Part 5 of Quick tips on how to improve your PC's performance

Posted By: D-A-L | Date Added: 06-09-2007 08:04 AM | Views: 2357

Quick tips on how to improve your PC's performance by Nathan Forrest Hi! Welcome to the fifth brief article in this multi-part series that will show you how to clean up your PC and improve its performance. We'll be giving you inside tips on all of the checks and improvements that we carry out when we visit our UK customers for a "health check" on a desktop or laptop PC. Each week, we'll be showing you how to carry out another part of the full "health check" yourself and it won't cost you anything! Note that this article refers to PCs that run Windows but some parts will also be relevant for users of Linux, Apple Mac, etc. Previous related articles: Part 1: Performance status (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/143.html) Part 2: Clearing out temporary files (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/144.html) Part 3: Defragmenting your hard disk (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/145.html) Part 4: Checking your Internet speed (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/146.html) Part 5: Improving your Internet speed If you read last week's article about checking the speed of your Internet connection, you might have been surprised that the results were not as good as you had expected. If you didn't catch Part 4 (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/146.html), it is well worth a read! So, once you've found out that the speed at which you can use the Internet is not as good as it should be, what can you do about it? Well, actually, there's quite a lot of different things to try, ranging from easy tweaks to more involved service changes. 1. Firstly, let me just say that this article is aimed at broadband (ADSL / DSL) users. If you are using a 56kbps dial-up Internet connection, then some of the suggestions will apply but there's not much that anyone can do to make a big difference for you. In most parts of the world, anyone spending 5 hours or more each week using 56kbps dial-up Internet should be looking at switching to broadband - not only will it be at least 10 times faster but it will probably be no more expensive. 2. If your PC's Windows and software installation is generally in a poor state and performance is suffering throughout all of its uses, then these issues need to be addressed first before tackling the Internet speed. A large build-up of temporary files can have a dramatic effect on how quickly your web browser (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer) can display web pages. We showed how to clear out temporary files in Part 2 (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/144.html). It is also worth making sure that the hard disk is not heavily fragmented - this was reviewed in Part 3 (http://www.d-a-l.com/articles/library/145.html). 3. The most non-technical thing that you can do to improve your web browsing experience is to change your browsing habits - use web sites that load more quickly. If you find that your browser takes a long time to open and display your home page, then it may simply be that you have a very complex home page with lots of fancy images. A typical example of this is www.msn.com, which is the default home page after installing Internet Explorer. Switching to a simple home page such as www.google.com could make your browser ready to use more quickly. The same principal applies to your use of other web sites. If you frequently use a search engine web page that takes a long time to load, try using Google instead. If you check the news, sport or weather on a site that displays massive amounts of information on a single web page, try switching to a site that loads the information that you want more quickly. If you check your emails through a web site ("webmail"), see if you can configure your email account in Microsoft Outlook Express. Changing your home page for Internet Explorer 6 is very easy: 3a) Browse to the web page that you want to set as your home page. 3b) Select the Tools menu and then select Internet Options. 3c) On the General tab, click 'Use Current' (see Figure 1). Click OK to save the changes. Figure 1. 4. Another thing that can have more of an impact on your browser than you might realise is toolbars (and other add-ins). Unfortunately, there is a definite growing trend at the moment for software to come bundled with free toolbars, search tools and browser add-ins. This is particularly true of free software, the costs for which are subsidised by bundling the non-essential extras (being paid for by those that want to distribute their toolbars, etc.). One example of this is Adobe Reader 8. Most Internet users have a need for Adobe Reader (a.k.a. Adobe Acrobat Reader) at some point so that they can view PDF files. However, the latest version comes bundled with Google Toolbar AND Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition! You can choose not to install those extra components when you download Adobe Reader but, if you don't realise what difference it makes to your PC, then you will probably download all three. To completely remove toolbars and other add-ins from your system, you should go to 'Add Or Remove Programs' in Control Panel (this will be discussed in detail in a forthcoming article). However, they can also be simply disabled in some browsers such as Internet Explorer 6. To demonstrate this, I have downloaded and installed 3 popular toolbars (using the default installation settings) into Internet Explorer 6 on my test PC. What a mess they made! Firstly, I installed MSN Live Toolbar, which completely changed the appearance of my browser, adding tabs similar to Internet Explorer 7, which I wasn't at all happy about. It also wanted to change my home page and default search page. I then downloaded and installed Google Toolbar, which also prompted me to change my search page, which I allowed. That also installed Google Updater. I then downloaded and installed Yahoo! Toolbar, which tried to change my search page but Google Toolbar blocked it! The toolbars take up 20% of my available screen area at the top of my web browser (see Figure 2), which consequently means that I'll now be scrolling down 20% more in order to view the web sites that I use. That will slow me down. Figure 2. To disable these add-ins ("add-ons" in Internet Explorer 6): 4a) Select the Tools menu and then select 'Manage Add-ons'. 4b) When the list of add-ins appears, select one that you wish to disable, e.g. Windows Live Toolbar. Then click 'Disable' towards the bottom of the screen. 4c) Repeat the process for all unwanted toolbars and also related "helpers" and "notifiers". If you make a mistake and need to turn an add-in back on, simply return to this screen and use the same method in order to select the 'Enable' option. 4d) As you disable each unwanted item, it moves to the 'Disabled' section of the list (see Figure 3). Figure 3. In most cases, restarting your web browser will give you a new screen that opens more quickly without the toolbars. For some such as Google Toolbar, however, you may still need to uninstall the toolbar from 'Add Or Remove Programs' in Control Panel. Note that it is not only toolbars that integrate themselves into your web browser. Phishing filters check web sites that are about to be loaded in order to ensure that they are not trying to secretly obtain your personal information (e.g. credit card numbers). Phishing filters are becoming increasingly popular. One is included with Norton Internet Security 2007 and other similar security software suites. Whilst these may be useful, they can take additional time to do their checks before showing you all of the web site content so, if you are confident in determining the authenticity of web sites yourself, you may wish to switch the checking off. 5. Now that you have tidied up your browser, you may notice a performance improvement. If not, you might like to consider using a different web browser. Although Windows comes with Internet Explorer included, there are many non-Microsoft alternatives available such as Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Netscape Navigator, all of which can be downloaded at no charge. You'll find web sites for these browsers by entering the names into a search engine and you can find even more free web browsers at www.download.com and www.sourceforge.net. Even if you want to stick with Internet Explorer as most of us do, you might still find that there is a better version for you. Windows 98 comes with Internet Explorer 4 and Windows 2000 comes with Internet Explorer 5 - on both operating systems, Internet Explorer 6 will usually run faster. Having said that, the latest version isn't always the best. Windows Vista comes with Internet Explorer 7 and, if you have Automatic Updates switched on in Windows XP, Microsoft will automatically download it and install it onto your XP system as well. Internet Explorer 7 has mixed reviews, predominantly because of the new tabbed interface, which I personally find to be a slower way of using multiple web sites. 6. As well as removing web browser add-ins as described in step 4, you might also want to look at what software you have installed that uses automatic updaters. Most modern versions of most different types of software now have an update facility that periodically checks for new versions when you are online. These range from anti-virus and anti-spyware software, which are important to keep up-to-date, through to Adobe Reader and CD-burning software such as Nero and Roxio, for which you probably aren't going to notice any benefit if the software company wants you to have build number 1098 instead of 1097 for example. However, checking for new versions (and automatically downloading those available) will use your Internet bandwidth and potentially slow your web browsing down. The process for removing the automatic updaters varies from program to program and so I am not able to give you one method for all software. Furthermore, I shouldn't tell you how to switch off the updates for programs such as anti-virus because some will be important. However, you could use your own judgement to open the software programs that are installed on your PC and see whether there is an 'Options' or 'Settings' screen showing something such as "automatically check for updates" that you might want to disable. 7. Once you've got your PC running as efficiently as possible, you have to look outside your PC at the physical connection to the Internet if you want to make further improvements. If you are connecting to the Internet through a standard copper telephone line as most of us are, then you might be getting poor Internet performance because the signal is weak. Try calling your telecoms provider and asking them to run a line test and possibly increase the "gain" (signal strength) down your line. 8. If a standard copper telephone line just isn't going to meet your requirements, then consider switching to a cable operator as these generally use fibre optic cables. Fibre optic cabling has a much lower rate of signal loss as it moves away from the telephone exchange. Figure 4. 9. An alternative to switching telecoms provider might be just to change your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Although they won't necessarily be able to get you a better download speed down the same line, they might offer a faster upload speed. Although the significant majority of bandwidth for most users is used for downloading information into the PC from the Internet, uploading information back onto the Internet (such as transferring photos, sending emails, etc.) could be improved by a better upload rate. Small business broadband packages generally offer better upload speeds than residential packages, although they cost more. 10. The last and most dramatic choice is to go for a completely different kind of Internet connection. If available in your area, the cheapest upgrade from regular ADSL is probably ADSL2, which operates at higher maximum speeds, such as up to 24Mbps in the UK. However, if you aren't even able to get the full potential of standard ADSL because you are too far from the telephone exchange and have a poor line signal, then ADSL2 would probably make no difference. Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line (SDSL) is similar to ADSL except that the upload speed is the same as the download speed - typically 1Mbps or 2Mbps in both directions. This is significantly more expensive because it is intended for small businesses and it is only available in some areas. The next step up is to go for a (relatively) REALLY expensive system! Telecoms providers will usually be able to provide you with your own private connection to the exchange through a new line into your building (or connection via satellite), which is leased on a contract over several months or years and is, therefore, often referred to as a "leased line". Because it is a private line, there is a 1:1 contention ratio, as opposed to the 1:50 contention ratio that is common on residential ADSL connections. Contention ratios describe how the ISP allocates the bandwidth - on a 1:50 ratio they assume that up to 50 other homes could be connected to the same link to the Internet without decreasing performance to such a level that you will have a cause to complain. Their reasoning is that most of those 50 homes would not be using the Internet at the same time and, when they are, some users will be actively downloading a web page, email or file whilst other users are simply viewing whatever they have already downloaded so they won't need any bandwidth at that moment. In a worst case scenario, however, all 50 households could be downloading a large file at the same time and the "up to 8Mbps" service that you have subscribed to becomes "up to 0.16Mbps"! Leased lines are generally much more expensive than regular DSL links and are marketed only at business customers but they are also much more reliable (usually backed up by an impressive service level agreement) and much more consistent. I hope that you found this fifth part of our series on PC performance useful. Next week, we will be looking at the 'Add Or Remove Programs' screen and other methods that we can use to address the potentially daunting (and often misunderstood) task of correctly deleting unwanted programs. Nathan Forrest - Future Systems (Sussex) http://www.futuresystems-sussex.co.uk This article may not be copied or distributed in part or in full from this site and is copyright D24 Media Limited.

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