5. Defragment Application, Data And System Files

Disk drives become fragmented over time. Fragmentation occurs when pieces of files get scattered in a non-contiguous or non-uniform fashion across disk drive platters. Because each fragment is stored non-sequentially, it must be accessed in a less-than-optimal order with the disk heads jumping hither and yon to find data in a file. Out-of-order access takes significantly longer than if file fragments are together in order on the disk. That's where scheduled disk defragmentation on at least a weekly basis comes in. If you're a very heavy file user, you should do more frequent, daily or hourly, defrags on the disks with those files. It's best to defragment during off hours, if you leave your notebook on, because the defrag process itself can slow notebook performance significantly.

We suggest Contig by SysInternals (found here) as a companion to the native Windows disk defrag utility. Contig works with surgical precision (single-file defragmentation) compared to the blanket effect of the native application.

Here's how to get into and use the Windows native application. Open Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools and select Disk Defragmenter. You will be presented with the dialog in the following screenshot. Click on the analyze button and analyze the results to see if a given volume (highlighted in the list) needs to be defragmented, or just click defragment to analyze and defragment the selection all at once.

The Windows page file can also become fragmented over time or quickly during heavy usage periods. We have found that PageDefrag from SysInternals (found here) can help improve performance in most cases.

Optimize Windows Registry

Likewise, the Windows registry can become cluttered with a mess of broken or fragmented entries that can also slow Windows down. Bogus entries that point to non-existent or invalid files and resources represent a common example of useless, broken registry entries.

PageDefrag (mentioned above) can also defragment the Windows registry hives in addition to paging files, event log files and system hibernation files.

Conclusions

With the information we have provided here, you should now have some good ideas on how to improve notebook performance. Your biggest gain will come from removing any unneeded programs from startup and run-time operation. Likewise, shoot for fewer services consuming system resources. Additionally, routine maintenance and drive defragmentation and assurance of registry consistency and defragmentation will help ensure optimal performance. This is especially true for notebook PCs, because options for hardware upgrades are limited when compared to their desktop counterparts.

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