Fast horse whip, 20 seconds into Windows XP

The processing speed of the CPU in the computer is leaps and bounds under the command of Moore's Law. However, we found that the startup speed of the computer has not improved. From the pressing of the power button to the icon on the right side of the WinXP taskbar, it is generally displayed. More than 40 seconds. This is really dwarfed by the fact that the TV can hear the sound and see the image when the switch is pressed.

First, the hardware factors that affect the startup speed of


Through practice, found to affect the speed of computer starts the main parts of the motherboard and hard drive, but has little relationship with the CPU. That is to say, under the same conditions, the expensive Pentium 4 computer and the cheap Celeron 4 start at the same speed.

various computer accessories motherboard is the "base" to do a lot of work in the boot, such as self-test, searching various ports, a variety of external devices. Therefore, reducing the self-test time, reducing external equipment, and improving efficiency can increase the startup speed. If the computer is connected to a peripheral such as a scanner or a USB hard disk, it may slow down the system. It is recommended that you connect these peripherals when you need them. USB devices can be connected after booting.

card if set properly, can significantly slow down the system boot speed. If your computer does not need a network card, then directly unplug the PCI network card, the integrated network card can be shielded by the BIOS, so as not to affect the startup speed. Many motherboards detect the integrated network card much faster than the independent network card. This is one of the reasons why some computers have "fake death" after starting, and it takes more than a minute to get online.

main factors determine the performance of the motherboard chipset motherboard, the main factors that determine the starting speed of disk performance and driver performance motherboard chipset. At present, the main brands of motherboard chipset are Intel, SiS, VIA, ATi, nVIDIA, and the best disk performance is Intel and SiS. Intel is an IT giant, and there is no one in the IT industry. It accounts for more than 60% of the motherboard chipset market share. The popularity of SiS is low, and the market share of motherboard chipsets is less than 10%. This may be related to insufficient publicity. However, on the AMD platform, its disk performance is the best and the price is the cheapest.

order to reduce the POST time, some motherboard manufacturers will do some special design enables maximum BIOS self-test time is reduced to 5 seconds. We can choose different motherboard manufacturers according to their own needs, instead of listening to the dealer's recommendation.

addition POST, the computer starts the time is mainly used in the system file from the hard disk read. The hard disk works by reading and writing the data on the high-speed rotating disk by moving the magnetic head. The higher the disk rotation speed, the more data the head reads per unit time, which is very beneficial for system startup. In addition, hard drives with fast seek times and large caches can also significantly increase boot time. Promising purchasers or DIYs can consider Western Digital's "Raptor" series of hard drives, which are tightly funded or can be selected by Hitachi's large cache drives, which are often awarded performance awards.
The computer is a high-tech product of “soft and hard”. The accessory setting and system optimization are also indispensable weapons for starting the speed increase.
two, and optimization provided fitting


1. Motherboard BIOS optimization settings


off excess channel IDE, USB devices and other hardware, can be "None" masked. Automatically detect the hard disk with "IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION". Without memory detection, open each cache, enter "Advanced CMOS Setup", set "Quick Boot" to "Enable", and do not detect more than 1MB of memory.

"IDE 0 Master/Slave PIO/DMA Mode, IDE 1 Master/Slave PIO/DMA Mode" The hard disk sequence (mode) is all set to "Auto".

Enter the "Advanced BIOS Features" option, move the cursor to the "First Boot Device" option, select "HDD-0" to boot directly from the hard disk, so that it will start for a few seconds. Move the cursor to “Quick Power On Self Test” to “Enabled”. Set to "Boot UP Floppy Seek" to "Disabled". For memory quality, it is recommended to set it to "2" in the "SDRAM CAS Latency" option.

Tip: For the same setting an effect, its English name may be different in different motherboard BIOS.

2. NIC installed


when entering the operating system, the system will search the IP address of the network card. If the IP address of the network card is set to be automatically obtained, the system will search the network for a DHCP server to obtain an IP address, which will inevitably increase the startup time. If it is not necessary, it is best to specify the IP address of the network card (especially the client on the LAN, Figure 2).


3. Turn on the DMA transfer mode of the hard disk


Right click on the desktop and click "My Computer→Properties→Hardware→Device Manager→IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller→Find the IDE channel where the hard disk is located→Properties→Advanced Settings ", open the hard disk DMA transfer method to speed up the data read and write speed (Figure 3). Win98 and WinME settings are basically the same, just check the DMA option.


three, Windows system optimization


1. Remove excess since the launch of the program


It is obvious effective method. Click "Start" → "Run", enter "msconfig" in the dialog box that appears, and then click "OK", it will bring up the "System Configuration Utility" (only for Win98 and WinXP systems, Win2000 users need to copy MSCONFIG. Use EXE to the system folder or use the registry editing method described later.

Click on the "Startup" tab, and remove the "√" in front of the program that does not need to be automatically started. Generally only need to leave ctfmon (input icon), systemtray (volume icon) and anti-virus program. The author's computer only leaves the "ctfmon" item (Figure 4), which can shorten the startup time by about 10 seconds.

2. Optimize the system properties of a component (Win98 /WinME)


right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties → → Performance File System", select "Floppy", remove the "search each time the computer starts New floppy disk drive"; select "hard disk", change "main use" to "network server", "pre-read optimization" to full speed (Figure 5); select "CD-ROM", cache to maximum, select "four times or more."

3. Modify IDE channel control (WinXP)


right-click My Computer → Properties → Hardware → Device Manager → expand "IDE ATA /ATAP controllers", double-click the "secondary IDE channel" option, In the pop-up dialog box, select the "Advanced Settings" tab, in the "Device Type" in "Device 0" and "Device 1", change the original "Automatic Detection" to "None" (Figure 6), "OK" "Exit." The modification method of the "main IDE channel" is also the same. After the restart, the scrolling time of the scroll bar will be significantly reduced.

4. Use BootVis software to improve startup speed


BootVis (download address: www.skycn.com/soft/7766.html) is a startup acceleration software developed by Microsoft for WinXP. It is safe to use and can be obviously used. Increase the startup speed. Due to the length of the relationship, the specific use method is not introduced here, and interested friends can view their help files.

5. Removing gorgeous bloated appearance


remove the "wallpaper", "Screen Saver", delete the extra desktop icons. If it is WinXP, you can right-click "My Computer", select "Properties → Advanced", click "Settings" in the "Performance" item, and select "Adjust to Best Performance" (Figure 7).

After the above settings and optimization of the mainstream configuration of the computer, under normal circumstances, WinXP boot time can be controlled in about 20 seconds.