Category: Tweaks & hacks

Overclocking Tools

Overclocking Tools

When getting into overclocking your rig – whether you just want more frames per second out of your old 6600 GT in Call of Duty 4, or to be able to brag about a score above 20k in 3DMark06 – you’ll need the right tools for the job.

Here’s an introduction to some of the most used overclocking and monitoring tools!

RivaTuner

Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / 2003 / XP / Vista / Windows 7
This application lets you overclock your NVIDIA graphics card. It was originally just a registry tweaking application for NVIDIAs old Riva TNT graphics card, but has since evolved into a much more useful tool. The most common use of RivaTuner is to set higher clock speeds on the core, shaders and memory of your graphics card(s), as well as letting you control fan thresholds and other settings. The registry tweaking is still an option however, shall you feel tempted.

ATITool

Windows XP / 2003 / 2000 (incl. 64-bit)
You guessed it – ATITool was made to overclock your ATI graphics card. However, today this application also works with NVIDIA graphics cards. If you have problems with RivaTuner, try this little bugger instead.

Prime95

Windows (incl. Windows 3.1) | Linux | FreeBSD | OS/2
This number crunching application lets you push your CPU to its limit of stability. The latest version supports multi-core processors using multiple threads. Tip: If you want to test only your CPU for stability, choose the “Small TTFs” torture test, and select “Round off checking” under the “Advanced” menu. This test uses the least amount of system memory, reducing the likelihood of your RAM being the culprit in case of failure, (but it will still be a factor).

External link: Guide to using Prime95 effectively.

SpeedFan

Windows 9x / NT / 2000 / 2003 / XP (incl. 64-bit) / Vista / Windows 7
This handy tool lets you monitor temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, and can even monitor hard disks with S.M.A.R.T. enabled. As a bonus feature it can adjust the FSB speed on some motherboards, but primarily I use SpeedFan to monitor the temperatures and voltages when overclocking. Tip: Disable SpeedStep (Intel) or Cool’n’Quiet (AMD) features in the BIOS to get accurate readings after OC’ing.

Core Temp

Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / Windows 7
A simple, yet useful utility that lets you monitor the temperatures of your processor cores. A nice feature of Core Temp is that all CPU core temperatures can be displayed in your system tray at all times.

CPU-Z

Windows
One of the most widely used tools for overclockers. CPU-Z gathers information about your CPU, motherboard and memory timings (including SPD values).

GPU-Z

Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Windows 7
As the name suggests, this tool is much like CPU-Z, only for graphics cards. GPU-Z gives you detailed information about your accelerator card, from make and model to clock speed and driver version. If you click the “Sensors” tab, you can handily monitor the GPU and PCB temperatures, fan speed (in per cent and RPM), and current core and memory clock speeds.

How To: Enable Remote Access To Administrative Shares in Windows 7

Longhorn

How do you enable remote access to admin shares using a local administrator account in Windows 7 / Vista?

When you try to do this the same way you could in XP, you get prompted to log in, but get access denied. Apparently, for “security reasons” this option has been disabled. Thankfully, a small registry hack is all it takes to get around the issue:

  1. Open regedit (<Windows> + R, type “regedit”).
  2. Expand the tree to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft\ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ policies \ system.
  3. Create a new key (Right click -> New -> choose “DWORD Value (32bit)”).
  4. Name the key “LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy” and give it the value of “1”.
  5. Click OK.

How To: Make Web Pages Load Quicker In Firefox

There’s a lot of different tricks and tools that are supposed to improve website loading times in Firefox, but whether they really make a difference or not is often hard to tell.

There are exceptions however, so follow the directions below to make your pages display faster in Firefox as they are loading:

  1. In the address bar (where you type in website addresses), type “about:config” and hit Enter to access the hidden settings menu in Firefox.
  2. In the “Filter:” field, type “network.prefetch”.
  3. Right click the line that says “network.prefecth-next” and click “Toggle”.

How to toggle prefetching in Firefox

Get increased performance from your external hard disk in Vista

If you’re so lucky to have an external hard disk drive that connects to your computer through USB / USB 2.0, then you can get increased performance from your hard disk in Windows Vista. This is because Vista treats your external drive differently than a FireWire (IEEE1394) or eSATA-connected drive, rather more like a USB pendrive. By switching off a feature called “Write Caching” might work swell for a thumdrive, it seriously hampers the performance of your external USB hard disk. Here’s how to disable write caching for your USB hard disk:

  1. In Windows Vista, first click on “Start”, bringing up the Start menu.
  2. Right-click “My computer” and select “Manage”.
  3. On the left-hand menu, click “Device Manager”.
  4. Locate your external hard disk drive in the list.
  5. Right-click your disk and select “Properties”.
  6. Click the “Policies”-pane and check “Optimize for performance” and “Enable advanced performance”.
  7. Reboot your computer!

.Windows Vista Write Caching