores were as they split tasks over the (slower) cores instead of 1 faster one.

you didn't mention if you have stuff like norton/mcafee antivirus installed that slows down a lot.

as said in line 1 it's hard to guess without getting all this info.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

I also bought an SSD recently but was a little disappointed as I didnt see speed boosts as expected.
Sure Win8 boots in 10 seconds, but I never shut down my PC.
I only have an i3, 8GB RAM, no Graphics card, but all the components were very carefully selected to build a balanced system.
In my opinion you need to know exactly what you are buying and where the bottlenecks are. DDR3/dual triple channels/CAS Latecny, SATA3 for an SSD and so on.
Win8 is much faster than Win7 and also better optimized for SSDs.
For B4A you dont really need much specs, I used to run it on a P3 766MHz 512MB just fine.
Just checking what HDD do you have, is it a 5400rpm?

 

[KMatle]

My WIN8.1 is up about a year. No probs. My GF's WIN7 (i3) is fresh re-installed and a bit slow at startup (in the last phase it is 1% CPU = idle and the HD is doing almost nothing). Perhaps Microsoft caused it due to all the updates. Or maybe it's the User Account Control which sometimes "waits" for 20 secs until the prompt shows up (what is it doing in that time?). All logs are ok. I have no idea what WIN7 is doing in that time.

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Possibly loading prefetch and superfetch or search indexing?

 

[lemonisdead]

Hard to guess without knowing what kind of PC you actually have and whats on i

It's a Dell Inspiron 3531 : Intel Celeron N2830, RAM upgraded to 8 GB, HD replaced by HITACHI Travelstar 7K1000 (1TB, 32MB cache, SATA III 7200)
The McAfee LiveSafe was uninstalled and replaced by BitDefender Essential.
Well, I am currently trying Norton Utilities and it seems to make a good job.

Possibly loading prefetch and superfetch or search indexing?

Usually Prefetch and Search indexing are done by deferred services (after the system has been fully started).

 

[wonder]

"Format C:" is usually quite effective for maximum PC optimization...

Also, this:

 

[udg]

Often there are a lot of useless services active.
Since XP days I followed Black Viper's advices and experimented a bit myself. I tend to turn off most of the MS stuff since I feel I can't rely on the "quality" of their work.
Yes, my mental attitude is still that of those glorious days when you set dip-switches on your boards and had full control on your machine. Never liked the "smart-era" when unknown, undocumented software (OS, services..) was supposed to be in command to "simplify" our lives.
Not to mention all the behind-your-shoulder connections to the outside world those services and software routinely do..

 

[sorex]

But its disadvantage is the "power management" : when the PC is run on batteries, the software put it in a "economy plan" and the PC is sloooowww. AVG did not reply to my support request asking how to disable that behavior.

you can change these plans under power management. just change the default one to full force.

 

[lemonisdead]

I am sorry, I don't want to be rude. Please apologize if I don't speak correctly but I had problems I could not solve by myself. Of course, I did try to apply some registry tweaking and services management. Of course.
But there is a great difference between what I got by tweaking the system myself and by using a third party software :

 

[lemonisdead]

you can change these plans under power management. just change the default one to full force.

Yes, of course, dear Sorex but AVG will change this each time it detects the power plan has changed (this means for me 20/30 times per day). But I do thank you for the idea

 

[sorex]

did you try to only install the virus & web scanner?

all that other stuff seems to constantly scanning your registry and other things for changes.

 

[sorex]

also disabled windows update. do that manually every few weeks. it tends to slow down a lot too while checking all patches in the background.

 

[udg]

Hi lemonisdead, there's no way a nice lady like you could be rude! Even struggling very hard to that it would never be within your grasp

A 16 minutes difference? That makes for a very good ad about the product you used!

 

[thedesolatesoul]

Usually Prefetch and Search indexing are done by deferred services (after the system has been fully started).

Sorry that was meant for @KMatle

It's a Dell Inspiron 3531 : Intel Celeron N2830, RAM upgraded to 8 GB, HD replaced by HITACHI Travelstar 7K1000 (1TB, 32MB cache, SATA III 7200)
The McAfee LiveSafe was uninstalled and replaced by BitDefender Essential.
Well, I am currently trying Norton Utilities and it seems to make a good job.

This is my opinion only, but I think you shot yourself in the foot by getting the N2830. AFAIK it is just a dual core Atom chip.
If I were you I would go for 4G RAM, 500GB HDD, and upgraded the processor to atleast a PentiumM if not an i3.

 

[sorex]

the speed is quite good for a celeron tho.

 

[sorex]

also check your bios. your harddrive has silent, balanced and performance settings or something in the Dell BIOS. Put it on Performance. (it is or was silent as default)

(press F2 or 12 during Dell Logo boot screen)