Tutorial - Power up your PC

First things first: if you have Microsoft Office
installed, then chances are you have a shortcut in
your Start Up folder called Find Fast. This causes
problems with music applications as it periodically
runs performing indexing operations on your files.
So, get rid of it from the Start Up folder, you can
always run it by hand should you need it. Also
remove any other programs from your Start Up
folder that aren't required, as this will stop them
taking up residency in memory when the computer
starts.
The other setting that can improve the performance of
applications under Windows is that of the virtual
memory. Windows automatically manages virtual
memory for you, but performance can be improved
(especially in memory intensive applications like Cubase
VST or Logic) by creating a permanent swap file (see
Power Up: Setting up a fixed swapfile, below). If you
don't feel comfortable with doing this, however, you can
instead set up the amount of cache that's stored in
physical memory (see Power Up: Setting physical
memory cache). This is a tricky one to explain, but
suffice to say, it's harmless and it makes a difference to
your system speed.
Now you've sorted your swap file and cache settings, the
next thing to do is to set up your file system. Open up
Device Manager by right-clicking on My Computer and
selecting Properties. Next, select the Performance tab
and hit File System. Check that the drop-down option for
'Typical role of machine' is set to Network server. The
default is Desktop system, but this doesn't allow
Windows to access a large number of files
simultaneously, which music apps in particular need to
do.
If the machine isn't set up as a network server, then
change its typical role, hit OK and reboot. Next, we'll look
at defragging the hard disc. This is an activity that should
be done at least one a month - maybe more if you
regularly install and remove a lot of software...

Power Up: Setting up a fixed swapfile

Right click on My Computer and Select Manage my own Settings Your computer will needed to be

select Properties to bring up the
System Properties window. Select the
Performance tab, then File System,
then Virtual Memory.
and put in values of 150Mb and
200Mb for minimum and maximum
size respectively. Is this more than
adequate for any application. Hit OK
and close all the Windows.
rebooted for the changes to take
effect. Get used to seeing that
Windows splash screen, because it's
going to be burnt indelibly into your
retina by the time we're done...

Power Up: Setting physical memory cache

First we need to open Sysedit. Normally, this particular area of windows

should be left well alone, since messing with it can cause major
problems. However, what we're doing here is simple enough, so click Start,
Select Run, type 'sysedit' in the run box and hit OK.

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Tutorial - Power up your PC

Et voila! Sysedit appears. Select the System.ini window and find the
entry with the header [VCache]. If you have 64Mb of memory or less,
set the MinFileCache to 8192 and the MaxFileCache size to 8192. If you have
128Mb of memory, set the MinFileCache to 12288 and MaxFileCache to
16384. Having done that, find the entry saying [386Enh]. Add (or edit) the
value LocalLoadHigh=1. Save the changes (File then Save) and close
Sysedit. Restart the system for the changes to take effect.

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Tutorial - Power up your PC

If you need to perform a fresh install of your system, one way of

increasing hard disc performance is to make sure that your primary
partition is using the FAT16 (File Allocation Table) disc system.
Although this is not as efficient in terms of disc space, it is
considerably faster in terms of file access. A lot of pre-built
computers come with the C Drive as a 2Gb FAT16 partition and the
rest of the physical drive formatted as FAT32. However, FAT16 also
doesn't support partitions any bigger than 2Gb due to the 16-bit
limitation. This article isn't going to cover the use of FDISK, as it's a
fairly advanced topic. Those of you who want to change to a primary
FAT16 partition, please consult the appropriate documentation.
Standard disclaimer: anyone using FDISK does so entirely at their
own risk!

Hard Disc Optimisation

On the flip side, if disc space is a concern, any FAT16 partitions can
Why defrag the hard drive?
be converted to a FAT 32 partition at any time within Windows 98.
Well, as you install software, the machine
The reason FAT32 takes up less space than FAT16 is because it uses
uses the next set of free continuous data
a smaller cluster size. (A cluster is the smallest common denominator
blocks on your hard drive (where possible),
in terms of the amount of disc space a file can take up.)
therefore grouping files together and making
them more efficient for your system to seek
and read. Over time, as old software gets The other way of greatly increasing disc throughput is by making sure
removed and new software gets installed, that in Device Manager>Hard Drive>Properties, DMA is enabled. All
this will lead to the file locations on your modern systems should have DMA capable drives. If you're unsure
hard disc becoming fragmented; ie, not all in then either check your system manuals or get in contact with the
contiguous locations. Running defrag on your system vendor to check if your drive supports this capability. Most
hard disc resolves this problem and makes vendors provide product information on their website, including
sure that all files are stored in logical blocks, system specifications.
thereby reducing the amount of time spent
seeking. To defrag your hard drive (or,
The other essential Windows utility for checking that your system
indeed, any drive), perform the following
files and hard disc are in good shape is ScanDisk. ScanDisk can be
steps:
scheduled to periodically to check that your hard drive and files are in
good shape, both physically and in terms of system integrity. To run
1. Turn off your screen saver. Screen ScanDisk, go through the following steps:
savers cause a read of the hard disc,
which restarts the defrag process.
1. From the Start Menu, Select Programs>Accessories>System
Virus software is best disabled too,
Tools>ScanDisk.
since some makes also have the
2. Select the drive you wish to scan and make sure the Thorough
occasional read without warning.
checkbox is ticked.
2. From the Start Menu, Select
3. If you want ScanDisk to automatically fix any errors that it
Programs>Accessories>System
finds, check the Automatically fix errors check box.
Tools>Disc Defragmenter.
4. Hit Start.
3. Select the drive you wish to defrag.
4. Let it run to the end. Never stop
defrag half way through as your drive The ScanDisk process, as with defragging the hard disc, can take a
may well end up in a worse state long time, so it may be best to run it overnight. Having done all these
than it was when you started the things, your system should now be good shape to maximise
operation! throughput for that all-important track being mixed down to Hard
Disc.

Power Up: Replacing system files

If at any point you find applications start to crash abnormally, or there are occasional problems with booting into
Windows, then there is a little known utility in the Windows/System directory called SFC.exe. This handy little
undocumented utility scans your Windows system and checks the integrity of your system files. If it find files that
are out of date or corrupt, it prompts for the Windows disc and then replaces them. It can often save a reinstallation
of Windows since many problems come from dodgy system files. Run it like this...

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Tutorial - Power up your PC

Open Explorer and go into C:/Windows/System. In there, This window appears. If you want to check
you'll find a file called Sfc.EXE (System File Checker); double- for changed files, then go to Settings and
click that sucker to get it running... click the checkbox saying, unsurprisingly, 'Check
for changed files'. Hit OK to run SFC.

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Tutorial - Power up your PC
Defragging is a monthly must. And you'll
be surprised by the difference it makes
to speed and storage space...
Resolving Soundcard problems
Over the years, Windows has become far
better at managing the installation of new
hardware. 99 percent of the time it sets up
new devices correctly, assigns the right IRQs
and Resources, and everything works fine.
However, the one percent of the time it
doesn't can have a detrimental impact on
performance. This is quite common in
systems that are trying to run two
soundcards or video cards under the same
Windows installation.
First of all, make sure that you have the
latest drivers for your hardware. Most
manufacturers make regular driver updates
to their products, so be sure to check their
websites frequently. Secondly, make sure
the soundcard is not conflicting with
anything (see Power Up - Finding resource
conflicts, below). If you see an IRQ conflict,
try unchecking the Use Automatic Settings
button. Then re-map the IRQ to resources
that are not in use. Reboot and see if the
changes were effective. If not, give it
another try.
Tech Talk
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If you're still having problems, try this:
1. Reboot and then depress the Delete, F1 or appropriate key
(check your motherboard's manual) to enter your BIOS set-up
program.
2. Find a section called 'PNP, PCI & Onboard I/O' (or similar).
This is usually found in the chipset features option of the BIOS
menu.
3. Find 'Resources controlled by' (or similar) and change the
value from Auto to Manual.
4. Change the setting of the IRQ(s) the soundcard is conflicting
with or using.
5. Boot into Windows and make sure that the soundcard conflict
has been removed.
When you're having audio trouble in applications, one way in which to
troubleshoot the soundcard (and the drivers) is to try the following
five-step solution:
1. Go to the Start menu, select Settings and open the Control
Panel.
2. Double-click the Multimedia icon, and under Playback, click
the Advanced Properties button.
3. Select the Performance tab and find the Hardware
Acceleration slider control.
4. It will probably be all the way to the right. Try sliding it to the
left one notch.
5. Now run the application with which you're having problems
and see if there's any improvement.
Try this repeatedly at different hardware acceleration levels. While
certain applications may run just fine with the hardware acceleration
up full, a few may perform better with it taken back a notch or two.
If you're still having problems, then remove the card and re-install.
To do this, go through the following steps:
1. Right click My Computer on the desktop.
2. Choose Properties.
3. Choose Device Manager.
4. Scroll down to Sound, Video, and Game Controllers and
expand the tree.
5. Click on each of the items pertaining to your soundcard (one
at a time).
6. Choose Remove, then OK.
7. Reboot once everything has been removed.
8. Reinstall hardware as per the instructions in your soundcard's
manual.
If you ever experience freezes from applications then try disabling
the assignment of IRQ to USB (unless you're using USB, of course).
This can usually be done in the BIOS. Then set your soundcard to use
Half Duplex, unless you need Full Duplex (record/play at the same
time). Consult your soundcard's manual for information on how to do
this.
Tutorial - Power up your PC
DLL
A library of routines (code) that allows itself to be used
by other DLL calling-capable languages. For example, all
the core functions for Windows are in a file called
Kernel32.DLL. The DLL 'publishes' the routines which can
then be called from other programs. In a nutshell (arf
arf), a way of splitting essential code up into smaller
components that can be shared by applications.
Virtual memory
Virtual memory (also called the swap file) is space
allocated on the hard disc that Windows uses when it
runs out of available physical memory. With some
application processes you may notice a lot of hard disc
activity. This is due to Windows reading and writing data
to your virtual memory.
FAT
File Allocation Table. A disc filing system used by
Windows to establish the 'layout' of your hard drive.
There are two different types of FAT: FAT16 and FAT32,
differentiated by the fact that FAT16 is 16-bit and FAT32
is 32-bit. In essence, FAT16 gives faster disc access,
while FAT32 delivers more space due to the smaller
minimum data cluster size.
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FDISK
Splitting a single physical drive into logical drives creates
partitions. This is done with the DOS utility FDISK. Be
warned, however, that using FDISK is not for the faint
hearted! It can only be used on a freshly formatted drive
as it deletes and creates partitions, thereby wiping out
any data on said drive.
IRQ
Interrupt Request. Every hardware device in your system
has an IRQ. When that device needs to communicate
with the CPU, it 'interrupts' whatever data is passing
through the assigned port to get its data through. IRQ
conflicts prevent hardware from transferring information,
consequently stopping them in their tracks.
Registry
The much maligned Windows Registry is an object
database of all the information required for the OS to
function and communicate with hardware. Each of the
registry keys refers to certain files on the computer - OS
configuration, installed software, hardware driver
configuration etc. The problem with it is that it's an 'in
memory' database, and thus quickly bloats the memory
unless kept in check.
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Tutorial - Power up your PC

Right-click My Computer,
choose Properties, then Device
Manager. Scroll down to the Sound,
Video and Game Controllers tree
and expand it (by clicking on the +
next to it).

Double-click each item in the

list pertaining to your
soundcard (one at a time). Choose
the Resources tab and look in the
Conflicting device list. If you have a
conflict, it will tell you here. Head
for the section Resolving Soundcard
Problems (previous page) for
assistance...

Power Up: Adjusting Hardware acceleration

From the Start menu, select
Settings and open the Control
Panel. Double-click the Multimedia
icon. Under Playback in the
Multimedia options screen, click the
Advanced Properties button.

Select the Performance tab

and find the Hardware
acceleration slider control. It's
probably all the way to the right, so
try sliding it to the left one notch.
Now run the application you're
having trouble with and see if
there's any improvement. If not,
move the slider another notch the
left etc.

Cleaning up Windows Now install Easy Cleaner and run it from the Start Menu.
If it's been a few months or longer since you last made a There are several parts to this program, but for the
clean reinstall of the OS, you'll generally find that the purposes of this article we're only interested in the Clean
overall performance of your PC is beginning to suffer. Registry section. Click on the Clean Registry button and
This is usually due to a combination of unused DLLs then Find. After the program has completed its scanning,
cluttering up your Windows/System folder, and a large delete all the entries shown and run it again. Carry on
Registry database which Windows tends to manage very running the program until no entries come up when the
badly. So, at some point you have to bite the bullet and scan is finished.
go through the excruciatingly-painful process of
reinstalling Windows. However, it CAN be averted if you
And finally, run Microsoft's CleanReg using Windows
follow a few simple guidelines...
Explorer, as this program doesn't create an icon on the
start menu. Uncheck the Update After Delete box, select
There are several programs which allow you to perform a a key from the top window and click on the Delete Key
scan of system files and find out which ones are being button. Repeat this ten or so times, go up and select the
used and which ones are not. You can download all of the Update After Delete box and delete one more key. Then
programs covered from the list below). To install the uncheck the Update box and continue this process until
programs you'll need WinZip (check out our cover CD). all of the entries are gone. Now reboot the computer.

First up is Clean System Directory. This scans the System
folder and finds any seemingly unused DLL files and
moves them into a separate folder. It is strongly
recommended that you don't delete these files for a
couple of months to ensure that they aren't still required
by your system.
Install the Clean System Directory program and begin by
starting up the program from the Start Menu. A box will
appear with lots of checkboxes and three buttons at the
bottom. Check the boxes with correspond with your Hard
Drives and disc partitions (for example, C and D), then
click on the Start Scanning button. When the program
The last task that needs carrying out is compressing the
Registry. If you have Windows 95 Service Pack 1 or
older, do not do this as there is a serious bug with the
process. We suggest you upgrade Windows 95 to OSR
Release 2.1 or, indeed, Windows 98. OSR 2.1 is available
for free from Microsoft's Web site at www.microsoft.com.
Also, download FixReg from here. Having done that,
follow the simple instructions below to compress the
Registry.
1. Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode.

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Tutorial - Power up your PC
has gone through the entire system, a dialog box will
appear; click Select All and then Move Selected Files.
Make sure you restart your computer before moving on
to the next step.
Next, run the RegClean program. Click on the Start
button and the program will scan the registry and work
out which keys should be removed. After the scanning is
complete, click on the Fix Errors button to apply the
changes. After this, you should reboot your system. If
the computer has an error during the reboot (unlikely but
possible), simply double click on the undo*.reg file to
reset the computer to how it was before running
RegClean.
All that software...
Hit pictures to goto the website!
Clean System isolates of all those pesky DLLs that
are clogging up your system. Best not to remove 'em
though...
Easy Cleaner's Clean Registry option needs to be
used over and over again until there's nothing left.
Then restart... again.
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2. Go to your Windows directory by typing C:/ at the
command line and then cd/windows. Then type
smartdrv at the prompt and hit return. This will
speed up the processes which we are about to
instigate.
3. Type regedit /e all.reg. This will export the
registry to the all.reg file.
4. Type regedit /c all.reg. This will compress and
import the all.reg file, replacing the old registry
with a compressed copy of it.
5. Now type win, hit return and wait while Windows
boots up.
6. Open the FixReg program, point it at the all.reg
file in the Windows directory and open the file.
This will automatically make sure that all of the
necessary registry keys have been imported.
7. Delete the all.reg file and reboot.
RegClean scans your registry and removes any
redundant keys. Like most system software, it
requires a restart to kick in.
CleanReg (these names are getting confusing) is the
final stage in registry cleaning before compression.
Phew!
Tutorial - Power up your PC

Please note: The version of CleanReg listed and described above is now unfortunately obsolete. The new version of
CleanReg avalilable from www.armstrongsystems.bizland.com is slightly different from the one in the article. To achieve
the same thing, just do this:
1. After the registry scan, 5 windows open. The one you need is called CleanReg.
2. Highlight 10 items in this window and hit the delete key from registry button. Everything in this window can go.
3. The 'update after delete' checkbox is now redundant.
4. The new version seems slightly unstable and we experienced a few crashes if trying to delete more than 10 obsolete
registry entries so use with caution.
5. You dont need to register to use it effectively, but the instablility is a problem and the registration activates a write-to-
disc undo.

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Tutorial - Power up your PC

Using TweakUI
you can get TweakUI from here. Its one of those fabulous
utilities where once you've installed it, you never know
how you managed without it. Anyway, without further
ado, lets see how we can use TweakUI to speed up
Windows load times and graphics performance...
First of all, install TweakUI. It should put an Icon named
TweakUI in the Control Panel. Start it up and follow the
Power Up walkthrough below.
This should speed up boot times and also free up some
memory due to the disabling of certain standard Windows
items that chew up valuable memory and graphics
resources.
OK, so you now have an optimised system, and you
should see decreased boot-up times, more efficient use of
memory and a quicker hard disc. It's certainly worth
making sure that you carry on using ScanDisk and Disk
Defragmenter regularly. The cleaning up Windows section
shouldn't be required more than once every three to six
months, though, unless you install and remove a lot of
software on a regular basis.,/p>
And there you have it. A cleaner, faster PC system,
courtesy of Computer Music. No, its OK, you don't
need to thank us. Well, maybe just a little thanks
then - the forum is a good place to start... :)

Power Up: Using TweakUI

Under the General tab, uncheck
the following items (you'll barely
notice they're gone): Window
Animation, Smooth Scrolling, Menu
Animation, Combo Box Animation, List
Box Animation.
Under the the Explorer tab,
disable the following items: Tip
of the day, Animated 'Click here to
begin'.
Under the Boot tab, disable the
'Show Splash Screen' item. This
speeds up your boot time a little.
Obviously, if you're really attached to
the Windows startup screen, then
leave this one alone.

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