System Tune-Up Utilities...System Mechanic vs. PC Booster

mark4man

Hello...

[not sure this is the correct forum...but here goes]:

I recently purchased a high-performance PC for my recording/mastering studio...but one which will also serve as my office computer. On my previous machine...I had (what I thought was) a pretty good diagnostic utility, in the form of Norton System Works. But the tech guys at ADK (the company that built the new box) cringed (then laughed) at the notion of anything Norton makes being installed on any high-end workstation.

Now...I did want to have something...& I've narrowed my choices down to two.

The first is System Mechanic:

iolo System Mechanic Professional® - Features

& the second is PC Booster:

Speed up your computer | PC Booster

And so I was wondering what the good folks here thought of these two utilities. I always felt better (& my old machine always seemed to respond better) after running NSW...& I'm hearing that some of the new utilities go farther in accelerating PC performance...eliminating bottlenecks, boosting startup time, recovering memory, etc.

Do programs such as these really work? (i.e., do they correctly tune up the system)?

Thanks,

mark4man

kris23

i use system mechanic on my computers all the time, they work great, keep them running great, simple for pros and novices alike

i use diskeeper to defragment the drives though

best thing to do though is to try each one and see which you like best man.

Vikingod

I'm sceptical on those types of software, as far as their ability to "boost" the performance of your PC. However, they are good for people who don't want to be bothered with, or don't know enough about, system maintenance tasks (spyware checks, defrag, etc.).

Robert McClelland

I have System Mechanic 7 not pro one it's awesome so far I got mine for free after rebates from this web site. FRYS.com
right now there having another iolo deal. FRYS.com*|*IOLO I don't like there firewall though I got norton 360 from free also after rebates.

kris23

lol these things dont really boost performance, but they help keep things tidy.

im lazy so i just want to press a button to delete my junk and processes.

poorpaddy25

ithink pc booster is unreliable sysmech is more professional there is a good freebie ccleaner at filehippo.com too

IEMC

Auslogics - Speed Up Computer and Internet

Love their defragger.

BlueMak

The last time I used any such program was back in 2003 or something. Every single time it would do some damage, be it corrupted registry, "fixing" file associations, and many other problems.
I don't trust them.

I have freeware anti virus (AVG) and firewall (ZA), plus PG2, plus a couple anti adware programs, and Auslogics' defragging program. I am very satisfied with them. Also I use and recommend, the PowerToys for Windows XP, which are free from MS.

Jeremy of Many

AusLogics Disk Defrag 1.4 is no better than the Windows Defragmenter. I have done extensive testing. I will be publishing a comparison review consisting of 20+ disk defragmenters in the near future.

My test environment resides within VMware Workstation inside a 8GB virtual disk running a default Windows XP Professional SP2 installation using 768MB RAM.

To increase the fragmentation I installed the following software:

VMware Tools (necessary for the functionality and performance of VMware)
SQL Server 2005 Express
Conexion Club Management Software (The software I provide support for at my workplace)

For each defragmenter I use a virtual snapshot which saves the file placement on the virtual disk, allowing me to quickly revert back to the original state and move to the next defragmenter after I have finished with the previous.

I analyze the disk with UltimateDefrag before and after each defragmenter and thanks to its:
True circular disk display
File listing per block
File highlighting
... shows the difference between defragmenters.

I have tested 20 defragmenters. They are as follows:

Abexo / PCMesh Defragmenter Lite Plus:
defragment disk defragmenter check disk defragmentation defragmenting
disk defrag, disk optimization, disk, defrag

Ashampoo Magical Defrag - Ashampoo® Magical Defrag 2 (v2.20, 08/30/2007) - Fragmented hard disks are history.

AusLogics Disk Defrag - Disk Defrag - Reclaim the Speed Of Your Disks

Defraggler - Defraggler - Defragment your files!

DirMS - defrag on the fly

Diskeeper - Diskeeper 2008 for Home Users and Home Offices

HDiskDefrag - Homepage HDiskDefrag

IoBit SmartDefrag - Defragment and Defrag Disk | IObit SmartDefrag | Disk Defragmenter | Free Defrag Programs, Defragment Software and Tool

JkDefrag - JkDefrag v3.33

MindSoft Defrag - MindSoft Defrag

MST Defrag - mst software - maintenance - security - tuning! Windows Tools, Defragmentation, Password reset and more

PerfectDisk - Raxco Software Windows Products - PerfectDisk 8.0

Power Defragmenter + Contig
eXcessive Software
Contig v1.54

PowerDefrag - PowerDefrag.com :: Simply faster

Rapid File Defragmentor - Rapid File Defragmentor - the fastest file defragmentation utility | Just use our defragmenter and save your time!

SpeeDefrag - SpeeDefrag 5.2 - Defrag your hard disk fast by SpeeDefrag

UltraDefrag - UltraDefrag - powerful Open Source disk defragmenter - Homepage

Vopt - Vopt

Windows Defragmenter

Unfortunately, 6 of the 20 were excluded from review after they failed to defragment the virtual disk completely in the first pass. These are:

Abexo Defragmenter Lite Plus 5.0
DirMS
MindSoft Defrag 4.0
Rapid File Defragmentor
SpeeDefrag
UltraDefrag

In regards to your post, I will show you the similarities between AusLogics and Windows Defragmenter.

AusLogics - Before Defrag
AusLogics - After Defrag

Windows Defragmenter - Before Defrag
Windows Defragmenter - After Defrag

As you can see, both only defragment the HDD, neither perform file placement, which is the other half of optimizing files on the disk.

compunerd

Hi Mark,
I use System Mechanic Pro. It works ok but it does not speed things up.