Comment Feed for Channel 9 - Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning http://ak.channel9.msdn.com/ch9/98de/ccb27e13-aca3-4505-ba77-9f09012098de/Defrag062111_100_ch9.jpg Channel 9 - Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning 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.   en Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:46:59 GMT Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:46:59 GMT Rev9 Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning Yeah, you're back!  It's been too long!

 

posted by windev

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634442875490000000 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:12:29 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634442875490000000 windev Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning @windev: Sorry about that. Smiley 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.

posted by LarryLarsen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634442886500000000 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:30:50 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634442886500000000 LarryLarsen Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning @LarryLarsen:  LOL @ "it looks like a Russian fishing trawler with all of the antennas coming out of the top of it'! Big Smile  I can just imagine routers being designed to look like one.  Smiley

 

posted by Richard.Hein

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443021620000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 01:16:02 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443021620000000 Richard.Hein Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning Just discovered you guys. I really enjoy your shows. Thanks for all the great information.

posted by tiyalolit1

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443039460000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 01:45:46 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443039460000000 tiyalolit1 Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning Love this show! Keep it up Smiley

posted by Dark_Halmut

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443064850000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 02:28:05 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443064850000000 Dark_Halmut Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning 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.

posted by AndersLund

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443311990000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 09:19:59 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443311990000000 AndersLund Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning 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.

posted by MagicAndre1981

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443384980000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:21:38 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443384980000000 MagicAndre1981 Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning 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.

posted by Rob Patterson

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443543790000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:46:19 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443543790000000 Rob Patterson Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning @MagicAndre1981: Interesting, we'll look into that and get a solid response. FWIW I use WinDirStat for file size visualization.

posted by LarryLarsen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443611370000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:38:57 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443611370000000 LarryLarsen Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning @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.

posted by LarryLarsen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443618580000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:50:58 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443618580000000 LarryLarsen Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning

, Magic​Andre1981 wrote

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.

Just don't nuke anything from the WinSxS folder... Smiley

posted by RhymesWithOrange

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443624210000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:00:21 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443624210000000 RhymesWithOrange Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning

RhymesWith​Orange wrote

Just don't nuke anything from the WinSxS folder... Smiley

I know this. I wrote a Guide about what WinSxS is. Any news on my issues (last show)?

wrote

FWIW I use WinDirStat for file size visualization.

I know the tool and the guy who coded it, but I still prefer TreeSizeFree.

posted by MagicAndre1981

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443652010000000 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:46:41 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634443652010000000 MagicAndre1981 Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning 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

posted by hellokeith

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634444118060000000 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 07:43:26 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634444118060000000 hellokeith Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning

LarryLarsen wrote

@MagicAndre1981: Interesting, we'll look into that and get a solid response. 

have you got it?

@RhymesWith​Orange

can you also ask about the MSE symbols? MSE is so extremely slow for me and I want to see the cause.

posted by MagicAndre1981

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634448059340000000 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:12:14 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634448059340000000 MagicAndre1981 Re: Defrag: Tweaking for HTPC, SSD as a ReadyBoost, WiFi Antenna tuning @RhymesWith​Orange

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.

posted by MagicAndre1981

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634450419400000000 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:45:40 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/The-Defrag-Show/Defrag-Tweaking-for-HTPC-SSD-as-a-ReadyBoost-WiFi-Antenna-tuning#c634450419400000000 MagicAndre1981