Tips for Increasing the quality of performance of a 500 MHz PC
Introduction
This manual is to help you get the most of your PC. I work a lot with low level PCs, 500 Megahertz (MHz) or so. While you might not think a slower Central Processing Unit (CPU) can run successfully Windows XP but it can, however it takes some tweaking of the settings.
Step 1: Cutting down on the Graphics Drain
Windows XP comes with a sleek, brilliant and attractive graphical lay at, however beware, such a good graphical layout takes up a large part of your CPU resources. While its pretty and nice to look out you can go without it and in some cases you might not have much choice.
Windows XP Normally
Now to explain how to cut down on that drain. First go to the desktop and right click "My Computer". Move your cursor down to "Properties", then left click it.
The follow picture then will guide you for the next few steps:
Now I recommend you click the option of "Adjust for Best Performance".
Now you see it looks like MS 2000 or 98, a lot older but a WHOLE lot faster.
Step 2: Prioritizing tasks
This step can make some short term problems so please follow directions carefully!
Press "Ctrl", "Alt", and "Delete", simultaneously on your key board. The following image is to help you find them on your keyboard:
You have just opened the Task Manager as it is called. Now go to the "Processes" tab. Right click a process to get a list of options. The effect of each option is shown below.
End Process--Ends the Process and any programs running off it.
End Process Tree--Kills the selected Process and any Processes directly or indirectly started by it, not recommended in most cases.
Set Priority--This is used to manage the allocation of resources. This is useful if you are running a very important process and want to speed it up or want to slow another down. Another note, if your using dialup and downloading something placing the Process downloading the item (normally Firefox.exe or IExplorer.exe ) in Real Time Can increase the download speed.
There are some processes which you absolutely shouldn’t kill, they are:
scvhost.exe--Used to run other Processes.
explorer.exe--The Graphic Interface of Windows
Generally I recommend not messing with Processes started by "System".
In Conclusion
There are many other small things that you could do but these are the simplest and most effective. If you feel you need more optimization I recommend either contacting a professional, studying up a lot on it yourself or getting a new CPU and/or more Random Access Memory (RAM). All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The author (William Williams) is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this writing.
