Acheive Perfection through Computing

[Nflight]

Everyone likes to crunch numbers and the more you do the higher your stats. Now lets look at possibly helping everyone achieve more numbers crunched by showing you little nuances you never knew existed.

This topic is under the Forum Index for Tips and Tricks: First Tip is turning most everything you don't need on .....off ! If by chance you look in your Windows XP user field under your name and your all users configuration find the start menu, then open the file and view what actually is being listed to turn on or is actually running in the back ground. Some people's system I have seen some 30 programs running and they wonder why there system is so slow. Hey if I had to juggle between 30 different work functions I would not be on top of the paying field either.

Second item to assist everyone would be to look at those pesky screensavers, you know the more you make the screensaver do the more instructions are sent to your processor for guidance to keep that gizmo moving around on your desktop. There is no reason to have the Boinc as a screensaver, in fact it is actually detremental if you want the high numbers in the stats department. Go into the Desktop/Screen saver and alter the selection of the Screensaver to Blank, I always hit the 1 minute delay as I sometimes pause a little long in those mental over load sessions. The less the screensaver is doing the more numbers crunching can happen. less nuisance computing and more ability for the CPU to work with out pauses for instructions. Depending on the size of the system I have seen the screensaver take upto 30% of the computing power, lately the source of power draw is close to 13%. Since I run blank I use less then 1%.

Third Item to speak of is the famous settings on the system set there by the Install of Boinc. Adjust at the ability of your system don't listen to me as I have rocketships churning the numbers out. You will need to work around the abilities of the machine, I set my systems to run all the time.

I have only BSOD'd my slower system once and never my 4200 with running all the time.

Good Luck.
Nflight

[Ototero]

Thanks Nflight,

That should get people talking about tweaking.

[NeoGen]

Some people's system I have seen some 30 programs running and they wonder why there system is so slow.

My task manager is showing 53 processes right now :P

[Nflight]

My current 4200+ system runs just 41 processes viewed in Task Manager. You have stuff running you don't know or understand, DON'T just click and turn it off from Task Manager, learn what it is, look it up on the net or Technet and resolve what it might be. Learn before you burn. Educate yourself about what the program your interested in does, what it is affiliated with and then after all that either turn it off or remove it completly. Never just remove from the Task Manager.
If your system has a lot of programs installed you may have more then 41 running in the back ground, but be careful with out a trailer to send the signal when you want to open up a media file there will be the hassle of having to do it all by hand. (True you get to know your system like an expert after while but the frustration of ease of convenience or work for it becomes the dilemna)

I am running Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed on both machines.

It is better to be safe then sorry! :roll:

[Nflight]

You know there is one item I forgot to mention in my earlier posts, that one item is how organized is your Hard Disk? What I am asking is how often do you defrag your hard drive? If you are like most and believe what the system says and don't defrag just because the machine says so, wait your listening to a machine, eee gads.

Machines can't know everything, they need to be coached into working quickly and efficiently. Defragging takes time yes it does so I keep mine tuned up by doing the defragging on Sundays. This keeps all the files in a contiguious form, for those that don't quite under stand this word contigious => it means if you had a file cabinet and you put files in the file cabinet under your own organized method doing it your way. Not always is it the best way and it confuses other programs as well.

So the tip is to return the file cabinet mess to an organized filing system that works the quickest for BOINC's sake.

Defrag the system three times, everytime no matter what if the machine says it does not need it. This way each and every file is pushed closer to the floating head at the starting point instead of being strewn across the entire disk making access times faster for the CPU and thus faster processing speeds.

Wha La => as soon as you are finished with the last of the three you will notice an increased speed on your machine for the first 3 or 4 days, Don't think you need to defrag so soon. This is normal and it is actually in tune with the system load it is required to run.

***Remember do it once a week, three times, no matter what the darn machine says to do.

[NeoGen]

I can add a little something more...
Try not to let your hard drive fill up beyond 75% of it's capacity. Not just defrags but everything will work much faster. (In what comes to reading/writing stuff to disk)

I have my hard drive around 95% full and I'll tell you all... it's bad!! :P

[Nflight]

Yes NeoGen is correct the smaller displacement of infomration on HD's the better the system performance. If you can afford it do not go above 40% usuage. This will keep the speeds clearly higher by keeping the HD heads nearer the source and the time of access to info up close to the top all the time.

Just for some insight I have noticed that I am now in the top 20 of Predictor Scripps which is where I will stay since most of my friends have PHD's or MD's in clinical Research.

The intersting part is seeing your machine rated and displayed as:
Average CPU Efficiency = 0.997918 translated to 99.7918%

This can be found through this link: http://predictor.scripps.edu/hosts_user.php
Then click on your Computer ID at the left of the display, this will show you the Computer information in detail. As always keep up the crunching!

[NeoGen]

Nflight, maybe you can answer me something...

In toying around with the Administrative Tools on the Control Panel, one can see the Services. And inside it shows a bundle of services of Windows and other programs we got installed, many of them running and even set to run at startup.
They all got descriptions and stuff, but the descriptions can be somewhat cryptic to one who isn't familiar with the inner workings of Windows.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall, I got Norton Internet Security. This could be a safe one to stop, no?

[Nflight]

Even though I am not as happy as I could be with Billy Bob Gates and all, I must say don't stop the firewall. This is protection you should have up and running 24/7.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall

I would prefer if you would go into your network connection and go into properies of the connection, look at the top of the GUI and you will see two listings one is General and the other is Advanced, click on advanced and alter your settings for Windows Firewall.

This may be ok to stop if you feel secure enough with just Norton, me personnaly I run both plus one more called Nvidia Firewall Protection. Then I have two gateways setup and running in router mode, also in something called a nested enviroment. Do I feel safe enough, I guess you can say that once I found out that nothing is secure I just know if I make it enough trouble for someone to break in they probably won't keep up the pursuit long enough to break in.

NO System is secure, in real life. If someone wants to break in there is a way, no matter what the situation, everything is just 1's and 0's.

[mitro]

Nflight, maybe you can answer me something...

In toying around with the Administrative Tools on the Control Panel, one can see the Services. And inside it shows a bundle of services of Windows and other programs we got installed, many of them running and even set to run at startup.
They all got descriptions and stuff, but the descriptions can be somewhat cryptic to one who isn't familiar with the inner workings of Windows.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall, I got Norton Internet Security. This could be a safe one to stop, no?

Unfortunately the original source is missing in action now, but here's whats safe and whats not:

http://web.archive.org/web/200411280...servicecfg.htm

Of course when it comes to DC there's no substitute for MHz. AMD MHz that is.