wt95-faq.txt Version 1.10, 10/1/96
Wintune is a registered trademark of CMP Media, Inc.
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Wintune 95, the WINDOWS Magazine Test and Tune-Up Kit for Windows 95, is available for download from CompuServe (g winmag) and America Online (keyword WinMag). You can also find it elsewhere, but at these officially-supported sites you'll always find the latest version.
Wintune is also available commercially as part of the quarterly Windows Magazine CD, which is available at many of the same fine retail establishments that sell Windows Magazine. You can also order one disc ($12.95) or a one-year, four-CD subscription ($39.95) by calling 800-294-0198 (or from outside the U.S. 904-445-4662 ext. 817).
From time to time Wintune may also be distributed by mail on floppy disk. If it is currently available in that format, there will be an ad in the current issue of WINDOWS Magazine.
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TECHNICAL SUPPORT:
Due to the freeware distribution of Wintune, we cannot provide one-on-one technical support via e-mail, telephone, or mail.
A combination FAQ for the WinMag CD and Wintune is available by Internet e-mail answerback. Send a message to wmcdfaq@dnai.com and the latest version will be sent back automatically. Note that the system will send only one copy per day to the same e-mail address.
We currently provide direct technical support only through our forums on CompuServe (g winmag, message section 13) and America Online (keyword WinMag, then choose Message Exchange, then look in the Wintune folder). (To sign up, call CompuServe at 800-848-8199, or America Online at 800-827-6364.)
Please read through this FAQ completely and browse messages already posted *before* posting a request for technical support.
If Wintune won't run, it might be conflicting with some other software, like your video board driver. To test that, reboot in Safe Mode, and see if you can run Wintune. To get to Safe Mode, restart your system and press F8 when you see the "Starting Windows 95" message. To get out of Safe Mode, restart.
If Wintune still won't run, please describe the problem in detail, including the exact text of any error message, and what shows in the title bar of the error dialog, if any.
If you have questions about Wintune's tips or performance ratings, please post a copy of the All Details report. Switch to Wintune's Database tab and make sure that only the relevant test or tests are checked. Then switch to the Reports tab, select All Details, and select Copy (or press Ctrl-C). Now you can simply paste the report into a Compuserve or America Online forum message. Please look through the report and note any discrepancies, for example an improperly identified CPU or video board.
If you just performed the test and haven't closed Wintune, its tips will be included in the All Details report. Due to a bug (which will be fixed in the next release), the tips are missing from the All Details report of saved results, so when posting saved results please add a list whatever tips you received.
If you're asking about disk problems, please let us know what the brand and model of the hard drive; brand, model, and bus type of the IDE, EIDE, or SCSI adapter; what third-party disk drivers or cache you're using, if any.
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If you need help setting up Wintune, search for the word SETUP.
If you have encountered an error message or Wintune isn't working properly, search for the word ERROR.
If you've run Wintune and you have a performance-related question, search for the word PERFORMANCE.
If you are looking for general advice, search for the word GENERAL.
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DOWNLOADING AND SETUP
SETUP: System Requirements
Wintune 95 requires Windows 95, or Windows NT version 3.51 or later. It needs about 5MB of free disk space during installation, but afterwards takes up only about 2MB.
If you are using Windows 3.x, you can run Wintune 95's predecessor, Wintune 2.0. That utility is no longer being updated, but the final release and is still available as Wt20.zip in our software libraries. Download Wt20-faq.Txt for more information.
SETUP: Proper Wintune Downloading / Corrupt Downloads
Wintune is available online only in a single Zip file archive. The name of that archive is Wt95v10.zip (or Wt95v10, if you have Explorer's options set to hide extensions) and the file size is 1,319,180 bytes. If you have a different file size, or get an error message (like "error in Zip," "invalid archive," "invalid archive directory," or "no files found") when you try to unzip the file, then you probably have a bad download, and will need to retrieve the .zip file again. (If you downloaded the file from America Online, see "Setup: AOL Users" below.)
SETUP: Download Time
It should take around 15 minutes to download Wt95v10.zip at 14.4 kbps, and about half that time at 28.8 kbps. If it takes you 90 minutes, you're actually connected at only 2400 bps. Contact your online service or Internet access provider for assistance in getting up to speed.
SETUP: Installing Wintune
Wt95v10.zip is a Zip file archive. (An archive is a file that contains other files, usually compressed.) To install it, you'll need to download an unzipping utility, like PKzip or WinZip.
Here are step-by-step instructions for installing Wintune from Wt95v10.zip. (If you have Explorer set to hide extensions, the archive name will be just Wt95v10.) If you're using WinZip, see the instructions below.
1. Create a working directory, like C:\Wtinst. (Select the C:\ drive icon in Explorer, select New/Folder from the File menu, type wtinst, and press Enter.) If you've already downloaded Wt95v10.zip, move it to C:\Wtinst. (If you're using America Online, this step may have been performed automatically--see SETUP: AOL Users below.)
2. Next, extract the files contained in Wt95v10.zip to the working directory. If you use PKunzip, you'd use the DOS commands:
cd \wtinst pkunzip wt95v10
3. Go back to Explorer, open C:\Wtinst, and double-click on Setup.exe to launch Wintune 95 Setup. (If you have Explorer set to hide extensions, the file name will be just Setup.)
4. Once you're satisfied that Wintune is running properly, you can recover about 2.8MB of disk space by deleting C:\Wtinst. (You might want to copy Wt95v10.zip to a floppy first.)
SETUP: Installing with WinZip
WinZip greatly simplifies the installation process.
1. Start WinZip, then open the Wt95v10.zip archive by using the Open button or by dragging the Wt95v10.zip icon out of Explorer and dropping it on WinZip. (If you have Explorer set to hide extensions, the archive name will be just Wt95v10.)
2. Click the Install button to run the Wintune Setup utility. By default Wintune is placed in the Program Files directory, but you can put it anywhere you like.
3. Once you're satisfied that Wintune is running properly, you can recover about 1.3MB of disk space by deleting Wt95v10.zip or moving it to a floppy.
SETUP (AND DOWNLOADS): AOL Users
If you downloaded Wt95v10.zip from America Online (AOL), the extraction may have already been done for you. AOL has an option (Members/Set Preferences/Download/Automatically decompress files at sign-off) that causes it to automatically extract files from any .zip archives you download. In that case, you will find the contents of Wt95v10.zip in the directory C:\Aol25\Download\Wt95v10. Open that directory in Explorer and double-click on Setup.exe to launch the Wintune 95 Setup utility. (If you have Explorer set to hide extensions, the file name will be just Setup.)
By default Wintune is placed in the Program Files directory but you can put it anywhere you like. Once you're satisfied that Wintune is running properly, you can recover about 2.8MB of disk space by deleting C:\Aol25\Download\Wt95v10.
If you download Wt95v10.zip to a floppy disk, TURN OFF the automatic decompression option first. Otherwise AOL will attempt to extract the files onto the floppy and fail due to insufficient disk space.
Sometimes AOL appears to download Wt95v10.zip but the file doesn't show up in the download directory afterwards, so you have to start all over again. Our current theory is that this is the result of the AOL software not recognizing a corrupted or incomplete download. If you uncheck "Delete ZIP and ARC files after decompression" you should be able to resume the download instead of having to start from scratch.
If you're upset by download problems, please complain to AOL support. Unfortunately there's nothing we at WinMag can do about these problems, and feedback from unhappy customers is the best way to persuade AOL to improve matters.
To read AOL's FAQs on download problems:
Go to keyword Help. Click the "Members Online Support" icon. Click the "Technical Help" icon. Click the "Download Help" button.
To get credit for incomplete AOL downloads:
Go to keyword Credit. Double-click the "Getting Credit for Incomplete Downloads" folder and fill out the form.
SETUP (DOWNLOADS): Compuserve users
How you download depends on what software you're using to access Compuserve.
If you're using WinCIM, see the online help for "Libraries." Wintune is in library 4 of the Windows Magazine forum. Choose Go from the Services menu, type "winmag," and click OK. Then choose Browse from the Library menu, and double-click on "Wintune & WinMag CD." Select "Wintune 95 Version 1.0," click Retrieve, and click OK to start downloading.
If you're using terminal emulation, G WINMAG, then from the main forum menu:
choose LIBRARIES choose library 4 choose DOWNLOAD
At the "File name:" prompt type "wt95v10.zip" and press Enter.
What you do next varies depending on what software you're using and what file-transfer protocol you've selected.
SETUP (DOWNLOADS): Internet users
If you're downloading from the Internet, be sure your ftp software is set for binary transfer. If you accidentally ftp in ASCII mode (a common mistake when using command-line ftp), you won't be able to unzip the file.
SETUP: Wintune 2.0 Setup stops before it reaches 100%
As discussed in readme.txt, this is a minor bug in InstallShield, the program we used to create Wintune 95 Setup. The assumes it's going to have to install every DLL required by Wintune 95. If you happen to have some of the DLLs already installed (from either Wintune or some other Visual C++ application), the bar never gets up to 100%. That doesn't mean , but the program has still been installed correctly.
SETUP: Installing the optional Word and Excel macros
For instructions on using Wintune's Apps Analyzer, switch to the Details tab, right-click on the Apps icon, and choose Tell Me More. Be sure to install only macro files into the \Apps subdirectory. If you put the text file included with the optional Word and Excel macros (Wt95app1.zip) in the \Apps directory, Wintune may hang. These macros may also have problems if you have Word or Excel set to run other macros at startup.
Note that these macros are not the same as the ones used to test performance for the magazine's reviews, so you can't compare the results.
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ERROR MESSAGES AND PROBLEMS
ERROR: Nothing happens when you click the Analyze Now button
Usually this is the result of installing over a beta version. To remove the beta, use the Add/Remove Programs control panel to remove Wintune 95. When that's complete, manually delete the "c:\Program Files\Wintune 95" directory, then reinstall.
ERROR: "Setup Initialization Error: Setup requires _SETUP.DLL and _ISRES.DLL (located in _SETUP.LIB) in order to operate properly. Please ensure these files are located with SETUP.EXE."
You'll get this message if you double-click on setup.exe in WinZip. Click the Install button instead, or extract the archive and double-click on Setup.exe in Windows Explorer.
ERROR: "C:\Windows\System\Mfc30.dll was not found"
This DLL is not loaded if you do choose the minimum option in Windows 95 setup. It's loaded automatically when you install certain Windows 95 components, like WordPad (Add/Remove Programs, click the Windows Setup tab, select Accessories, click Details, check WordPad, and click OK). Alternatively, you can download Wt95nt.zip from our software library on America Online or Compuserve.
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GENERAL QUESTIONS
Why does my notebook PC show an ISA bus type? Why does my BIOS info have strange characters in it? Why is my BIOS info wrong? Why don't I see the "other programs" running?
These questions are answered in Wintune's online help. Switch to the Details tab, right-click the SYSTEM icon, and select Show Me More.
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PERFORMANCE ISSUES
PERFORMANCE (GENERAL): Test scores lower than expected
The most common reason for low test scores is other software interfering with Wintune's operation. You should disable all memory-resident software, including power management, antivirus utilities, undelete trackers, uninstallers, screen savers, and fax software, and have no other applications running when you start Wintune. Third-party memory managers, disk caches, and alternate Windows desktops can also interfere with Wintune's operation. Conflicting software may be loaded in CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, the load= and run= lines in WIN.INI, or the Start menu's StartUp folder.
Also check the CPU Load value, which should be lower than 10% if no other software is running. See Wintune's online help entry for CPU Load for more info (right-click on CPU Load and select Tell Me More).
If you've upgraded a 486 motherboard with a Pentium Overdrive chip, you'll probably get tips about checking RAM wait states. In most cases there won't be a problem with wait states--the tip just appears because the 486-style motherboard's 32-bit memory subsystem doesn't perform at the level of its 64-bit counterpart in motherboards designed for Pentiums.
PERFORMANCE (GENERAL): Test Scores and/or Tips Vary
If you run Wintune several times, you may notice a variation of plus or minus 10% on the individual test results. This is normal, so don't worry about it.
These minor variations mean that if your system's performance is right around the point where Wintune displays a particular tip, that tip may appear only intermittently. For example, if your video board is slower than average but not a real dog, the "Upgrade your video board" tip might appear the first time you run Wintune, disappear the next, and come back the third time.
It's common to see substantial variations if you run Wintune twice without restarting Windows. Each time you run Wintune, restart Windows before running it again.
Wildly fluctuating or seemingly random results are usually caused by memory-resident software interfering with Wintune's operation.
PERFORMANCE (CPU):
- Why isn't the CPU type right? - Why isn't the clock rate right? - Why does Dhrystone MIPS vary so much? - If the CPU load is really 100%, wouldn't the system be locked up? - How can a program cause a high CPU load when its just sitting on the task bar?
These questions are answered in Wintune's online help. Switch to the Details tab, right-click the CPU icon, and select Show Me More.
PERFORMANCE (CPU/FPU): Wintune 95 shows higher MIPS and MFLOPS than Wintune 2.0
Wintune's MIPS and MFLOPs ratings reflect not just CPU/FPU speed but also the efficiency of the operating system and the different compilers that were used to create the code. Thus you can't compare Wintune 95's results with those you get with Wintune 2.0. (The same is true for any other high-level benchmark, e.g. Winstone 95 and Winstone 96, or SPEC92 and SPEC95.)
PERFORMANCE (CPU): Pentium Pro
Intel's Pentium Pro is optimized for 32-bit code. Thus the 32-bit CPU benchmarks in Wintune 95 don't accurately reflect real-world performance when running 16-bit applications (e.g. Windows 3.1) or software that uses a mix of 16-bit and 32-bit code (e.g. Windows 95). On average, a regular Pentium will outperform a Pentium Pro of the same clock speed when running Windows 3.1 or 95, but the Pentium Pro will pull ahead when running Windows NT.
PERFORMANCE (CPU): Cyrix 6x86
The Cyrix 6x86 is optimized for 16-bit code. Thus the 32-bit CPU benchmarks in Wintune 95 don't accurately reflect its superior performance compared with Pentium CPUs when running 16-bit applications (e.g. Windows 3.1), or software that uses a mix of 16-bit and 32-bit code (e.g. Windows 95).
Comparison of the 6x86 and Pentium CPUs is further complicated by Cyrix's use of "P ratings" instead of actual clock speeds. For example, the 6x86 P200 actually runs at 150MHz. The "200" reflects Cyrix's claim that the chip performs simliarly to a 200MHz Pentium--which in fact it does, when running 16-bit code.
PERFORMANCE (CPU): Tuning the 120MHz AMD 486
There have been quite a few questions posted online about our report on the 120MHz AMD 486 chip in the Windows Magazine June special issue. Here's some information that may help you to resolve any problems you're having.
We haven't received any AMD systems/motherboards with this problem at our labs, so we were working from information off postings from users in our AOL and Compuserve forums. Their reports were that the AMD chip was performing very poorly compared to even lower-speed Intel chips, but worked much better when the motherboard was jumpered for the P24D.
Before you spend a lot of time on this, be sure you have the problem in the first place. The AMD 120 that's in the database gets a respectable 136 MIPS; if your MIPS are less than 80 then you *may* have the problem. (It could be due to other problems as well.) You'll need to check the documentation on your motherboard to see if there's a P24D setting; some motherboards have the jumper info silk-screened right onto the board.
We do not know the details on jumpering these motherboards, and there may be many different brands affected so the instructions for one system may not work in all cases. AMD tech support (www.amd.com/html/support/support.hmtl or 800-222-9323) may be able to help. In September 1996, one reader reported that his motherboard had a special jumper setting just for the AMD chip, but since it wasn't documented in the manual he had to call his motherboard supplier to get the info.
PERFORMANCE (FPU): Wintune's MFLOPS don't match another benchmark's MFLOPS
MFLOPS (millions of floating-point operations per second) is a vague term. Different benchmarks' MFLOPS ratings vary widely depending on what mix of floating-point instructions each uses.
Wintune's Whetstone MFLOPS indicates how many million floating point operations per second the computer performs while running the industry-standard Whetstone benchmark, originally written 20-some years ago in Algol, later ported to C. Variations between one Whetstone benchmark and another on a given computer reflect the efficiency of the compiler used to turn the standard Whetstone source code into an executable.
The version of Whetstone used in Wintune was slightly modified by Martin Heller to adapt it to multiprocessing environments. On a single-CPU system it comes within 1% of the standard C Whetstone results, but on a dual-CPU system running Windows NT it comes in about 60% faster.
PERFORMANCE (DISK):
- Why does the cached speed vary between tests? - Why does the uncached speed vary between tests? - Why is cached speed slower than uncached speed? - How can disk free space be more than total space?
These questions are answered in Wintune's online help. Switch to the Details tab, right-click the DISK icon, and select Show Me More.
PERFORMANCE (DISK): Slow Hard Disk Performance
Many factors affect disk performance, including the drive itself, the adapter, which bus the adapter uses, CPU speed, RAM speed, CMOS settings, size and configuration of the disk cache, and disk compression, if any.
A number of software factors can also affect disk performance, including fragmentation on your hard disk, and use of a compression program such as DoubleSpace, DriveSpace, or Stacker. See Disk Performance Improvement Tips in the main Wintune help file for some suggestions.
PERFORMANCE (DISK): SCSI Hard Disk Performance
We got this e-mail from a user, and pass it along in case the tip may be useful to others:
"I was getting uncached disk scores ~.5MB/s on my Fujitsu 1GB SCSI-2 drive connected to an Adaptec 2940 PCI adapter. I was pretty disappointed in the results, especially since the EIDE drive was hovering around 2MB/s uncached (both were ~13MB/s cached). I installed Adaptec EZ-SCSI 4.0 last week and ran their SCSI Explorer. It found that Read Caching for the drive was on, but Write Caching was *off*. I set it to on, rebooted and reran Wintune. Now my uncached disk scores on the SCSI are ~2.5MB/s, *amazing* improvement. The only change was to set Write Caching to on."
Note that not all SCSI drives have such an option. Also, Wintune 95's disk test uses relatively small files, and they may not be large enough to trigger the high-speed burst mode many high-end SCSI drives offer. SCSI disk performance with small files is also affected by the higher overhead (i.e. longer delays) of the SCSI command set compared with ESDI's. In one case we got an uncached speed of 1.4 MB/s for a Fast-Wide 7400RPM drive, but our stopwatch found that when reading or writing large files we were actually getting around 5 MB/s. We hope to address these issues in a future release.
PERFORMANCE (DISK): Cached speed and uncached speed are the same
To test uncached disk performance, Wintune uses a Windows 95 "don't cache this" flag on the test files. Some disk drivers ignore this flag, in which case the uncached speed actually reflects cached performance.
To work around this, you can temporarily disable Windows 95's disk cache by adding the following entry to the [vcache] section of \Windows\system.ini:
[vcache] MaxFileCache=0
Reboot your PC, run Wintune's disk test, and the uncached results should be correct. Then delete the MaxFileCache entry and reboot to turn disk caching back on.
PERFORMANCE (RAM):
- Why isn't all my RAM showing up? - Why is Windows RAM less than Installed RAM? - Why do I have so little Free RAM? - Why are some Pentiums slower than a 486 in the RAM Write test?
These questions are answered in Wintune's online help. Switch to the Details tab, right-click the MEMORY icon, and select Show Me More.
PERFORMANCE (RAM): Slow memory
RAM speed is affected by CPU, L2 (secondary) cache design, amount of L2 cache, and SIMM speed. The memory improvement tips in Wintune's online help can help you make sure that your PC's CMOS setup is configured for best RAM performance. Since RAM speed is determined by the motherboard design, there's no hardware upgrade path like there is for CPU, disk, and video. If you want better RAM performance, you'll need to replace the motherboard or buy a new PC.
PERFORMANCE (RAM): Slow memory after upgrading RAM
If RAM performance drops after an upgrade, check the CMOS settings. Some systems require you to set the region of main memory covered by the L2 (secondary) cache manually.
Some systems slow down when you upgrade past 8MB of RAM. Some users have reported fixing the problem by upgrading their L2 (secondary) memory cache, e.g. from 128K to 256K. Contact the vendor's technical support for more information.
PERFORMANCE (RAM): Wintune shows two RAM values
In WIntune 95 1.0, if the amount of RAM recorded in Windows 95's Registry doesn't match the amount detected by Wintune, the Registry value appears in parentheses after the detected value, for example "8 (16)" or "16 (31.5)." This will be removed in later releases.
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Wintune is a registered trademark of CMP Media, Inc.