Here is an article I recently posted for a music site. It describes the basics of changing BIOS settings to reduce your operating system overhead. It’s geared for any technically inclined individual who wants to start optimizing their computer for maximum performance depending on what role your computer plays. In this case, it’s referenced for a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), but the core information applies to any role.

This is “use at your own risk” stuff that can make your PC much faster if done carefully. The idea is managing your software by managing your hardware. You’ll remove unneeded hardware from your operating system’s “Plug and play” and gain performance.

Let’s get into the BIOS, where it all starts:

When the PC boots up, there's a key combination you have to hit to get it to go into the BIOS options. Depending on the manufacturer, they may or may not tell you in the Boot Graphic what key you need to hit during post. It can also be found in the boot-up text if you don’t have a graphic.

Sometimes it's “Delete” (in my case). Sometimes it's “F2”. Likely it'll be one of these (it's not F8, that's after post so you can choose safe mode etc).

Once you are in the bios, you can look at all the core settings you can fiddle with, and HyperThreading enabling/disabling will be there if it's applicable. This setting is the one that I enable/disable the most. The reason is sometimes you’ll want it enabled if you are planning a multitasking session running multiple programs. Certain applications respond very well to HyperThreading (HT), and general multitasking certainly loves HT. You’ll want it disabled if there are applications that don’t work right with HT, which surprisingly there are many. How can you tell? Nose to the books research unfortunately, you have to do your homework on each application you intimately use. So if you aren’t in the mood for researching follow this simple rule: if you multitask, turn it on, otherwise leave it off.

If you want to get in total control and really keep your computer at smokin speeds and optimal juggling of resources, there's a ton of things you can do in the BIOS to enable or disable.

Here’s a breakdown of some things I do in the BIOS permanently, and depending on your bios and needs you can do many of the same ones:

I disable:
• Onboard Sound (AC-97)
• SATA Controllers (I use IDE atm)
• Onboard LAN
• Game Port
• Serial Ports (might be listed as COM ports)
• Parallel Port (or address)
• Power management (APM)
• Spread Spectrum (others will want this enabled if they have EMI issues, but disabled it gives greater system performance – you’ll need to test)

What this does is free the resources the PC would need to enable and monitor them. Its overhead you don’t need, and significant if you run benchmarks with them on and off.
I disable all these because I use none of them for either my DAW or my General Computing IDE master (I swap the IDE master cable depending on what system I want to boot up – it has many more advantages over RAID or Dual-Booting, just requires a bit of thinking to keep both drives accessible to the IDE cable end, and a three second swap prior to turning it on).

I enable:
• Turbo mode
• Performance Acceleration Mode

I change:
• Graphics Aperture Size (keep the setting the same size as your Video card ram (i.e. 256 Mb Geforce – 256 Aperture size) – Also make sure the priority is set to whatever kind of slot it takes (Agp/Pci/PCIX)
• Memory settings from SPD. This is one of the best improvements you can do, but it takes a lot of testing to get it right. All memory is generally rated CAS 2, 2.5 or 3. When the BIOS sets it at SPD, it’s the “safe bet” settings from the chip. Meaning it’s probably set CAS and RAS settings to the slowest possible. You have to know what kind of memory you have, but I approach it like this:

1. Set it on Manual Settings(Take it off SPD)
2. Decrease the CAS Latency by one step. Reboot and run applications for about 15 mins. If all is well, repeat decreasing the CAS, Reboot and Run, Etc. When the PC doesn’t boot, you’ve set the CAS too low. Power off for 30 seconds, and go back to the optimal CAS that worked successfully.
3. Start decreasing the other settings by one step doing the same reboot and run applications for awhile (burst length is best at 8 generally). There’s RAS precharge, Ras to Cas Delay, Precharge delay, and Burst length. Depending on your Motherboard, you may not see all of these settings. As an example, I have Corsair CAS2 memory. My settings are CAS Latency(2.5), Ras Precharge (3), Ras-Cas delay (3), PRecharge Delay (5), Burst Length (8).
4. Be careful. Although memory optimization can get you some real gains in performance, it’s not worth sweating over. Have a read online about memory settings, and if you are feeling techy give it a shot – have fun with it.

Other things you can change are:

Speech config off, Instant Music off, Quick boot on, Post logo disabled.

Basically any resource you do not utilize (like a printer on the com port, or a legacy serial connected palm pilot, etc), you can disable it in the bios to regain resources and performance.

Now once you boot up and are into the PC, there are many more settings you can and should change (shutting down services, setting specific swap file location on a separate drive, loading apps on their own distinct partition(hopefully with an additional drive), keeping the system (C: drive) uncluttered, removing bells and whistles, enable/disable devices depending on what you are doing, so many things you can do). But these I listed are the most taboo, are hardware orientated, and not easy to adjust without experimentation and research. You definitely need to use caution and it would be smart to have another PC searching the web for specifics while you optimize the bios so you can feel “informed”. If all you do is simply disable what you don’t use, you’re safe. It can easily be turned back on and your Operating System will remember.

One day I’ll post all my OS secrets to a slammin fast and protected PC, but hardware optimization is where the best performance is to be gained, and I offer you my knowledge free of charge, just be careful.