Windows audio problem

[jc at trillian.mit.edu (John Chambers)]

Derek Martin writes:
| ...
| There /are/ ways to tweak Windows XP to use less CPU power; one of
| them is to turn off menu fading.  If you search the web, you'll find
| others.  I came across such a list once, but fortunately my hardware
| is fast enough that it's not an issue... so I didn't pay much
| atention.

One thing to look at that's a problem on all systems:  Browsers  tend
to  come with lots of cpu-eating features turned on.  I've seen a lot
of problems with browsers using 98% of the  cpu,  and  if  I'm  using
several  browsers  (for testing web pages), all of them can be trying
to consume all of the cpu.  You might want to hunt through  all  your
browsers'  config  stuff  and disable java, javascript, and any other
sort of scripting, and only turn them on for pages  that  need  them.
Also, look for the controls for those active images (which tend to be
called something different on every browser), and tell it to play  an
image only once or not at all. If you can turn off blinking and those
silly "marquee" scrolling text things, do so. You'll be amazed at how
a browser's cpu usage drops when you do these things.

I have collections of browsers on my machines, and I'm often  running
all of them to test web pages. This can be a serious problem at times
if I've left some browser activity features running.  Finding all the
controls in all the browsers can take time. And somethimes an upgrade
with move the controls, so you  waste  time  discovering  where  they
hidden (and renamed) the controls.

I never have found any controls that disable the automatic reloading
of pages by sites like news.google.com, but this is usually not much
of a problem, because their refresh rate is usually low.

I've thought of making a web  page  listing  all  the  known  cpu-hog
features  within  various  browsers, with instructions on how to turn
them on and off.  Collecting such info and trying to keep  it  up  to
date could be a lifespan-hogging operation, though.