Windows On Mac :: Tips For Improving W7 Bootcamp Performance
Apr 1, 2010
I'm running W7 ultimate on a Rev. A MBA. I'm looking for some tips on improving performance in Bootcamp.
Here is what I have done so far:
- Installed latest BC drivers (3.1)
- Defragged windows partition
- Disabled hibernate function (to save HDD space)
- Installed all updates from Windows Update
- Disabled (some) of the Aero eye candy
- Disabled unnecessary services (ala Blackviper's site)
- Disabled unnecessary startup programs
EDIT:
- Disabled Index Service
- Disabled Windows Search
My main reason for wanting to do this is that I'm having some issues when playing MP3s in WMP. They play fine until I say, launch Firefox. Doing so causes the playing MP3 to skip, or temporarily become garbled. I assume this is due to taxing the HDD, but since upgrading to an SSD is currently not an option, I'm trying to squeeze as much performance out of the system as I can.
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Nov 8, 2010
I am running windows 7 on my new MacBook Air, this is a requirement for my work, so can't be changed. I bought the MBA because it's a beautiful laptop, thin and light, great screen, and great keyboard. My battery life, however seems to be terrible, especially compared to statistics I have seen on other reviews/threads. At the moment, when I am unplugged, I have brightness at 30%, I have the hard drive set to sleep when not in use. I have bluetooth turned off and WiFi on. I almost exclusively use the computer to work on google docs. So, turn on the computer, work for half an hour, in Chrome, either sending and receiving emails or writing in Google Docs. (I can't figure out if this qualifies as "light browsing", but based on my battery drain I would say it's not...) I have a plug-in to block flash, and haven't been running flash on any website since I started using the computer.
Here are my statistics:
Last night, typed (on the web) for half an hour and went from 100-80% battery.
Put the computer to sleep for 9 hours, and when I woke the computer it was at 74% battery.
Typed and checked email for forty minutes, went to 57%
Woke the computer two hours later and was at 49%
typed (on the web) for half an hour and was at 29%
put the computer into hybernate, turned it on ten minutes later at was at 27%
I've now been typing for about half an hour and I'm at 15%.
I'm losing, roughly, 20% of my battery for each half hour of typing in a browser, with flash disabled. That means 2.5 hours of browsing. I need to get 4 hours if I'm going to keep the computer.
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Oct 29, 2008
I am sort of shocked how much low I/O performance mars overall responsiveness of my mp. Whenever I have some disk intensive app running the entire system begins to stall awfully up to the point when a simple task such as browsing becomes a painfully slow process. This situation is even aggravated when I concurrently access a flash drive. I have 4 Samsung 1 TB F1s and 8 GB RAM available. Would building a software raid 5 help to improve the situation? I reckon that transfer rates are part of a problem. Intels latest SSD Drives are also much faster than my F1s and also sport much better access times. Has anyone experimented with using such a drive as the system and application drive?
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Sep 6, 2010
I've come into possession of a 1.83 Core Duo MacBook and I am curious if you're able to clock the processors on these in anyway? I appreciate the implications of doing this on a laptop / notebook type device, but I want to know in theory if it is possible. I understand the maximum ram on a MA254LL/A is 2GB... is this correct? Will it not ready any more? In terms of the CD drive, is it possible to upgrade it to a superdrive? Is this easy or simply not possible? I've seen a few on ebay, and would be curious to know if they'd work. How far can you get with a MA254LL/A, whats the maximum HDD you could pop in?
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Sep 12, 2006
Is there any way to improve the video performance on my iBook G3 (600mhz, 640MB RAM, 16MB VRAM)? I find that besides not being able to play any of the HD trailers at Apple's website (even 480p), it can't even seem to play a standard trailer without stutterring. Is there anything I can do to improve the video performance?
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Sep 5, 2010
My home WiFi network is currently very unstable. I'm working to improve it and looking for a little advice. This is a little long but I'm trying to provide as much relevant info as possible. First, I have Comcast cable internet performance package (6mbps). My internet speeds vary from about 3-10mbps. I use the Comcast provided cable modem (rented). From the cable modem I run a cable directly into an Airport Express 802.11b/g to create my home wifi network. I have a usb printer attached to the Airport Express for network printing. I have a second Airport Express on the other side of the house used to expand the network and pump music into my home stereo via air tunes.
I use my network for general internet surfing, airtunes streaming to my home stereo, and itunes and bittorrent downloading. No gaming or other speed intensive applications especially within the home network. I have two problems - the internet drops out and requires a reset very often - at least once a day and the airtunes is very unstable. For the internet problem, I thought it was the Comcast internet but I've checked the quality of the cable signal and removed all unnecessary splitters, etc and it still happens. I think the problem is my Airport express. For the Airtunes problem, this clearly seems to be an Airport express problem. I'm thinking of going to a Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g as my primary wireless router and purchasing a cable modem (to save money in the long run over renting.)
Here are my questions:
1) Based on my usage and my current Comcast internet package, my understanding is that 802.11b/g is fine for me. Is this correct? I don't think I need or could benefit from the 300mbps speed of a N network.
2) Can I still use the airport express for airtunes and printing on the Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g network?
3) Regarding the cable modem, is there any advantage to getting a more expensive DOCSIS 3.0 modem such as Motorola SURFboard SB6120? I've read that some people see significant improvements in their speed even if they have a slower internet service.
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Nov 11, 2009
I just got a MBA and was wondering what I could do to increase its performance? (without changing hardware such as getting a Runcore SSD)
It's a secondary computer and only plan on using it for writing, browsing the web, and itunes music.
Are there any programs I should install/delete?
I just want to get rid of all the excess things I don't really need.
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Jul 31, 2010
I just bought a brand new i5 quad core iMac. I installed Starcraft, and I have to crank the settings down in order to get a decent frame rate, so I thought I'd give Bootcamp a go.
I installed Win7 64bit and then installed the drivers from the DVD which came with it. I started up the Starcraft 2 installer and 8 HOURS LATER, it was still at only 60%.
Steam also seems to have issues, it will halt with a "This program is no longer responding" window, and then randomly spring back to life a few seconds later.
The system also feels really sluggish. I've not been able to benchmark anything on it to see if the system is really slow, or if it's just my perception as all the modern games I have are in my steam account.
For some reason when I shutdown, Windows also seems to hang on "Shutting down". It does not exhibit the same behaviour when I launch the boot camp partition through VMWare.
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Sep 6, 2010
Considering buying win 7 so i can bootcamp for 1st time. Before I do though, I want to know if/why it'll work. I've read that OSX 10.6 has driver issues witn nVidia hardware. Well, why would they be any different on Windows? Does Microsoft write its own drivers for Mac hardware? Or is it nVidia? I ask this b/c dont you have to install the drivers off the OSX disc? Doesn't make sense why apple would give you better drivers for windows than they do for OSX. Point is, I'd be doing this for gaming. I just don't see why there'd be any performance improvement with the SAME HARDWARE, just running windows instead.
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Jun 15, 2009
ill installing windows in my mac via bootcamp in anyway affect my mac's performance? ( Is it possible that it will run slower)
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May 19, 2009
Is anyone having slow SATA performance on their 09 mac pro in bootcamp. Just booting into windows takes a long time and trying to burn a disc or transfer something to an external hard drive takes a long time. I created a large iso file and burned it to a BD-50 RW disc in windows and it took approximately 4 hours and it was set to burn at the fastest speed which should of been 2x but never reached any faster than 0.7x. I burned the same iso in mac osx through disc utility and it took less than 2 hours. I transferred the same iso file to an external usb hard drive in windows and that took 4 hours which is extremely slow. Does anyone know how to get SATA operating at a normal speed. I checked in the device manager and it is set to operate in DMA mode.
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Dec 12, 2009
I will be getting a macbook pro 13" and I want to do a little gaming, call of duty and a few other games. Would I get better performance with bootcamp in xp or Windows 7
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Nov 7, 2010
Macpro 8 Core 2.4Ghz with 12Gig RAM and top ATI card. Running Windows 7 through Bootcamp (much better than Parallels 6!). Ran the Performance Benchmark and returned a score of 7.6, except for HD which was 5.3. Apparently the top score for current hardware is 7.9, so I am wondering if others have run the test, and whether this is hardware or driver related etc, and what other people are getting.....
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Mar 25, 2012
I run Rhino (64 bit) with windows 7 through bootcamp. The software mfg's recommended graphics card is the AMD FirePro v7900 or v5900, and user group recos the nvidea quadro 4000. I am currently using an Nvidea gtx285 and driving two displays from it. Looking to upgrade both memory and video card for optimal performance.
Info:
Mac Pro, Windows 7, osx 10.7 , 16g ram nvidea 285gtx
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Jan 30, 2009
Used migration assistant to move my Blackbook apps and settings to the Air using a Time Machine backup from my Time Capsule - wirelessly. Two hours later (not terrible) and I'm using my Air with all my apps and setting - fantastic.
Question: My Blackbook also has a Bootcamp partition running Windows - is there a way to take that image and migrate it to my MB Air? I'd rather not have to purchase the Superdrive and re-install/setup the Windows OS on my Air....
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Feb 22, 2009
I am a high school senior. Next year I will be going to college and majoring in Computer Science. I am going to purchase a laptop for school, and I'm sure that you can all relate to the fact that there is simply no way that I am going to drop a grand or two on a Dell or Sony; a Macbook or a Macbook Pro is definitely in my future (actually, I've wanted an Apple computer for about five years now).
However, due to the nature of university computer science work, it is inevitable that I will need to run both Windows and Linux to complete research, assignments, and projects. Because I will need to use these two operating systems on a daily basis along with OS X for personal use, I have decided that virtualization, not Boot Camp, is the right option for me. I think I will use VMWare Fusion, but let me know if you think Parallels is much better.
I am trying to decide whether I need/want a Macbook or a Macbook Pro. I have weighed many factors, such as price, portability, expandability, etc., but my question is this: for day-to-day virtualization of Windows and Linux, is a Macbook Pro necessary for acceptable performance, or would a Macbook do almost as well? If Windows XP or Vista or 7 on Parallels or VMWare on a Macbook will drive me nuts with lag, a jittery cursor, etc., then a Macbook Pro would be a justified purchase.
One of the main differentiations between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro is the graphics chipset; it is important to note for this discussion that I have little interest and requirement for working with video games or 3D graphics. I might have to run a few small OpenGL programs here and there for programming exercises, but this will be rare.
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Dec 1, 2009
I just installed a copy of window 7 x64 ultimate on my uMBP 15", 2.66, 4GB ram, 9600 GT.
everything went well using the bootcamp that comes with my snow leopard dvd and also using the bootcamp driver on that dvd too.
anyway i have a few question regarding this.
-after i installed the windows, now everytime i perform disk utillity, verify disk permissions, it takes considerable longer time compared to when the machine is Mac OS only.
previously , after i hit the "verify disk permissions button" it will says straight away like estimated time 28 minutes, then drop to 8 minutes and then to 1 and finaally done.
now after i install window 7 on my mac using boot camp. when i hit the "verify disk permissions" it it says estimated time 1hour 40 minutes !!!
of course it will finissh eventually in less than that , but still it considerably took longer compared to prior window 7 installattion, does anyone experience this as well ?
-the performance benchmark on win 7 ultimate x64 on my mbp is 5.6 score.
is this normal ?
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Jan 23, 2009
I want to try out Windows 7. During this process though I deleted my winXP partition. When I went to create a new BootCamp partition in The BootCamp SetUp Assisstant, it failed to create the partition on my harddrive.
I was greeted with the error, "BootCamp SetUp assistant failed to yada yada yada, please backup and reformat your harddrive."
So my question is do I really have to reinstall Mac OS X? (I backup with TimeMachine so it won't be a big deal but still thats a very long process.) Do you guys have any tips or anything to get Mac OS X to partition my main HDD?
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Aug 28, 2009
Maybe I'm just over thinking this, but Apple never posted a KB article about how to upgrade an existing bootcamp partition with the new snow leopard bootcamp 3.0 drivers. I'm assuming if you already have bootcamp 2.1 you boot up in boot camp and then insert the snow leopard disc in order to upgrade the drivers to 3.0 correct? Or do I have to erase my stupid bootcamp partition and reinstall it all over again using the new leopard boot camp assistant in order to get to 3.0?
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Nov 7, 2010
First time user of the forum. About a year or two ago, I acquired an older Mac G4 AGP from someone who said it was "broke" and was going to recycle it. Turns out the OS just needed to be re-installed, so she is up and running. I initially installed Leopard, but it didn't run as well as I would've liked, so I put Tiger on it (running much better). After that, I maxed out the memory @ 2GB(4 x 512MB PC133). Then I installed a 7200RPM HD to replace the slower drive. I also installed a DVD R/RW and maxed the processor to a 1.8GHz single core. Right now, I'm looking to bump up the video card. It's my understanding that the 9800 is best card for this system, but I'm not looking to spend that much. I will only be using this system to stream music from Grooveshark and Pandora, so it needs to run Flash content well. Currently, it has the ATI Rage 128 Pro with 16MB VRAM, which is next to nothing. Like I said, I don't need a crazy card, but I'm not sure the difference between one 64MB card and another, or should I go up to 128MB.
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Dec 15, 2008
I just moved into a new apartment today. Of course, I checked to see if there were any open wireless networks before signing up for high speed internet access.
There is one open linksys available, but I am having trouble with it. I get varying signal strengths between all and no bars. They vary as I sit at the table motionless with nothing moving around me. I get high speed streaming audio for a few minutes, then no internet at all for the next 5 minutes.
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Dec 4, 2010
I am trying to send a wide format poster file to Staples and the error keeps reading that the quality is too low. I have tried formatting it to .jpeg, .tiff, .png, .bmp, but nothing works. I have determined that it must be the original export to .pdf that is the trouble. I have tried to create a .pdf file through the print option on iPages as well as through the Export option to formulate a .pdf file. The end result seems to be the same. Does anyone know how I can increase the quality of the .pdf file.
If there is a program out there that I can download to create a higher resolution conversion? Is there someway I can make the conversion to one of the files listed above higher? or am I right in thinking that the problem lies with the original .pdf conversion? I need to get a banner poster done by next weekend so I was hoping to get this issue resolved over this weekend. Most of the information on the file is just pure text and gradient fills. I even tried removing the three head shots to see if the photos were the problem...but nope.
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Jan 28, 2006
Is there any way to improve the wifi signal acquisition on my 12" g4 powerbook?
I'm noticing that the 14"Ibook I'm comparing my PB to get a better signal sitting side by side.
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Apr 8, 2006
Now that Apple has unleashed BootCamp, has anyone run 3D Studio Max on an Intel Mac with Windows? How's its performance?
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Apr 6, 2009
I'm trying to get the best performance out of my vmware, so, what are the best settings i can put (remember I want the closest to bootcamp quality) on my Unibody Macbook pro 2.5 4 gigas RAM.
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Nov 6, 2008
Does anyone have any comparisons of disk performance under OS X and Windows? The reason I ask: I've come to notice that the sound of disks being accessed is very different under the two OS varieties*. So much so, I can recognize the OS in use merely by the sound of the disk! So, I'm led to wonder: which OS on a Mac Pro has better disk read/write speeds?
* - Really rather rough and silly descriptions follow
Windows - snow being crunched underfoot
OS X - a spun coin settling on a table
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Feb 6, 2010
I have a Mac Pro 2009 2.66 quad with ATi3870 and 6 gigs of ram. I used to run a boot camp Win7 RC partition with first Fusion 2 and then 3. It worked fine. Now I bought Win7 Ultimate and I'm getting ****** graphics performance in Fusion. The screen updates slowly. When I move a window there's noticable tearing. Fade effects don't really show fade but a few fading frames of the animation.
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Nov 5, 2009
I've just bought a copy of windows 7. Just wondering if i install it via bootcamp now can i update bootcamp in a few weeks when apple releases windows 7 support or will i have to reinstall windows 7 when that happens ?
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Sep 27, 2009
my Mac Pro has a very weak wireless connectivity � 4-10% packet loss on average, so I want to try to upgrade it's Airport antennae (I've had the same issues on my PC before I bought Mac Pro, I fixed them by upgrading the antenna).
Does anyone have any experience with external antennae for the built-in Mac Pro Airport card?
What are the plugs in Airport called? (RP-SMA � is that right?)
Are there any converters to RP-TNC, so I could plug a normal external PC antenna? Will there be any problems?
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Nov 23, 2010
Does parallels hurt the running of a Mac?
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