Let me begin by saying that for the most part I found Windows XP extremely stable and reliable (actually better than Windows 2000). What would offset this was poor / incompatible drivers. For example I found specific versions of the Nvidia drivers (for Geforce Video Cards) very prone to lockups and freezes (this included new versions noted to be ready for XP). I even found that the system was unstable using the Nvidia drivers within the XP data base. For my Geforce3 card - when I went back to the 12.6 detonator version; all freeze / lock-up problems ceased.
WinXP does some dynamic tuning ( save and evaluate patterns & program usage) . It can do some funny things upon re-start just after loading new programs or making specific adjustments to drivers or settings in particular programs like Premiere, etc. What I saw happen was upon a reboot I got a blue screen startup error message indicating a fault error and message indicating that it this is the first time to occur reboot in safe mode and or insure BIOS settings are correct, etc, etc., etc. What I typically did was just hit the reset button and this time the system would reboot into the F8 type safe mode select screen. There I would actually select boot normal. The system would then boot all the way through. If the boot-up was unsuccessful I would reboot and hit F8 to get the select screen back, then select boot using "last known good configuration" (see Helpful Hints Section VI for more info.). This seemed to always work, as I never had to actually go to safe mode in all my trials. Actually after I got all my programs / drivers loaded, TWEAKS / Adjustments made and a series of reboots followed by a DISKCHK - no more blue error screens came up. Again I think had to do with dynamic tuning stuff.
I also found out that WinXP is different enough that optimizations done on for Win2K were not always affective. See Section V - "TWEAKS that didn't work" for details. I really liked the return to previous driver feature XP has. A number of times I did this when testing new components and troubleshooting. I also found that you must be careful when loading drivers. This was similar to my Win 2K experience. Although you select a specific driver form a CD or Floppy, often times upon the load XP will revert to it's own one. Sometimes you literally had to force the load from > find list of drivers and then have disk scenario, etc.
Typically bootup is very fast in XP (20 sec or less). However, when I adjusted Canopus "Storm" playback buffer settings the bootup became quite lengthy. In fact when I raised the setting to Auto or above 3 sec.; the bootup could take as much as 2 - 3 minutes. This was reduced after making all the noted TWEAKS and running MS Bootvis program (see Helpful Hints & What TWEAKS didn't work sections V & VI). With the buffer set in Auto my boot time is still about 1.5 min but future drivers from Canopus should correct this. The extra time is evidently in the CPU and memory hanging when setting buffer constraints or something like that.
I also reverted back to the Classic Windows Standard scheme for desktop. I found that the new XP scheme made some of the windows in Adobe Premiere difficult to accurately point to a specific location and was distracting.
One other quirk I found was that WinXP does not handle having 2 Geforce cards (one AGP & other PCI) when it comes to loading drivers for the first time. It has difficultly selecting the right one. I had to first pull out the PCI video card. Load the proper divers for AGP then shutdown. Insert PCI card and then load drivers.
Another two quirks that happened a few times were: 1) I lost the ability to read from my floppy disk - The disk would show up in my computer window and the driver troubleshoot said it was working correctly.. However, every time I tried to read a floppy it would come up as an error with controller. The fix was to remove driver from floppy disk controller and then reload MS driver from selected list. This only happened once and has never surfaced again. Think part of the dynamic tuning and setting saving stuff at bootup somehow got confused / corrupted. 2.) Similar to #1 I lost audio. The TurtleBeach controller was OK and showed to be functioning - of course nothing showed muted, etc. Rebooting solved it once. Happened one other time and corrected it by disabling and then enabling the TB sound controller. Never happened again since. Both are probably small bugs that will be fixed in SP update.
I found that the Canopus Xplode Pro 3D transitions program were finicky with some versions of the Nvida drivers and that rendering was fastest utilizing the Win 2K drivers in the 12.xxx version range.
Also found disk check programs like Storm / Rex Test & Matrox benchmark could be misleading. Running more than once typically showed good results just one pass was often in error. I am sure XP versions will correct this. The SiSoft Sandra disk check seems to be accurate with every check.
For those operating with dual processors make sure that both are operational as XP does not always initiate with an install, even though it highlights system as dual processor. Easiest way to check is to do cntrl-alt-delete and in task manager the Performance window should show 2 separate windows (side-by-side) for each processor. If only one go to device manager click on computer and on the tree there should be ACPI MultiProcessor. Click on it and go to Driver tab then select update driver.The select install driver automatically and Windows should install - reboot then check Performance window again for 2 graphs (side-by-side).
If you are experiencing freezes while editing and have a Nvidia Geforce card you might try the following. First try older versions of detonator drivers as noted above previously. If this still does not work, disable Vertical sync in the OpenGL of the Nvidia GUI. To do this go to Start > Control Panel > Display > Settings > click Advanced button then select the Geforce 2 (or 3) tab and then click the Advanced properties button then go to OpenGL Settings tab. Look in the Vertical sync window and set it to always off and hit apply. And exit out. If problems still manifest can always change back but have seen it make a difference in some cases. If successful try up a notch to off by default.
There were a few optimization / TWEAKS that didn't work. I will not go into all of them but thought I might list a few that are also popular on TWEAK sites and programs.
Tips: Älteren Laptop fit für Videoschnitt machen Mo, 7.Mai 2012 Wir wollten wissen, wieviel Performance Gewinn wir aus einem 2008er Laptop Model herausholen können, wenn wir an zentralen Stellschrauben wie RAM und Festplatte mehr Speicher, bzw. schnellere Festplatten (SSDs) verbauen. Wir können bereits hier vorweg nehmen: Es lohnt sich allemal, die Ausstattung des Rechners auf den Prüfstand zu stellen … aber aufgepasst: SSDs sind ein weites Feld!
Erfahrungsberichte: Sandy Bridge - Sinnvolles Overclocking und Hyperthreading Mo, 21.Februar 2011 Die neuen Sandy Bridge Prozessoren von Intel brauchen deutlich weniger Strom als ihre Vorgänger. Dies freut sicherlich alle Power-Anwender, deren Computer 24 Stunden am Tag durchrechnen und sich entsprechend auf die Stromrechnung auswirken. Doch auch für das Overclocking hat die geringe Stromaufnahme massive Auswirkungen...
Benchmark
You are at your own risk if you try other TWEAKS than those I list / diskperf -n
