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Performance
Secrets - Page Two |
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Secrets
on how our PCs perform so much better than the
competition
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Hard
Disks (Part II) |
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How do you get a high disk score without cheating?
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1.
The right type of disk |
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10,000
rpm are faster than 7200 rpm disks are faster than 5400 rpm
disks. (Surprise, surprise). UDMA 100 disks are faster than UDMA 66
which are faster than UDMA 33 (usually). However, that UDMA speed needs to be
supported by the motherboard IDE controller. A UDMA 66 hard disk
connected to a motherboard that only supports UDMA 33 is a waste of
a good hard disk. Our experience has been that UDMA 133 doesn't
offer any noticeable difference over UDMA 100.
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2.
Hard disks have a buffer or cache |
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This
speeds their
performance up considerably. Obviously a disk with 2 MB of cache
is better than a disk with 1 MB. The maximum available at time of
writing this was an 8 MB of cache on some Western
Digital disks. Irrespective of the size, the speed of that cache varies so
...
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3.
Go for the right make |
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IBM, Maxtor, Quantum and Seagate keep
playing musical chairs for the title of manufacturer of the fastest hard disk. Keep an
eye out for hard disk reviews in magazines and scour technical
websites.
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4.
The right type of cables |
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UDMA 66, UDMA 100
and UDMA 133 hard disks need a
special 80 wire IDE cable with 40 pin plugs that fit into the disk
and the IDE controller. But there are 80 wire cables and there are
80 wire cables so choose the cable carefully. Note that on many
cables the middle connector only supports UDMA 33.
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5.
DMA doesn't enable itself |
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We've seen PCs from well known
manufacturers with Windows installed but the DMA for the hard disk
not enabled. This knocks a whole 2000 points off a disk winmark
score, dropping you to below 3000! Go to Device Manager, double
click on the hard disk, click on settings. If you don't have
a box for DMA then DMA is probably installed. If you have a box that
says DMA and it is not checked then your DMA is not enabled! You'd
be surprised how many PC "engineers" do not know this.
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6.
IDE Drivers / Busmastering drivers |
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What is
busmastering? That
is a bit beyond the scope of this page. Suffice to say that you need
it and many "engineers" do not install it on PCs they
setup. You can learn about busmastering at: Windrivers
and, if you don't already have them, you can get busmastering
drivers for your motherboard <link removed - use search
engines>
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7.
CMOS/BIOS Settings
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Most PCs, when booting, give you the option of
hitting delete to go into the BIOS setup. In the BIOS you can
enable/disable SMART for hard disks and you can make various other
changes that affect the hard disk performance.
We
recommend that making changes in the BIOS is for professionals. However, at some companies trainee technicians build PCs and are trusted to
get the settings correct. This is a big mistake. If there is even
one setting in the BIOS that your PC builder can't explain, then
get someone who can to build your PC. 99.5% of
"engineers" we interview for jobs here don't understand
BIOS settings.
The BIOS varies
from motherboard to motherboard. It is worth spending some time to
understand what the various settings are for and what effect they
have on the performance of your PC. Check the website of your
motherboard manufacturer.
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8.
Other software
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If you are using a UDMA 100 controller you
probably need to install the software for the UDMA 100 controller
card. It may show up as a SCSI device. Note: Sometimes older drivers
give you better performance than newer drivers.
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9.
Housekeeping
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Running scandisk and defrag regularly on your hard
disk keeps your disk in peak condition. The less the head needs to
move about to find your data the faster it'll find it.
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10.
Virtual Memory
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Windows uses a part of your hard disk as a swap
file (for the virtual memory). If you go to System Properties >
Performance > Virtual Memory (in the Control Panel) you can turn
your virtual memory on and off. Turning off your virtual memory will
reduce performance BUT turning off your virtual memory just to run a
defrag ensures that the defrag doesn't have to work around an area
of hard disk that is locked for the virtual memory. Once you've done
the defrag don't forget to turn the virtual memory back on again.
You always need to reboot your PC for the changes to take effect.
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Next:
The
right motherboard can boost speed by 25% >>
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We
hope you found these performance secrets useful. We regret that
there is a lot here that we haven't disclosed. But then this is a
business and we don't want to give too much away to the
competition.
The
next time you are in the market for a PC buy it from a company
that really knows how to build them. Buy your PC from us. We hope
we've convinced you about the performance of our PCs. Now let's
prove that our prices don't hurt. Click
here
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Standard
Disclaimer
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Your PC is
your responsibility. All
information provided here, including links, is provided without
liability. Our standard recommendation is to never do anything on
your computer unless you have a qualified engineer present. (That
way you sue him and not us).
*
Names are marks/trademarks/registered trademarks of other
companies. We do not claim proprietary interest in names that do not
belong to us.
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Other
Hard Disk & Storage Tips
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