The All New Hardware & Overclocking FAQ

Hardware Specific Tweaks:
AIR FLOW:
H01- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/airflowtweak/
READ THIS. READ IT. it tells how to cure your entire case of hotspots, amazing. "perfect" cooling.
Level of Difficulty: User-Dependant (do you know how to cut your case?) (Easy to Medium)

Router:
H02- http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=177
detailed. well written. helpful. describes how to set up a network / game server etc. behind a router, and how to configure a router.
Level of Difficulty: Easy to Medium

CPU/Motherboard/BIOS:
H03- http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/cpu/
must read. just must read. (even includes how to flash your BIOS)
Level of Difficulty: Easyish (user dependant) to Medium

Speakers:
H04- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/sound/
"this guide should get you started on improving your computer's sound quality. It's a long guide, and the procedures may take you some time to complete, but we think you'll find the results are worthwhile."
very very very detailed and SOLID guide. Read it, and you won't be sorry.
Level of Difficulty: Easy-ish

Monitors:
H05- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/monitor/
"In this guide you'll find information on how to maintain and properly tune your monitor, as well as information on how to improve a video card's output to that monitor - something that at many times is even more important than the actual monitor settings"
'nuff said.
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Cable/DSL:
H06- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/cable/
"While this tweak guide is technically written for cable modems, most of these tweaks will work with xDSL as well. Back up all settings before changing. Keep in mind that some users may experience loss of performance, but most should experience a gain in performance from this guide. This is why we recommend that you back up settings before proceeding."
Pretty good for speeding up your Cable (or DSL) back to where it should be.
Level of Difficulty: Easy-Medium

Modem:
H07- http://www.ircspy.com/guides.asp?mode=display&id=541
Quick guide to increase the bandwith available for transfer through the COM port. It works in all Windows (i'm pretty sure, not just Win98).
Level of Difficulty: EASY (ALL POINT-AND-CLICK BABY!)

H08- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/modem/
ONLY WORKS WITH WIN9x (NOT 2k or XP (i'm assuming, from this: "Note - this guide is not for Windows 2000. This is probably the final update to the Windows 9x Modem Tweak Guide.")
quick, all point and click. go. tweak. have fun.
Level of Difficulty: Easy

H09- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/win2kmodem/
Modem guide for Win2k.
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Optical Drives:
H10- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/optical/
quick and clean tweaking for your CD-ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM/etc.
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Input/Peripherals:
H11- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/inputs/
yes, there's actually a guide for tweaking your peripherals.
Level of Difficulty: Laughable

H12- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/mouse/
a guide dedicated to the mouse. it's pretty nit-picky, this is not an essentialy guide to read. However, if you want to get the most out of your mouse, read it.
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Printer:
H13- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/printer/
Maintenance information and actual tweaks you can do.
Level of Difficulty: Easy-ish

LAN:
H14- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/lan/
yes, a guide for tweaking a LAN and it's pretty detailed/helpful too!
Level of Difficulty: Medium

H15- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/win2klan/
LAN guide dedicated to Win2k. "this guide is for small home networks. Large networks need not apply. I’m not going to talk about DHCP servers (well, not in this revision anyway) or anything like that – we’ll start ‘simple’ first."
Level of Difficulty: Easy to Medium

 

OS SPECIFIC TWEAKS:

Win 9x/ME

Z01 &*& NEW: all right, no link for this one, i'll just have to explain it, so here goes: This guide details how to rebuild the registry in Win98 (idk if it will work in other OS's) and keep it running well. In Win98 the registry is rather superflous and doesn't do a good job of keeping compact, so here's how you deal with it. First, reboot in DOS by going to Start \ Shut Down \ Restart in MS-DOS Mode. Then, after it's finished booting up and is at the C:\Windows screen, type in "scanreg/fix" (just like that, but without the ""). This will take a while, after all, it's manually rebuilding the entire registry. Since the registry is the heart of your computer system, doing this should solve stability issues and make the OS respond faster. Now, how do you keep it like this without constantly scanreg/fix 'ing? Like this: start back up into Win98's GUI (graphical user interface) by typing "exit" (just like that but wihout the "") at the DOS screen, that should reboot you. Now type Start \ Run "msconfig" (just like that without the "") and go to the Autoexec.bat tab, in there click on "New" and type in "scanreg/opt" (just like that but without the ""). What that does is a kind of shorter version of the scanreg/fix , the "opt" stands for "optimize". This way, it'll optimize the registry each time you restart. So save your changes and restart. Congratulations, you've just tweaked your way to a faster performing OS ^_^.

Z02- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/cleanup2k/
it's for 2k and 9x; it's essentially about cleaning out old RegKeys; unused .dll's and making sure there's no useless junk on your computer
Level of Difficulty: Easy (uses 3rd party programs)

Z03- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/windows/
general tweak guide, pretty much all about using Win9x (and ME) to their fullest regarding the various options they have for making a better running OS
Level of Difficulty: Medium (some sysfile editing and reg editing)

Z04- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/win98/
incredibly short very shallow tweak guide for a few settings on Win98
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Z05- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/shell/
This is about the Win98 shell only. It's pretty much just identifying problems with the Win98 Shell and introducing several programs that could help eliminate those problems.
Level of Difficulty: Hard (if you actually do it. i didn't, and i don't plan to.)

 

Win2k/XP
X01- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/win2k/
"All of the other Win2K tweak guides are limited by some kind of hardware focus. This guide, however, will hold anything else that doesn't have it's own guide devoted to it, or even just extra stuff that would fit in another guide but isn't big enough to justify its own update. This includes random performance tweaks, and - for the time being anyway - shell customization information."
has pretty detailed random settings you can tweak. read it (esp. if you're new to Win2k)
Level of Difficulty: Easy - Medium

X02- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/winxp/
General tweak guide and introduction to the ins and outs of XP. (read, esp. if you're new to WinXP)
Level of Diffuclty: Easy

X03- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/winstartupnew/
"Your system will boot faster and have more free memory."
Tweaks for Win2k/XP to, well, speed up booting and making sure there's as much free memory as possible.
Level of Difficulty: Easy-ish

X04- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/xpresources/
a kinda "refresher" that goes into detail about how to free up resources by well, making sure there aren't bull**** things running and generally sprucing up XP (i think this is pretty much only for XP).
Level of Difficulty: Easy-ish

X05- http://tweak3d.net/tweak/win2kmem/
guide for HDD and Memory tweaking. READ IT.
Level of Difficulty: Easy-ish

X06- http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/howto-15.html
simple guide on how to disable Windows Splash screen at startup
Level of Difficulty: Easy

-------END OF GUIDE-------

now, you may be (may) asking "What can I do to help this guide mature?" well, here it is: post links to guides like I have done, over in this thread, with a summary and a Level of Difficulty rating, and i'll edit the main post to get 'em up there where they belong (helpful if you post where it belongs too). Also, by asking questions you can help me clarify this guide and get it to be the helping hand it should be. Any questions about this guide, please direct them to this thread again

 

Things NOT to do

I'll be updating this post with things that people have done, where the result has been a hardware death. I'll keep adding when I think of more bits and bobs which you shouldn't do while your computer is running.

• Don't remove or mess with the heatsink/fan on your CPU while your computer is running, it could be fatal, especially don't remove it while it's running. (I know it's obvious, but sometimes not stating the obvious means that someone will do the obvious)
• Do not run your motherboard on an anti-static bag, for one, the outside of the bag is conductive, and secondly, the motherboard gets very hot and could possibly melt the bag onto the back of the motherboard.
• Cable fiddling, keep this to a minimum while your computer is running, I've had many a BSOD from fiddling with a cable while the computer is connected. This could cause a spike in power and kill something in your system.

To be updated...

 

All you ever wanted to know about RAID!

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/index.htm

 

DFI coldboot fixing strategies

The "coldboot" problem is something that's been plaguing the DFI community since the release of the Lanparty Ultra B and the Infinity, what it basically entails is the refusal of a board to boot, especially when it's been turned off for a while. There are many theories as to why this happens floating around, one of the more believable is that the capacitors discharge when the board is switched off and don't charge up enough to supply correct voltage to your board when it's switched on.

It's easy to tell when a Lanparty is doing this, as soon as you turn it on all 4 diagnostic LEDs come on and stay on, this usually means that either the board booting fine, or is completely dead, so you can see why it causes such worry. Infinity users don't even have the LEDs, which makes it much harder to work out what's going wrong.

Here's a list of the things that seem to work best on dead boards.

1) Pull power/turn PSU off, press power button, turn power back on, start up. This usually fixes my board up, since the only time I get cold-boots is when my PSU has been unplugged/turned off for a while. I can actually create a cold-boot situation by doing this when the computer would otherwise be booting normally.

2) Reset CMOS. If this doesn't work, pull the CMOS battery for about 10 minutes (or longer), then try again. You can always load up your last known good BIOS settings, or a set of ones you like, from CMOS Reloaded afterwards, the only thing you'll have to put back after a CMOS reset is the time/date.

3) Raise vAGP. This has shown results for quite a lot of users, vAGP of 1.6 or 1.7v seems to make the boards post more frequently if the cold-boot problems are severe, or make them go away altogether. Results have also been obtained when increasing vCore/vDIMM.

4) Let the computer run for a few minutes in its non-POSTing state, then hit the reset button and try again.

5) Flash a beta BIOS, the BIOS god known only as OSKAR_WU has been working hard at fixing the cold-boot issues (yes, DFI do actually know about this) and his beta BIOSes help many users. I would classify 1/21 and 1/31 as BIOSes that are reasonably safe to flash (try both, they're based on different ROMSIP tables so you'll probably get better stability/OC with one), but you run the same risks as always when flashing a BIOS, and since these are betas they are not supported officially by DFI. The newest beta BIOS (4/29 or 4/30) has caused a lot of people a lot of problems with BIOS corruption, and although when they do work they've solved a lot more coldboot problems, I wouldn't advise trying them without a BIOS saviour.

I'll add more as I think of them, if any of these or something else works for you please tell me, as I'm trying to gather information on the problem.

All that remains to say is that if you've got a board with severe cold boot issues, especially if it does it at stock settings rather than when heavily overclocked, RMA it and hope that you get a better one next time.