To know how quickly a CD or DVD will be burned with Ahead's burning program Nero, all you need to do is make a small entry in the registry: under the key 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Ahead/Nero Burning ROM/Recorder', create a new DWORD value and name it 'ShowSingleRecorderSpeed'. Double-click this new entry. An 'Edit DWORD value' window appears. Enter the value '1' and then close the registry. The next time you burn a CD/DVD with Nero, it will indicate the current speed of burning in real time.
 

Service Pack 2 for WindowsXP supports the power savings mode 'Cool'n'Quiet' for AMDs Athlon 64 CPUs. In order to activate it, you must first install the correct CPU driver. You can download this executable at http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/cpudriver.EXE. After the installation, open the Control Panel and select 'Power Options'. Activate 'Minimum energy consumption'. To verify this, install and start the diagnostic tool CPU-Z (www.cpuid.com). If the processor clock drops to 800 or 1,000 MHz (depending on model) during idle cycles, Cool'n'Quiet is active: your processor now consumes less power.