Amd sempron sound drivers for windows 7: Driver Updates By Manufacturer | Windows Driver Downloads Free

14 апреля, 2023

AMD Sempron 140 Drivers Download

AMD Sempron 140 Drivers Download

How to Manually Download and Update:

Your baseline Sempron 140 drivers should be bundled within %%os%%, or downloadable through Windows® update. While these Processor drivers are basic, they support the primary hardware functions.
Our AMD driver update instructions provide all of the steps needed.

Developer: AMD
Group: Processor
Designation: Sempron
Series: 140
Operating Systems: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11

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Recommendation: For novice Windows users, we highly recommend downloading a driver update tool like DriverDoc [Download DriverDoc — Product by Solvusoft] to help update your AMD Processor drivers. Our driver update utility does all of the work by downloading and updating the correct 140 drivers automatically.

Providing a database of over 2,150,000 drivers, DriverDoc not only will keep your Processor drivers updated, but it will also keep the rest of your PC’s drivers updated as well.

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140 Update FAQ

Can You Describe the Benefits of 140 Driver Updates?

Benefits of updating 140 drivers include better interoperability, ability to maximize hardware features, and increased performance. The risks of installing incorrect Processor device drivers include software crashes, slower performance, and general PC instability.

When Is the Right Time to Update 140 Drivers?

For optimal 140 hardware performance, you should update your device drivers once every few months.

What Is the Function of AMD Processor Drivers?

Hardware devices such as 140 rely upon these tiny software programs to allow clear communication between the hardware itself and a specific operating system version.

Why Don’t Users Update 140 Drivers?

People avoid updating 140 drivers mainly because they are afraid that something will get messed up.

Complexities of Driver Management

Sempron 140 errors often stem from incompatible or outdated device drivers. Device drivers can be functional one day, and then stop functioning the next day due to a number of causes. The good news is that you can often update the device driver to fix the Processor problem.

Downloading the correct drivers for a Sempron 140-related hardware device can be difficult because of the lack of sources, and difficulties locating them on the official AMD website. You might be a PC veteran, but locating, installing, and manually upgrading Sempron 140 drivers can still take a long time and totally frustrate you. Installing the wrong driver will prevent the Windows from starting at all or worse, lead to absolute failure.

Changing drivers is a very tedious and complicated process, so why not use a driver update software? A driver update tool ensures that you have correct driver versions for your hardware, and also creates a backup of your current drivers before making any changes. Maintaining a driver backup provides you with the security of knowing that you can rollback any driver to a previous version (if necessary).

Top 5 Sempron Drivers (52 Models)

  • 130

  • 130 (C2)

  • 140 (C2)

  • 145

  • 145 (C3)

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Troubleshoot sound problems on Windows with Boot Camp

Microsoft Windows XP Starter Edition Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Microsoft Windows XP Professional Windows Vista Starter Windows Vista Home Basic Windows Vista Home Premium Windows Vista Business Windows Vista Enterprise Windows Vista Ultimate Windows 7 Starter Windows 7 Home Basic Windows 7 Home Premium Windows 7 Enterprise Windows 7 Professional Windows 7 Ultimate More. ..Less

Summary


After installing or updating Windows on a Mac using Boot Camp, you may notice that you no longer hear sound through the headset or internal or external speakers.


Cause


This issue can be caused by outdated or corrupted drivers and other software.


Resolution


To resolve the issue follow the steps in the methods starting with method 1. If method 1 does not resolve the issue, go to the next method.



Method 1: Update to the latest version of Boot Camp


Tp download and install the latest update for Boot Camp, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Boot Camp Support.

  2. Click Downloads.

  3. Scroll until you find the latest Boot Camp update for the Mac system you’re running.

  4. Click Download.

  5. Follow the on screen instructions to download and install the latest software update for Boot Camp.

  6. Reboot your Mac.

    Important: If you’re using Windows XP or Windows Vista, Boot Camp 4. 0 does not support these versions of Windows.


Method 2: Install the latest version of your audio drivers


Install the audio driver from your Mac OS disk or download the latest version of the audio driver from Apple.

Option 1: Install the drivers from you’re Mac OS disk

  1. Start your Mac and boot into Windows.

  2. Insert your Mac OS installation disk.

    a. If the installer window doesn’t appear automatically, click the Start button, click Computer.

    b. Click the drive that contains the Mac OS disk.

    c. Double-click the Boot Camp folder.

    d. Double-click setup.exe.

    e. Click Install.

  3. Follow the on screen instructions to install the drivers.

  4. Reboot your Mac.

Option 2: Install the drivers from Apple’s website

  1. Start your Mac and boot into Windows.

  2. Open Internet Explorer and go toApple Support.

  3. Click Downloads.

  4. Scroll until you find the latest audio drivers for the Mac system you’re running.

  5. Click Download.

  6. Follow the on screen instructions to download and install the latest audio drivers for your Mac.

  7. Reboot your Mac.


Method 3: Download and install the latest Realtek drivers.


To download and install the latest Realtek drivers from the manufacturer’s website, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Realtek Download Center. 

  2. In the Download Search box, type drivers, and then click the Go button.

  3. Click the software title that matches your current Realtek chipset.

    For more information, see your computer’s documentation.

  4. Select the site that corresponds with your Windows operating system.

  5. Follow the on screen instructions to download and install the latest drivers.

Method 4: Repair the Boot Camp drivers.


To repair the Boot Camp drivers, follow these steps:

  1. Repair the Boot Camp drivers.

  2. Start your Mac and boot into Windows.

  3. Insert your Mac OS installation disk. If the installer window doesn’t appear automatically, click the

    a. Start button, click Computer.

    b. Click the drive that contains the Mac OS disk.

    c. Double-click the Boot Camp folder.

    d. Double-clicksetup.exe.

  4. Click Repair.

  5. Follow the onscreen instructions to repair the drivers.

  6. Reboot your Mac.


Method 5: Reinstall your sound drivers.


To reinstall your sound drivers, follow these steps:

    Boot your Mac into Windows.

  1. Open Device Manager.

    For Windows XP:

    a. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.

    b. If you don’t see a System icon, click Switch toClassic View in the left hand pane of the window.

    c. Double-click the System icon.

    d. Click the Hardware tab.

    e. Click the Device Manager button.

    ForWindows Vista or Windows 7.

    a. Click the Start button.

    b. Type device manager In the Search box and then click Device Manager.

  2. Double-click Sound, video and game controllers.

  3. Click the Driver tab.

  4. Click the Uninstall button.

  5. If prompted, restart Windows.

  6. Insert your Mac OS installation disk.

  7. If the installer window doesn’t appear automatically, click the Start button, then click Computer.

  8. Click the drive that contains the Mac OS.

  9. Double-click the Boot Camp folder.

  10. Double-click setup.exe.

  11. Click Install.

  12. Follow the onscreen instructions to install the drivers.

  14. Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and then click Uninstall a program.

  15. Click Boot Camp Services, and then click Uninstall.




For Windows Vista:

    Click the Start button, click Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Programs and Features.

  1. Click Boot Camp Services, and then click Uninstall.




For Windows XP:

  1. Click the Start button, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.

  2. Click Boot Camp Services, and then click Uninstall.

Step 2:


  1. If prompted, reboot Windows.

  2. Insert your Mac OS installation disk.

  3. Click the Start button, and then click Computer.

  4. Click the drive that contains the Mac OS disk.

  5. Double-click setup.exe.

  6. Click Install.

  7. Restart your Mac.

More Information


Additional Resources:


Windows help​​​​​​​

Boot Camp Support

For additional help, ask questions or read other posts on Answers.


ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA vs AMD Sempron Budget King

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Navigation:
History
ASROCK K8NF6G-VSTA
Corps
4 Processors
Build
Start, Windows XP and Windows 7
9000 : Part 2

-===-

History

Perhaps I’ll start with a brief history, there will be a lot of text ahead! nine0004

recommendations

Once upon a time (at the end of 2005) there was a PC based on AMD Sempron and ATI Radeon 9250, and I had to learn how to use it myself, usually there was no one to teach me even the simplest principles of working with a PC, computer science at school I was not there then … I tried to ask other people, but realizing that they also did not understand anything, I had to accept the harsh reality and learn in my own way as best I could.

As a result, I learned how to run games and applications, then install games and applications (games were probably the main driving force), work with files, generally mastered the operating system and everything I could, eventually learned how to reinstall Windows XP, even Windows 98 was able to install and it worked for 3 days. ..

Those were the days of CD-DVD discs…

One day while playing Doom 3 I found a map editor and learned how to create my own maps by typing. Logical thinking developed well, at some point I discovered mods on one of the disks, and learned how to make my own mods for the game by analyzing how the finished one works.

When the pirated Half-Life 2 appeared, of course, I went through it several times, the developer console was quite interesting because it showed possible commands, it was worth entering at least one letter, so I double-checked each command what it means, including in conjunction with other commands . nine0004

Soon I learned how to create .bat files because there were several created before me, I used them as an example to learn how to do this myself, so I learned how to run Half-Life 1 and CS:S folders which were in the game Half-Life 2

Of course, CS:S and HL1 lacked files, but I guessed to take and edit files from Half-Life 2 to fit, so I fully completed the first part of the game that was not on the disc packaging, and even played a little curve without textures CS: Source, the Internet of course was not. nine0004

I also remember the C&Q Generals strategy and the «Zero Hour» part, also pirated of course, the other was hardly available then in my area, there was also a map editor and, looking at the errors issued by the editor, I was able to add the missing elements to .ini game files, just in the likeness of an existing one, I created my own, if only the editor would start without swearing at errors …

It went so far that I started creating new units in the game by editing .ini files, in fact, as in Doom 3 I started make your own modifications to the game. nine0004

In Warcraft 3, similarly, I had to fiddle with prescribing paths to the game, because the map editor is sensitive to this whole thing.

A lot of interesting things still happened, even for some time I believed in protection against antiviruses, but over time I realized that antiviruses do much more harm than good, especially when access to the Internet appeared in the future and discovered the relationship between the antivirus present in the system and the appearance of viruses out of nowhere. ..

It turned out that the antivirus itself pumped viruses into my system, then the trust in antiviruses was destroyed, and the system without antiviruses not only began to work faster, but the viruses themselves stopped appearing, if only I made them with my own actions did not enter into the system. nine0004

Since I had to learn everything mostly by myself (plus a few books on PC hardware that did not appear immediately), I developed a good memory for the history of my actions, and so I gradually learned to overclock the system … First, with the clockgen program (if not I’m wrong), with Everest I looked in the tests for the difference from my actions, then I got to the BIOS, I realized that the RAM interferes with overclocking and its frequency needs to be lowered, I also guessed about the HT bus that I need to lower it by overclocking the FSB.

I had to adjust some parameters by multipliers, naturally I had to understand how it all works and depends on each other in the system, which also develops thinking well. nine0004

So I studied and overclocked until I overclocked the bus to 300 MHz, but then I still didn’t understand whether it was a lot or a little, I just overclocked and saw a performance increase from overclocking … But this first PC, of ​​course, did not survive to this day, and that’s the point not in overclocking, he died from a short circuit on the USB bus when he inserted some kind of homemade thing into the port.

Now I know that the PC died from a short circuit on the USB bus because I have a lot of accumulated experience and knowledge to determine this, but then I did not have the knowledge and experience, so the PC was disassembled and sold as faulty … As a result, then a PC appeared on the AM2 platform with video cards from nVidia, which fully taught me what a blade is and how to treat it in the oven, but that’s another story. nine0004

In fact, the times were interesting, a lot of things happened that two articles would not be enough to describe everything, but I tried to convey the general essence related to the topic of the article.

Actually old photos of an old PC, Epox 8KDA7I, Sempron at 1400 MHz (overclocking was up to ~ 2100 MHz via the bus), 1 module per 1 GB (added over time), there was also the original 256 MB module, but it interfered with overclocking the system via the bus, video card initially there was a passive Sapphire Radeon 9250 with 128MB, then a GeForce 4 MX440 with 64MB, an 80GB HDD from Samsung was defective. nine0004

And a few more old photos, then the passive Radeon 9250 caught a blade, but I didn’t really understand anything about it … I didn’t know what a blade was, but even then I guessed to put the video card in the freezer without getting any changes in working capacity I tried to heat over the gas stove, carefully so as not to burn it, but I was too careful and this «warm-up» did not work, I was very close…

games because there were no other options, you can still notice that the MX440 chip was originally with a different marking, but it was cut off and a new one was drawn, by the current moment the new marking has probably been completely erased. nine0004

While my first PC was working, I actively played Doom 3, it became the coffin lid for the passive Sapphire Radeon 9250, the video card resisted for a long time, the ATI driver reset the video card from time to time because it hung from overheating, but I did not understand why it happens.

In other games (Project IGI 2, Unreal Tournament 1999, CS 1.6, Half-Life 2, Blood Rayne 2, Silent Hill 4, NFS, etc.), oddly enough, the Radeon 9250 worked fine, it seems they are not so strong loaded the chip like Doom 3.

I still remember 3D Mark, but I didn’t run it for the sake of results, but to look at the beautiful graphics of many games, for fun rather than for the sake of any results, with the GF4 MX440 installed, I had to forget about 3D Mark because almost nothing worked with this video card…

I especially note the Samsung SP0802N HDD from a defective batch, and in my first PC it fell down, needless to say that then I could not afford to buy a new HDD, and in general I did not understand why it was necessary do. nine0004

But I treated this disk from a defective batch as best I could, and it crumbled and crumbled over time, but I had no other options … Once this disk stopped falling apart, and by that time I had already been taught how to work with HDD and data.

Here is this disk, I saved it and did not give it for sale when the PC broke down, apparently I was already smart enough not to sell storage drives, now I am going to use this disk again.

nine0067

Perhaps that’s enough history.

-===-

Overview ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA

Main Specifications
Socket Socket 754 (2003)
All Sempron (32-64Bit) and Athlon 64 series
Chipset NVIDIA® GeForce 6100 / nForce 405
Memory DIMM DDR1 SDRAM — 2 slots, 1 channel. nine0068
Integrated graphics NVIDIA® GeForce 6100 up to 256MB of RAM
Audio ALC861 (6 audio outputs on rear panel)
Network RTL8201CL (10/100)
Storage subsystem 2x SATA 2. 0 (300MB/s), 1x IDE (ATA133), 1x FLOPPY
USB 4x USB 2.0 (rear) + 4x USB 2.0 (front)
Size MicroATX (~21×24 cm)

I will assemble the system based on the motherboard from ASRock, yes, there is no AGP slot to install the Radeon 9200 or 9550-9600 which I have and they are closest to my first Radeon 9250, but I had it somewhere X800GTO for PCI-e slot, it will do, but I will install it later.

Now there will be a short review on ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA:

Despite the release of the AMD s754 platform in 2003, direct access to RAM is implemented here, in other words, the memory controller is built into the processor and this is clearly visible from the tracks on the board that lead the RAM slots directly into the processor, Intel was able to do this for the consumer market only after ~5 years (in 2008) by releasing the LGA1366. nine0004

It goes without saying that AMD processors for s754 received support for x86-64, although not all models, it is only surprising that Intel was late with x64 processors, first releasing Itanium in 2003 (I didn’t check it personally because it’s simply unrealistic to get it), and after the release of LGA775 in 2004, some of the processors allegedly learned to x86-64.

But I once had a Celeron under LGA775 which, according to Intel, was able to x64, but in fact I could not even install an x64 operating system, let alone use any x64 software, so I would did not say that Intel was able to release adequate x64 processors at that time …

But back to the board, as you can see, the capacitors look great, the chokes are old-style and have a serious cross section, unlike modern «cubes» over which marketers are actively dancing.

Below are photos of the individual elements.

In the meantime, the keys are rated up to 150 Amps in pulsed mode.

Here, even without accurate measurements, you can see the difference in the cross section of the conductor between the old chokes and more modern «cubes», they used to make it work and not emit excess heat due to the fault of too thin conductors, and now endless «premium» chokes just to look prettier , and it’s all the same that the user then they heat up to hundreds of degrees, heating everything around. nine0004

Next, you can see two empty slots for SATA, theoretically they can be soldered, it is possible to slightly modify the BIOS firmware and there will be 4 SATA slots instead of the original two, but this is in theory.

The mounting frame for the cooling system is quite funny for me, most likely, even heatsinks from the Intel 478 platform will fit, but AMD mountings are standard from now on, even to this day, and AMD has great respect for this. nine0004

AMD’s standard mount is so well thought out from the start that it’s been around for over 19 years, even in today’s platforms.

-===-

Chassis

It’s nice to have a motherboard, but it needs to be installed somewhere, so I got an old MicroATX case from the attic.

Compared to my homemade MicroATX case, the factory MicroATX looks like a hulk, although do not forget that my homemade case is in fact (~0. 012 cubic meters) smaller than many Micro ITX cases, especially since I won’t install MSI GTX1070 AERO OC, Chieftec Proton BDF-1000C and Gigabyte B450M H in most MicroITX cases.

I won’t say that it’s spacious inside, but if you want, you can install any video card thanks to the almost competent layout of the internal space of the case.

I didn’t use this case for my main PCs just because the video cards inside it «suffocated», it needs to be modified to adequately cool the video cards. nine0004

The HDD carriage is detachable, which is incredibly convenient and practical.

In general, an assembly case will do.

-===-

4 processors

To assemble the system, I have 4 processors, these are all samprons: this will not be critical given the design of the socket … But I decided not to solder the second problematic CPU, I just leave it without one leg and see what happens. nine0004

In any case, it is difficult to solder the legs to the processor, but it is possible that the legs in LGA sockets are completely different, if it breaks, then this is the end for the entire motherboard …

-===-

Assembly

40GB HDD, but after a while I remembered the SP0802N, but about it a little later.

Power supply improved STC-450W Micro format, but placed in a classic PSU case. nine0004

The power supply can only be installed in the old case by removing the top cover.

You can see a cavity on the side of the rear wall of the case, in which you can just hide the excess wires from the power supply, and this case is already 22 years old…

With the connection of drives, a rather unpleasant situation arose, the IDE cable conflicts with the SATA cable, not critical of course, but unpleasant, because I plan to connect another SSD to this system. nine0004

I believe that such connectors of the front panel of the case are not only straining me, we fix:

Half of the work is done.

SDA2800AI03B0 with a broken leg that I decided not to solder, and one 512 MB memory module will go first.

To cool AMD Sempron processors, you can even use a chipset heatsink, these processors emit very little heat (much less than stated), but I decided to try installing a PCCooler GX-X4 that did an excellent job with the R7 2700X. nine0004

Of course, the lid of the hull cannot be closed with such a tower, but I don’t need it now.

Now the time has come for Samsung SP0802N, install, connect and fix:

This can be said the system is assembled and ready to run, I will add a video card later, the motherboard has integrated graphics.

-===-

Start, Windows XP and Windows 7

This is where I will end this article, in general, initially I was going to do everything in one article, but the article is already gaining an unpleasant volume, so it was decided to divide the material into several parts . nine0004

In the next article, I will continue this section and focus on overclocking.

And finally, I’ll explain why I call AMD Sempron the budget king, it’s all about the cost of assemblies in ~ 2005, of course, I didn’t have newspapers with private announcements, but the vast majority of the cheapest PCs were on Sempron processors, and my first PC was like once on one of these processors, because it was relatively cheap in 2005.

I even found in one book (PC hardware) a table of processor costs, there is just a Sempron 2500+ which I originally had (recall, I overclocked the CPU from 1400 MHz to 2100 MHz via the bus), from Intel the vast majority of CPUs in table is already for the outdated 478 socket at that time, and they cost no less, if not more expensive than the more modern Sempron. nine0004

But the cost alone cannot justify such a title, once I had an Intel system based on LGA775, it has not survived to the present day, but I will say this when the Sempron 754 socket is quite capable of working with Windows 7 x64, Celeron LGA775, similar in time, paired with a board from Intel (945 chipset, as far as I remember), even with Windows 7 x32, it couldn’t cope with the word at all, while it fried like an iron compared to Sempron . ..

Even a dual-channel memory controller in the motherboard did not save LGA775 with Intel Celeron on board, when Sempron s754 has only one memory channel built into the processor itself. nine0004

Unfortunately, I can’t get the same system from Intel for comparative testing, but I can show the capabilities of the old Sempron, but that’s in the following articles.

To be continued: Retro & Overclocking: ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA and AMD Sempron Budget King: Part 2

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Why Windows XP still rules in 2019 / Habr

On Habré in the comments to articles about the release of new versions of operating systems, the release of new models of laptops, data drives, memory modules, etc. the opinion is regularly expressed that only the latest version of the operating system of a well-known vendor makes it possible for a modern geek

do not slide into a dull city . .. o

feel like a man, and only those who have

installed Windows 8, 10, 11,

(underline as appropriate) will be popular with

girls

employers and clients. For the reasons stated below, I believe such an opinion is deeply erroneous and even flawed, showing the inability of the computer owner to optimally use the hardware and software resources at his disposal. nine0010
The following describes a system that, even in 2019, allows its owner, who works in the field of IT not programmer, to settle all sorts of computer affairs without any problems and is used for surfing the Internet, downloading torrents, doing home accounting, e-mail correspondence, communicating with acquaintances through audio and video conferences, interaction with banks and government agencies, creating presentations and lectures, amateur photo processing and creating and editing amateur home video (for watching it not on a computer), replenishing and maintaining a collection of music recordings (for listening to them not on a computer), recording archives on CDs and DVDs, etc. , etc.

Iron

I bought my laptop back in 2010 for 300 Canadian dollars (~250 USD). I always buy the cheapest computers, and already at that time the laptop could not boast of excellent performance:

  • Processor : AMD Turion II Dual-Core M600
  • Processor frequency : 2.4 GHz
  • Video card : Radeon 4200
  • RAM : 2 GB
  • Hard disk : 140 GB, SATA
  • Drive : DVD-RW
  • Expansion connectors and ports : 3 x USB 2.0, SD card reader, VGA, HDMI, ethernet, wi-fi.

I note that the cheapness of the computer made itself felt and subsequently I had to change many components — Hewlett Packard equipment is not famous for its reliability and durability. But the article is still not about the hardware, but about the operating system and a set of programs and utilities that happily live under the control of an “outdated” OS on this simple, especially by today’s standards, hardware. nine0004

Software

Windows XP

The laptop came with Windows 7 pre-installed. After fiddling with nLite to inject a SATA driver for the hard drive into the installation files (this was required because the laptop’s BIOS did not have the option to switch interfaces IDE /SATA), I was able to install Windows XP from Service Pack 2, which, after optimization, began to work quickly in the following configuration:

  • amount of occupied RAM: ~300 MB,
  • OS files on disk: 211 MB (excluding printer driver),
  • paging file: 0 MB,
  • Complete absence of Internet Explorer and any of its libraries and traces (except for the Content.IE5 and History.IE5 folders of 32768 bytes each),
  • running services:

    Most other services are either disabled or removed altogether (via Far), including the Windows update service,

  • Only one user is installed in the system: Administrator. nine0402

Separately, I would like to dwell on disabling the paging file.

The need for a paging file in Microsoft operating systems is an extremely common myth — it is believed that when it is turned off, the system becomes completely inoperative, hangs, crashes, blue screens of death appear,

the hard drive switches to a resonant frequency, collapses and tears the system unit to shreds

… Of all the horror stories, the real problem is actually one — when a running program consumes all available RAM and crashes because it did not have enough memory. Well, in general, that’s all. On computers that use resource-intensive programs and packages (Google Chrome, IDEs , MS Office, etc.), it is enough to install a little more RAM, but in systems that do not work with large programs —

640 KB will be enough for everyone

2-4 GB of RAM will be enough for a comfortable software work, and the paging file can be completely disabled!

However, disabling the swap file has much more advantages than using it: programs and utilities consume only fast RAM, do not constantly write and read data to / from the swap, work with user files is much faster, because the operating system does not need to wait for any of the programs to finish swapping. We all have faced a situation when you need to quickly open/edit/print a file from a disk, and the computer is “swapping”, the hard disk indicator is on all the time, the system interface loses responsiveness, the boss yells, the customer stamps his feet and tears his hair on his head from developer — so, believe my many years of experience working on a wide variety of workstations, that disabling swap increases the speed of a Windows machine without exaggeration many times (!) And practically does not affect the stability of its operation. I write “practically” only because I honestly note that program crashes happen, but they are single, they can be predicted and successfully prevented.

When I get a personal computer at a new place of work, after gaining administrative control over it, the first thing I do is go to the system settings and disable the paging file. Always! I did this in Windows 98, XP, 7, 8 — and nowhere and never experienced problems with lack of RAM and frequent crashes of programs. At the same time, it is quite clear that I would not harm myself, on the contrary — by disabling the swap file, I make my own work more efficient and save hair on my head for myself, developers, customers.

Program and utility set

About twenty years ago, I lamented with friends that the programs began to grow in size, but it did not get better. And at the same time, he jokingly announced the criterion for good software, which in its strongest form was as follows:

"A good program should perform all the declared functions without failures, work quickly, do not require installation and fit on a floppy disk."

(Meaning a 1.44 MB floppy disk.) In a weak form, the criterion looked a little less categorical:

"A good program should perform all the declared functions without failures, work quickly, do not require installation and fit on a floppy disk archived. "

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since then, but my criterion remains the same strict: if a program takes more than 3 megabytes or requires additional components, such as the .Net Framework, it starts up a little longer than instantly, and requires installations in order to start working — such crafts go to the trash without regret. Of course, there are exceptions, such as professional software, modern browsers or video or graphics processing packages, but most of the high-quality utilities that the average user needs to work are still small in size today. nine0004

The full package of programs and utilities that I use regularly takes about 700 MB, of which the fourth part is the MultiTran dictionary (175 MB).

It is known that every real computer scientist, not corrupted by the latest crafts of shitcoders modern programmers, has his own set of utilities for all occasions of computer life, a kind of «Swiss knife». Below I will separately note some programs from my own compact «bandolier»:

  • Softmaker Office 2012 (TextMaker, PlanMaker, Presentations), $29. Before I discovered this super-compact (16 (!) MB, without help files and dictionaries), but at the same time an extremely functional office suite, I suffered for a long time with Open Office, Libre Office, AbiWord, etc. free programs for working with documents in MS Office formats — they were all either large and clumsy, or inconvenient, or all together. Softmaker Office has saved me the hassle of DOC and XLS file format updates, compatibility and other headaches. In addition, Presentations has its own animation options that Powerpoint doesn’t have, which makes it nice to surprise your audience during presentations. nine0402
  • EssentialPIM . Compact, fast, inexpensive personal planner, $19.95. It “flies”, takes up only 36 MB in memory, versions up to 6.57 inclusive did not switch to a modny interface a la Windows 8 and, accordingly, a lot of information fits on the screen in standard resolution.
  • AbilityCash . A tiny program for accounting personal finance, I have been using it for almost 10 years.
  • ACDSee Classic 2.43 . It does not know how to convert files in RAW format and print images on several sheets of paper (posters), but it is still unsurpassed in the speed of working with graphics files and in functionality. For example, in order to correct the orientation of photos loaded from a memory card from a camera, you just need to select the ones you need and press Ctrl + R. nine0402
  • Foxit Reader PDF 2.3 . Opening PDF files is almost instantaneous and there is no fear of catching a virus through a malicious PDF document, such as in Adobe Reader.
  • Firefox 52.9 esr is the latest version of Ognelis, which runs under Windows XP, and is used by me to work with sites that look “lame” in Opera 12.18.
  • Antivirus . I use this one:

    Nuff said. I will only add that in the presence of the complete absence of IE and any of its components, disabling all unnecessary system services, the physical absence of DLL files of unnecessary libraries on the disk (the OS was optimized using nLite; the total installation size is only 159MB) — for viruses there is a minimum number of loopholes even in an outdated and non-upgradable system.

Performance

  • OS boot speed (from HDD ) from the moment the On button was pressed: 24 sec.
  • Launching some of the most frequently used programs:
    • Opera 12.18: 2 sec.
    • Firefox: 13 sec.
    • ClawsMail: 2 sec.
    • TextMaker, opening text document from FAR: 2 sec. nine0402
    • FoxIt Reader: Open PDF file from FAR: 2 sec.
    • Skype 5.5: 3 sec.
    • ACDSee: <1 sec.
    • RawTherapee 5.0: 7 sec.
    • WinAmp 5.33, opening mp3 file from FAR: <1 sec.
    • PowerAmp 1.6: 2 sec.

Notes

  • Dual-boot . The laptop is configured to boot two operating systems: Windows XP and MS-DOS. I keep MS-DOS in case of critical situations, such as a system crash or a virus. nine0402
  • Software licenses . I inherited the license for Windows XP from another laptop. Softmaker Office was the first software product (under Windows) that I bought. The rest of the software is either free, or stolen it is so old that it is currently difficult to establish to whom to transfer money for it, simply because the companies that created it have not existed for a long time.
  • .Net Framework . Absolute evil. Absent; if you can find alternatives that do not require the installation of this monster, then why use programs that need it?
  • Skype . For conversations with great-great-grandmother I use version 5.5, because great-great-grandmother has many friends who also have Windows XP installed on their computers, and modern versions of the MS part are not compatible with older versions.
  • Program shortcuts . Windows has a well-known but little-used feature for launching programs through their keyboard shortcuts:
    This allows you to launch programs that you use very often by pressing three keys on the keyboard at any time. For example, I have the following programs and utilities configured in this way (the Ctrl+Alt+ combination is used instead of the Ctrl+Shift+ combination, so as not to conflict with switching keyboard layouts):

    • Calculator (Ctrl+Alt+C)
    • MultiTran, English-Russian dictionary (Ctrl+Alt+M)
    • FS Capture Screenshot (Ctrl+Alt+S)

      • nine0399 WinAmp (Ctrl+Alt+W)

    • PotPlayer (Ctrl+Alt+P)

Upgrade

Since the purchase, my computer has undergone a very minor upgrade (not taking into account the replacement of failed components with completely similar ones), which nevertheless made it possible to make work under Windows XP even faster and more comfortable: the size of the RAM was increased from 2 to 3 x GB (as you know, 3 gigabytes is the maximum amount of RAM that Windows XP can address) and the single-core AMD Sempron 2.1 GHz processor was replaced with a dual-core AMD Turion II 2. 4 GHz. The last replacement, which cost me only 13 Canadian dollars, turned, as it seemed to me, my laptop into a Cray supercomputer: after smoking a lot, how halmacpi.dll differs from halacpi.dll and halapic.dll, I was able to integrate multi-core processor support into the OS kernel . And when a double CPU load schedule finally appeared in the task manager, one for each core, my joy knew no bounds: now the computer does not freeze tightly when reading some of the most glitchy sites and watching FullHD video with multi-channel sound from a camcorder does not slow down quite godlessly. nine0004

CHADNT?

The described system is not used as an undemanding file or media server, BBS or other auxiliary secondary equipment, which for many “spins on the mezzanine” — it is used in everyday and sometimes very urgent matters. When, after replacing the processor, “snow” began to appear on the monitor, and then “blue screens” (for some reason I did not think that for the new processor there would not be enough old and dried thermal paste scraped off with a fingernail from the processor being replaced), I was very frightened and ran to look for a replacement — and for $ 130 I bought exactly the same laptop so as not to bother with OS optimization, searching for drivers, etc.