# PC tips



## Venusian Broon (Dec 3, 2018)

Well, this has been a bit of a head-slapping moment for me, however I thought I share it, so that others, in similar plight might also benefit. 

Generally, I believe, most PC's are now set up to have two main drives. One is a big fat ordinary disk drive, probably a couple of Terabytes, and another smaller SSD drive. Usually, your core operating system and programs are installed on the SSD drive - usually termed C: - because you'll be using them all the time and you probably won't be changing them regularly. Everything else gets to play in the vast expanse of the fat drive, D: (if you remember to install most other stuff there...)

Now I've got a pretty high powered PC, but I bought it about three years ago, so although I've still got reems of free virgin disk space on my 1.8 Tb D drive, I've only got a 250 Gb SSD. 

For a long while despite the space on the D:, my C: drive has been filled to the brim, so that every three or four weeks, the 'low disk space' warning would come up, so I would be desperately looking to uninstall programs I've found there or temp files, cutting back mail, just to make a few hundred Mb back and make the drive happy again. 

I finally cracked today and really decided to sort things out. 

Now there are a large number of things you can do, like uninstall programs you don't need that you have installed on your C: drive - that could easily exist on your D: drive, or make sure your virtual memory does not use the C: drive. But after going through tons of stuff like this, it just wasn't freeing up much. Perhaps 1%. 

So I found a disk analyser:  *WinDirStat* 

It's a free app that you can download. Tiny and it just intelligently searches through your drives and tells you, both graphically and via list what every file on your hard drive takes up. 

I ran it on C: and found that one particular Cache had reserved ~120Gb of my SSD - almost bloody half!!! It was INetCache - used by Internet explorer. I hadn't noticed this before, because I think the INetCache file/folders are pretty well hidden in the directory tree and may, in fact, be hidden by the system too. 

(Do I actually _need _that much  Probably NO.) 

Anyway, I don't care. Armed with this knowledge I went to Tools\Internet Options\General look down to _Browsing History_, hit the *settings *button. There you'll immediately be taken to Temporary Internet Files and right at the bottom is the current location of INetCache. Just hit 'Move Folder' and tell it _TO GET THE HELL OFF MY C: DRIVE _

It's probably still set to high, but hey what the hell, it can now remain on my D: drive with 1.4 Tb of free space. 


Anyway, that was irritating, but I now have the satisfaction of a half full SSD. 

Bear this in mind if you have a similar problem and have a look!


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## TheEndIsNigh (Dec 3, 2018)

@Venusian Broon :- Oh how the other half live

Only a 250GB you poor SSD.

And a 2T D: drive. My god how I've dreamed of one that big or even a little more than the 120GB I've got, which I partition into 60,30,30 GB.

I suppose you're running one of those new fangled operating sytems too, like Window 98 or even heaven forbid Win XP is it?.

I bet you've got a load of lovely ram memory too - Is it 2 Gb or ... Oh I bet it's 4GB.

I'm still chugging along with Win 95 although I sometimes have to drop down to Win 3.11 for the simple stuff.

Still my 486 chip seems to cope even if the fan is on all the time.

Actually, this was very useful information and I had no idea this went on But then given Mr Bates reputation, the fact the operating system thinks it's entitled to occupy half a hard drive are we surprise.

Still, no doubt there's a reason it does this, not connected to sales of new PCs/HDs.

I will certainly be making use of your discovery.

Thanks for the info.


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## Venusian Broon (Dec 3, 2018)

Wow, I'm impressed! Honestly, _how do you function!!! _It has been a long while since I had a PC with those stats and operating systems 

I am one of those weird people that actually like Windows 8.1. And because it's not Windows XP, which could only handle a maximum of 4 Gb, I got it installed with a chunky 24 Gb of RAM. (Also I treated myself recently to a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card with ~8 Gb of memory for display purposes, but that's by-the-by). It uses an Intel i7  @ 3.60 GHZ with 8 individual CPUs. 

At the moment, to get something even more powerful would probably be overkill...(but I can dream).

Oh, another tip - my fan for cooling the CPU, earlier in the year, was making a terrible sound. Turned out the cooling fins were about 80% clogged up with dirt and dust, so it was really struggling very hard to try and pull in enough air to keep the chip cool. Switched off the PC, opened it up, and pulled all the stuff out with tweezers. Back to virtually silent. Always a good idea to open the PC up and hoover the dust and carefully remove build up every so often.


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## Kerrybuchanan (Dec 3, 2018)

I am actually drooling on my keyboard at the specs of your PC, @Venusian Broon


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## Happy Joe (Dec 3, 2018)

I expect the next upgrade to include at least two 6 Tb storage  drives, to let me reduce complexity from three 3Tb archival drives don't really need a SSD nothing that I do really needs access speed, the OS/system drive is usually a 1 Tb drive, or whatever is handy/laying around, over 500 gig.... I think I have copies of all the windows OS's from the first 98 (odius) through 10 (I really prefer 7)..  I am, mostly partial, to AMD processors.

Oooh! thanks!... I just remembered that I have a  MB and processor sitting on the bench (...forgot about it). Since its snowing outside I think I will adjourn to the lab-or-atory and stick my fingers into its warm  innards...

Enjoy!


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## Edward M. Grant (Dec 3, 2018)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> I'm still chugging along with Win 95 although I sometimes have to drop down to Win 3.11 for the simple stuff.



I installed Windows 3.11 in a VM on my laptop a couple of years back. Was not at all easy to get it browsing the Web: I think I had to download some ancient version of Mozilla in the end.


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## Happy Joe (Dec 3, 2018)

Just got this machine, that I am posting from, up and going; currently updating (everything). and downloading Avast (free)
Not sure exactly what processor but its a 6 core AMD 6300 @ 3.5 Ghz
...think it has 8 gig of Rip Jaws memory (to start with).
this is a Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 R2 motherboard.
The power supply is a modular (removable wires) Seasonic
Haven't stuffed a vid card into it yet, currently running from the onboard vid.
I noted that it has a 750 gig Western digital drive.
apparently I loaded W7 home premium onto it when I first started messing with it (before I got distracted)...
I will likely repartition the drive and drop w7 ultimate onto it for dual boot (no real reason just because I can).

Lets see if I can crash it... just started the windows experience rating tests while typing this and downloading multiple updates, including windows...So far so good... Its just keeps on chugging along...
Must be getting a bit warm I can now barely hear the fans.

Not stutters, no video gltiches or jumping; think I'm good...

Enjoy!
edit; ratings just came up 
Processor  7.4
Memory 7.7
onboard graphics 4.7 (expected somthing not great)
Gamin graphics 5.2
Hard drive 5.9

...now to rummage around and see if I have a vid card looking for a home...

Enjoy!


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## Happy Joe (Dec 4, 2018)

Installed the basic protection software;
Avast free antivirus,
Comodo firewall and antivirus,
Had windows defender on it for the initial setup; turned it off
Installed CCleaner (pirisoft).
installed spyware blaster (for old times sake).

was bored so I put serious sam 2nd ed on it (the disk was handy)
also Diablo 2 and the expansion (LOD)
I may have to reconsider the use for this computer; so far it runs about the smoothest of any that I have...

Enjoy


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## Happy Joe (Dec 7, 2018)

...installed an old 8800 GTs vid card ; worked great then gave me a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death).  uninstalled the driver and pulled the card back out; problem solved (always undo the last change first, when tracking down problems...

I may or many not put another vid card into this machine; Its purpose is to replace the old dual core Intel computer in the entertainment/media/movie center so it really doesn't need a video card.
Enjoy!


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