Intel Application Accelerator

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/

(quote)

The Intel(R) Application Accelerator is designed to improve
performance of the storage sub-system and overall system
performance. This software delivers improved performance
through several ingredient technologies (components).
Certain components will be available only on Pentium(R) 4
processor-based systems running Microsoft Windows 2000 and
Windows XP. Software installation is flexible and fully
automated for Microsoft Windows 98, Windows 98 Second
Edition(SE), Windows Millennium Edition(Me), Windows
NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP operating systems.

 

I'm not sure what the point of this post was, but IMO the Intel Application Accelerator isn't all that the ad copy claims. I had it render one machine inert, had to restore a GHOST backup. It's running on one of my machines, and there is no difference in disk performance that I can see, and benchmarks seem to have the same results as before the installation.

 

jnibori

I tend to agree with John. I am running a 2.53 P4 and did not notice any difference with performance before or after accelerator installation. Might be all PR hype or the difference is so slight it is not noticable.

Dave

 

I too have not noticed much of a difference. I attributed that to already having a program that Accelerates/optimizes (PC Accelerator XG), but perhaps this is not the case. Too bad.

This particular program sounded as if it got the thumbs up per LangaList 1-30-2003.

(Quote)

This item might be of interest to anyone with an Intel-based PC running any version of Windows--- Win98, ME, NT, 2K, XP. (Note that the following item starts off sounding tightly-focused and XP-specific, but the benefits are actually much broader, and apply to all Windows versions.)

Hi Fred. I'm the admin for the tweakxp.com forums ( http://www.tweaknetwork.net/idealbb/ ). For some time now we've been getting the odd complaint about XP reporting the Your System Has No Paging File, or the Paging File Is Too Small error message and all standard troubleshooting efforts have failed to identify the cause or correct the problem short of a full format and reinstall of the OS. Well, it turns out it's due to certain Intel Chips and can be cured with a simple installation of the Intel Application Accelerator! MS has posted KB Article #316528 addressing this issue and it can be found here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316528 . We've recommended the fix a couple of times on our site and are told that not only does it rectify the pagefile problem but seems to free up some additional ram.

Hope this can help some of your other readers.---Allan

Thanks, Allan. I knew about the "Application Accelerator," but the last time I looked at it, it was just a glorified way of enabling hard drive DMA settings in systems using Intel hard drive controller chips.

I hadn't realized the software was evolving so fast--- there have been four upgrades to it in the last year alone. The newest version, in addition to being able to fix the specific issue Allan mentions, also claims to offer (and seems to deliver) many more benefits:

Enhanced System Performance
Improved Application and Game Performance
Optimizations for Intel Pentium 4 Processors
Faster Boot Time
Large Hard Drive Support
Automatic Selection of Highest DMA Transfer Mode
Diagnostic Utility

One of the neat things the Application Accelerator showed me was that my system supports "Acoustic Management" of its hard drives, letting me trade off between raw speed on the one hand and nearly silent drive operation (no chatter) on the other. I never knew my drives had this ability, or that I could control it!

You can get the full spiel--- including how to tell if it's OK to run the Application Accelerator on your system--- at http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/ .

Whether you're trying to solve the problem Allan mentions, or just want to explore what capabilities your controller and drives offer, check it out--- it's free!
(end quote)

 

Well experienced serious problems, either due to this program, or another. I uninstalled both, and everything seems to be working fine.

Gotta feeling this program messed things up.