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Did you ever wonder how fast your computer actually is? Sure, it says that it is a Pentium 2.8 Ghz or may be Core 2 Duo on the box the system came in but the speed of the CPU is not the only factor in determining how fast your system actually is. The true speed of your computer is determined by the speed of all of your hardware, such as the speed of data written and read from the hard drive, the speed of the RAM, and the speed of the front side bus of the motherboard. This BLOG will help you analyze your system to determine exactly how fast it is and how you can make it faster.

Before you start to make your computer run faster, you need to understand the limitations of your hardware and also to be able to identify possible bottlenecksin your system. The situation is just like what would happen before you go to the hospital to have an operation. It is usually better to have some tests completed first so that the doctors know exactly what to do.

TIP 1
Stopping background services(unused) :

To get the maximum amount of performance out of your system, you have the option of disabling all of the services on your computer that are

not critical to the system. This would take away a lot of the nice features and conveniences of Windows, but you would have a much faster machine. The following is a list of system-critical services that should not be disabled. Feel free to disable all other services.

Do not disable the following Services:

Com Event System
Cryptographic Services
DCOM Server Process Launcher
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Event Log
IPSEC Services
Workstation
Shell Hardware Detection
System Event Notification
Protected Storage
Network Connections
Plug Play
Print Spooler
Remote Procedure Call
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts Manager

Recommended service setup :

The bare-bones system service setup is a good setup for optimal performance. However, don’t you want to have some of the conveniences of Windows XP? Check out the recommended services to disable shown in the following list. If you follow these recommendations, you will cut down on your boot time but you will also have the nice features and conveniences of Windows XP.

Disable the following services:

Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
Help and Support
Indexing Service
Messenger
Machine Debug Manager
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Portable Media Serial Number Service
Remote Registry (Only included with Windows XP Pro)
SSDP Discovery Service
Terminal Services
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Wireless Zero Configuration (If you have a wireless network card, do not disable this one)
Windows Time
WebClient
Task Scheduler

The Services utility is included in all versions of Windows XP and is hidden away. Do the following to disable a service using the Services utility:

Click the Start Menu and select Run. In the text box, type services.msc and click OK. This will start the Services utility.
Now that you are in the Services utility, you will see a list of a lot of services on your computer. First, you will need to stop the service that you want to disable. Right-click the service name and select Stop on the pop-up menu.
When the service is stopped, right-click the service again and select Properties. Located on the General tab, look for the Start up Type drop-down box. Click the arrow on the drop-down box and select Disabled.
Click the OK button and from now on, the system will not start the service any more during boot, speeding up your system start.

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Reduce visual effects of XP

Absolutely, you can make your computer faster by reducing visual effect.. ll it cause XP UGLY? dont worry just do it. fallow these steps.

Right click "My Computer" icon in Desktop.

Select properties in popup menu.

Then Select Advanced tab in System Properties Window.

Click Sttings button under Performance area.

In Performance Option window you can see default setting(If you didn't do any changes before).

Figure 1 shows the default settings.