XXHighEnd

Wow Peter! I was just looking at the screen captures that you posted. Is this on your Audio PC?!

12409 Handles, 620 Threads, and 48 Processes !!

By comparison, I have running 3962 Handles, 220 Threads, and 25 Processes. You should think about streamlining.

Oh help ... is this about the next idea coming up ? :blob8:
 :)
:15a:

Well. . . let's just say I have disabled many unecessary Windows services.

Do you dare venture in to such territory?  ;)

Oh yes. It's also easy of course to shut down the whole PC. The problem would be : what could that be for *your* PC ...

The only thing I take away currently is sqlservr which creates a once per 60 seconds attack once the PC fell asleep decently (or something, but not hybernating).

I've been thinking about a suggested list of services to shut down (the user ticking that), but IMHO it could be too difficult for many people. Remember, the people I like to reach are those who stayed far away from PC playback, but now can't avoid it anymore, hehe.

Personally I don't have experience with what to shut down (when !!), jut because - as you know - I always thought it was stupid in having to do those things. But since all matters ...

Note that I can not only shut down stuff, but also bring it to live again when necessary ...
So in the end it's a matter of sorting it all out.
A list to start with would be very good of course ...  ;)

Hi Edward,

I  have a home build pc specially for playing music. So i will be very intrested in shutting down the things i dont need or use.

Can you explain what and how to do that?

Thanxxxx

Gerard...

(Vista premium)

But Gerard ... although I can't (and won't) prevent you from doing those things yourself, this is not exactly the idea;
What *is* the idea, is that all happens in a controlled fashion. Example :

When someone is bothered by harddisk acces during playback (or thinks he/she is), I could shutdown the "service" which provides harddisk access. A next thing (but earlier) would be shutting down everything which urges for harddisk access, otherwise you'd get errors. And so on. Now, when the *audio* system needs the harddisk (end of track etc.) all has to be started up again, and the software can easily do that (at the appriopriate moment).

Note that this is just an example, and a not much realistic one. But it explains how far things could go, if done in a controlled fashion;
You yourself never could shutdown the service that realizes harddisk access. You'd get errors all over the place. So, the "how far things could go" is the key here. By means of software control it could go way far ...

Ah ok....

Then i better wont do anything overhere...  :innocent:

Thanxxx

Peter, I think there are two aspects to this that could be addressed.

1. Degradation of SQ when the computer uses processes that do not need to run if its a dedicated machine - but remember ( I guess) that some of these processes may be needed to go online to download updates or CD art.

2. Noisy fans or hard drives in the PC or associated off-board storage. Many of us will have the PC at hand by the listening chair so this noise becomes quite invasive. I guess turning off unwanted processes will reduce the PC usage and hence heat, but as inferred above it would be really nice for the software to turn off the hard drives until needed. The fan on my laptop is on regularly but the external hard drive seems to be motoring away at random times throughout the music tracks.
 :dntknw:

I will keep this in mind Chris. But fans won't spin slower because of the minimalistic use of things already (hence, taking things away will not do anything according to heat).

OK Peter, must be my simplistic approach to things. I thought if a computer wasn't doing anything (aside from being turned on ;)), then its needs no additional power and you get no additional heat, so the fan will be on less. :dntknw:

I am using the standard low power settings (screen dim etc) but this makes little difference in terms of how often the fan is on :(

Chris,

All is relative; When you use "about nothing" from the PC, like XXHighEnd using in the areas of 0,1% CPU and together with other services, say, 3 %, you'll gain 3% on eliminating the services. This, while the fans start spinning up at maybe 30% ...

Good point Peter, and one very well made. :grin: :grin:

Ya, this is about where I am too.  My laptop pc is dedicated and does nothing more than spit out the digits to the dac...I've shut down some things.. but would be nice to hear from the expert what other things might be done to the pc that just might (magic?) help... everything seems to make a difference in audio whoknows

Well. . . let me just start off by saying that messing around with Windows Services can be risky business. I disabled a service one time (don't remember which one) and it rendered my computer dead. I had to reinstall Vista. I am not an expert in Windows and don't want to be held responsible for any mucking around that you do. So the information I'm providing here is strictly an example of what works for me. Everyone's PC may be different, especially laptops, so if you choose to parttake, then go at your own risk.

OK, now that I got the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way - let me also refer you to the resource that I used as a reference:
http://www.tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/page_8.htm

There are a couple ways to launch the Services control panel, but here's one:
Go to Control Panel and double-click on Administrative Tools - then double-click on Services
You can change the Startup Type by right-clicking on a Service and then left-clicking on Properties
So, what we are referring to here is changing the Startup Type to Disabled.

So just for example I am including a couple of screen captures. One that shows my Services console. If you click on the Status tab at the top (twice to show the arrow pointing down) and then it will organize the services to list everything that is started at the top. As you can see, I only have 16 services running. And the next screen capture shows my Task Manager with the processes displayed. If you want to compare yours, be sure when you display that you click the "Show processes from all users" tab at the bottom to see everything running.

Let me just add a couple of other items that affect the SQ. Go to Control Panel - double-click on System and click on Advanced system settings. Under Performance - click on Settings and then click on the Advanced tab. Be sure "Adjust for best performance of" is checked on "Background services". And also below that change your Virtual memory settings to "No paging file".

I've found BlackVipers site to be very helpful in the past for XP pruning, and it seems there is an update for Vista tweaks now :)

http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm (http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm)

Seems I have to sharpen up my pruning shears too   :grin:

Cheers :)

Russ

That's a good call Russ. I actually meant to include that link in my previous post as well, but forgot. Indeed I did use their information. And since you reminded me of it, I was thinking that I was a little conservative in my "pruning" and decided to see if I could get a little more aggressive. I ended up disabling 5 more services with no ill effects. In fact, it was a very nice improvement in SQ. I'm including screen captures again for those that would like to compare (showing only 11 services running). (Bear in mind I am not using any network/internet functions, so those are disabled).