Possible Windows XP Speed Boost

[Fog Dogg]

This tweak is for those with mobile Athlon XP processors; it may work with other brand processors, but I was only able to test this with my mobile XP.

Windows often incorrectly detects the amount of L2 cache on the processor, which may slightly hamper performance. To do this tweak, you are going to need CPU-Z which can be downloaded for free from here.

Open up cpuz.exe and look for the cache section on the CPU tab (default selected), and note the number beside "Level 2".

Open up regedit by clicking start, run, and typing "regedit" into the text box.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\STSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Double click on "SecondLevelDataCache"

Type one of the following values into the text box according to the value presented by CPU-Z in DECIMAL form

256 KBytes = 0

512 KBytes = 200

1024 KBytes = 400

Click OK, exit regedit and restart your computer.

[Senseotech]

Something isn't right, as I had 256 decimal in there.

[ev0|]

No - this doesn't do anything to improve performance on newer processors. This is only for much older processors. don't believe me ? google it. :)

what you are feeling is called "the placebo effect" :laugh:

[b0m8er]

Did anyone tried that? It really works??

[Si Veteran]

Title fixed on request

[ev0|]

Basically, this trick doesn't work. There is alot of misinformation floating around out there, and you can find it on various (usually dubious) "tweaking" sites. This is an old value in the registry that was for the old days when people had off chip L2 caches that could actually be replaced by the user. Nowadays, for chips with ondie cache (that's pretty much everything from the PIII on up) this value is ignored, so entering anything in it won't do anything for your performance. Windows automatically uses the full ondie L2 cache with newer chips.

[b0m8er]

Basically, this trick doesn't work. There is alot of misinformation floating around out there, and you can find it on various (usually dubious) "tweaking" sites. This is an old value in the registry that was for the old days when people had off chip L2 caches that could actually be replaced by the user. Nowadays, for chips with ondie cache (that's pretty much everything from the PIII on up) this value is ignored, so entering anything in it won't do anything for your performance. Windows automatically uses the full ondie L2 cache with newer chips.

585245965[/snapback]

(Y) thanks! :D

[Keito]

Hmm too bad... I was hoping so :p

by the way ev0| any chance that you're dutch?

[=Syntax=]

Very old tweak. And yes it does work with older CPU's as the fella previously stated. The Athlon worked somewhat ok with it. Duron's liked it and even some socket 478 Intels would twitch abit with it from time to time..... But for mobiles, I don't think yu'll get much out of this at all....... What you could do is use the ole tweak ( AlwaysUnloadDLL ) and set it for ( 1 )...... in the reg. That one works pretty good !

[ev0|]

Hmm too bad... I was hoping so :p

by the way ev0| any chance that you're dutch?

585245989[/snapback]

I'm afraid that I'm not dutch.

Also, since this value is ignored, there is no harm in changing its value. It's not going to do anything to speed up your computer, but it won't do anything bad either.

[Fog Dogg]

You are correct, stupid me :no: ...

SecondLevelDataCache records the size of the processor cache, also known as the secondary or L2 cache. If the value of this entry is 0, the system attempts to retrieve the L2 cache size from the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for the platform. If it fails, it uses a default L2 cache size of 256 KB. If the value of this entry is not 0, it uses this value as the L2 cache size. This entry is designed as a secondary source of cache size information for computers on which the HAL cannot detect the L2 cache.

This is not related to the hardware; it is only useful for computers with direct-mapped L2 caches. Pentium II and later processors do not have direct- mapped L2 caches. SecondLevelDataCache can increase performance by approximately 2 percent in certain cases for older computers with ample memory (more than 64 MB) by scattering physical pages better in the address space so there are not so many L2 cache collisions. Setting SecondLevelDataCache to 256 KB rather than 2 MB (when the computer has a 2 MB L2 cache) would probably have about a 0.4 percent performance penalty.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;183063

[=Syntax=]

Besides, won't really need tweaks once the new AMD 64bit / 1Mb cache reaches store shelves :p

[ev0|]

Actually might as well leave it up.....good information on the web to counter the bad....since neowin gets spidered by google so much, maybe it'll actually help. :laugh:

Edited January 6, 2005 by ev0|

[=Syntax=]

OOOOOOOOOOk