If you are looking for the best performance from the system, that would be to replace the hard drive with a solid state drive.

And ejn63, I wouldn't call changing the hard drive a tweak ... its more sort of upgrading ...

Any suggestions on tweaking my current project?

Are you experiencing any specific performance / hardware issues?

Check your startup programs via Msconfig > Startup and disable/delete any unnecessary entries (post a screenshot here so we can check it for you).

Defrag (Optimize) the drive

Use www.piriform.com/ccleaner to clean temp files, clean registry etc

Ensure vents are clear of dust build up (overheating is a main cause of system slow downs)

Ejn63's advice is an excellent tweak (albeit it a hardware upgrade) and you would certainly see a performance increase.

Upgrade memory to max (again not a tweak per se, but will increase system performance)

There are a number of Windows 8 Tweaks to be found on the internet.

Thanks for the advice ejn63.

I am currently on a 750GB.  Is this capacity available on a SSD interface?

Cheers...

SSDs are available  up to 1T now, but you'll pay around $400 for a decent 512M unit, so a 1T will likely cost as much or more than the system did initially.

Keep the system as cool as possible - for the longevity of the hard drive in particular.  The hard drive is mounted on the underside of the system board, and if it needs to be changed, the system needs to be completely dismantled -- screen, mainboard, you name it - to get to the drive.

Thanks Raj,

The clean boot link was not of any use as my windows is a fresh install so there are no program glitches.

However, the other link took my attention to indexing, which I will look into and post back any changes in performance. Cheers for this.

Paul - mate I think you just identified the problem here.  The vents are jammed which is why the system is over heating.  I can actually feel the head on my wrist as I type.  I'll make some space around my laptop to ensure a clear passage of air into and out of the machine to keep it from over heating.

There are no known software / hardware issues.  I have not got many software installed so MSCONFIG is of pretty much no use at the moment.  The drives are totally defragged, and there is virtually nothing in the temp folders as its a new install all together.

I agree upgrading to SSD would cost me a fortune, but it will surely boost the machine up to a noticeable level.  I'm running 8GB memory so I guess I'm maxed on that.  I'll make the mentioned arrangements and will get back with the results - cheers mate.

ejn63 - I was not aware that SSD are now coming upto 1TB (wow - technology :P).  Yes, it will be more than the actual machine cost, so its probably out of the discussion for now, but maybe as more capacity SSDs come in the market, 1TB might become affordable.

Thanks a lot guys.

If there's anything else that comes up in your mind do give me a holla...

Regards,

Prof. Nav

BTW - Readyboost is via an external usb flash drive. Does this really improve the overall performance of the machine???

Thanks ejn63 - your advice taken onboard...I went and bought me a small laptop table / stand with a belkin cooling pad.

there's plenty of air flow now...

cheers mate

Prof. Nav

Thank you every one who made an effort to help me out here.

After installing all the software that I will use on my laptop, I did the followings and found a major performance in the start up time, and the loading time of the commands and applications.

- Indexing - this was the main identifier for data retrieval

- Air vents - keeping the vents open is preventing the heating up of laptop and it seems as if everything is actually cool...

- MSConfig - helped me remove a few services at startup which decreased up to 8 seconds of machine startup time...

Thank you guys - cheers.

Professor Naveed

Next in the list is the watchfull eye over the 1TB SSD in the market.

Hopefully in a couple of months time, I will upgrade this laptop with a SSD and then be savvy to have completely optimized my machine.

Cheers my dears...