Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning
- Posted: Jun 21, 2011 at 2:08 PM
- 46,984 Views
- 15 Comments
Microsoft tech troubleshooter extraordinaire Gov Maharaj and I help walk you through troubleshooting solutions to your tech support problems. If you have a problem you want to send us, you can use the Problem Step Recorder in Windows 7 (see this for details on how) and send us the zip file to DefragShow@microsoft.com. We will also be checking comments for problems, but the email address will let us contact you if needed.
00:25 What is the difference between Program Files and Program Files (x86)?
03:18 What things to do to tune a Home Theater PC.
07:20 Using 40GB SSD in a RAID0 or as ReadyBoost drive.
11:40 Is there a way to have Windows+E (Windows Explorer) open to a specific tree?
13:43 How to turn off Windows Shake.
17:12 How should I position all the antennas on my WiFi router?
21:20 Gov walks us through using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit.
32:04 Viewer help in progress, sluggish mouse and stuttering audio playback.
Comments Closed
Comments have been closed since this content was published more than 30 days ago, but if you'd like to continue the conversation,
please create a new thread in our Forums,
or
Contact Us and let us know.
More episodes in this show
-
Defrag 006: Troubleshooting Windows 7, Outlook…
-
Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost,…
-
Defrag: Media Player Fixits, Blank .CHM's,…
Follow the Discussion
Oops, something didn't work.
What does this mean?
Following an item on Channel 9 allows you to watch for new content and comments that you are interested in. You need to be signed in to Channel 9 to use this feature.What does this mean?
Following an item on Channel 9 allows you to watch for new content and comments that you are interested in and view them all on your notifications page.sign up for email notifications?
Yeah, you're back! It's been too long!
@windev: Sorry about that.
We try to shoot every week but Gov and I get pulled away for emergencies now and then. We'll be shooting every week again starting in mid-July.
@LarryLarsen: LOL @ "it looks like a Russian fishing trawler with all of the antennas coming out of the top of it'!
I can just imagine routers being designed to look like one. 
Just discovered you guys. I really enjoy your shows. Thanks for all the great information.
Love this show! Keep it up
Using two SSD in a RAID0 might block Windows from using TRIM. I have only tried this setup with hardware RAID and here Windows see the disk as a normal hard disk - not an SSD and that causes Windows not to send TRIM commands.
Maybe this has been fixed on some RAID controllers, but it's a thing to look out for.
ReadyBoost is limited to 4GB in Vista, not in 7. Next if you use a SSD, WinSAT will get a score over 5.9 and in this case Superfetch (which loads the ReadyBoost driver in Win7) will be stopped so you can't use ReadyBoost. If you enable Superfetch again your SSD will have much more access and might die earlier. So the advice to use SSD as ReadyBoost is not the best.
Run TreeSizeFree to see which folders take most space, delete or move useless data to get more free space so you might don't need to buy a new SSD.
Great show as usual. One other thing to recommend for best WiFi signal strength is using the open-source inSSIDer application to monitor signal strength. This tool give you a very clear indicate of signal strength in a chart. It also shows information about channels being used, so you can avoid conflicts. This is a great free tool.
@MagicAndre1981: Interesting, we'll look into that and get a solid response. FWIW I use WinDirStat for file size visualization.
@Rob Patterson: Great tip on avoiding conflicts. Before we started Gov was talking about switching bands so you don't step on neighbors traffic and then when we were shooting we forgot to talk about that.
Just don't nuke anything from the WinSxS folder...
I know this. I wrote a Guide about what WinSxS is. Any news on my issues (last show)?
I know the tool and the guy who coded it, but I still prefer TreeSizeFree.
Instead of ReadyBoost:
Using the Advanced System Settings window, move your pagefile onto the small SSD. Even an old SSD is still much faster at reading than a traditional spinning hard drive, and Microsoft recommends puting the pagefile on an SSD.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2009/05/05/support-and-q-a-for-solid-state-drives-and.aspx
have you got it?
@RhymesWithOrange
can you also ask about the MSE symbols? MSE is so extremely slow for me and I want to see the cause.
@RhymesWithOrange
Ok, I fixed the hibernation issue. I ran ProcMon and xbootmgr hibernation at the same time to see more. In the ProcMon log I found that &MFT and hyberfile calls have a duration over 200s. So, I disabled the pagefile and the hiberfil.sys and ran the boot prepSystem command which defrags Windows and trains Readyboot. After doing this I enabled both again made a reboot and after doing this I sent the PC to hibernation yesterday evening. Today I came home and turn the PC on and hibernation was fast again.
About the pool usage I think it is an interaction with Superfetch which causes the huge paged pool (File, Mmst, Ntfs) memory usage. If I call an undocumented API call to clear the Standby page, the paged pool usage drops. This also happens if you return from hibernation because at this stage the standby page is not used so much (only the special pages 6/7 and a bit from page 5). I'm currently unsure if this is by design or not.
Remove this comment
Remove this thread
close