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The first was to download and install Priority Master 2006. This allows dynamic control of the relative process priorities of the various programs and processes you have running at any particular time. Properly configured, it means that programs are prevented from hogging processor time, and the programs you want to have most access to the CPU are the ones with most access to the CPU. It makes a big difference to the overall responsiveness of the system, and allows e.g. CD/DVD burning to go on in the background without interfering with other processes. It also helps prevent skipping on audio playback via e.g. Winamp, and generally means that the window you have open in front of you and which you're actually using has highest system priority. Hint #1. If you decide to use this program, do not use the default settings (which have recently changed, with the move from PM 2005 to PM 2005). Take the time to configure the program and set priorities to be applied automatically to the programs you commonly use. Hint #2. Make use of the 'Run List' feature of the program, which gives you greater fine-grained control over priority settings. Hint #3. Don't be put off by the garishness and seeming amateurishness of the program's website. The author knows what he is doing with this.
(I first became acquainted with this program in 2004, when it only cost $10. Great value, with free upgrades, too.)
The second thing was to download and install SuperSpeed's RamDisk program which allowed me to set up a Ram Disk and put the system Paging File there. I know there is a lot of controversy on the forums about the advisability of putting the Paging File on to a RAM Disk (it seems to be a circular thing to do) but Windows works in funny ways, and I have found the effect to be just, well, awesome. Once the various programs I typicallly use are up and running I now get hardly any disk access when swapping between them or using them to do things (eg surfing online, streaming internet radio to loudspeakers, etc) unless I specifically request disk access through a file open/save, etc, or launch a new application. It makes for an almost instantaneous response from the system as a whole (and improves battery life, too, since the HDD has more opportunity to spin down if I have it set to do that). It's quite amazing. I know that people sometimes advise turning off the Paging File in Windows altogether if you have enough RAM, but I have 1GB of RAM and I have tried that in the past, with mixed and sometimes erratic results, including freeze-ups, so I abandoned that method. 1GB of RAM is probably a minimal amount for trying out something like this RAM Disk solution, and so eventually I may slot in another 512MB. In the meantime, though, I have 245-245 (min-max) MB of Paging File on the new RamDisk, drive S:, and a further 256-512 (min-max) MB of Paging File on the C: drive. (The Windows default is 1.5 GB on the C: drive -definitely overkill if you have 1GB or more of RAM, unless you are using extremely memory hungry applications.) A nice feature of this setup is that if you have multiple paging files on multiple disks, Windows automatically uses the one on the fastest drive first, switching to the next fastest only when the first one is full. Of course that means that the RAM Disk Paging File has a higher priority, exactly what you want. I set up a new Management Console to monitor the progress of the Paging File usage and so far, with a bunch of applications used for over an hour (over 100 concurrent processes in total) there has been less than 1MB of the PageFile used on the C: drive. As I said, I noticed hardly any HDD access, except when launching/quitting applications and opening/saving files. Not only have I found much better responsiveness than I got when I tried switching off the Paging File altogether (the other solution I mentioned some people advocate) but also there isn't the problem of running out of memory and the system freezing up you have with that, since the second Paging File on the C: drive acts as a kind of backup, for when memory gets really low.
I hope people don't mind me posting on this forum with a non Thinkpad-specific topic, but I thought all you Thinkpad users might like to hear about this, and find further reasons to be in love with using your Thinkpads! I just cannot believe how amazingly super-smooth my system is running now! (By the way, in case anyone read the above and thought I was going a bit too fast with the technical stuff, I'll explain in more detail in another post if requested.)
The moral of this story, actually two moreals: Your CPU cycles are MEANT to be used; USE them, and use them WISELY! Your MEMORY is there to be USED, USE it, and use it WISELY! This is the way multi-tasking was supposed to be! Wow...
Note: Moved to the proper forum.
-Wolf
Software tweaking is not a all time good option. There are
