Recommendations to tune my current rig

My current system (the big pieces):
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
XFX GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB Card
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz S Dual-Core Processor
Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
XP Pro
2 160 GB 7200 RPM HD

Per discussion and scanning other peoples' rigs I should be able to run 5 WoWs at low settings. Currently using the "low" graphics settings via macro from the wiki on all 4.

Currently I'm running 4 shammies, 1 big window and 3 600:450 windows along the right side. I tend to get artifacts or the occasional freeze, even massive flickering of the ground itself. Don't wanna think about how sketchy it will be if I try to go to 5 windows, but that's what I want to do.

Recently updated video drivers, defragged last night (haven't gotten on since, the analysis bar was all red).

I'm looking for pointers on tuning up the comp itself, what are your favorite tools and gimmicks? Turning off most addons and all but one for sound I already do.

Best way to improve performance is to wipe the drive, but way too much hassle reinstalling so much stuff. I'm one of those guys who rebuilds every 2 years with a new mobo/cpu/memory/HD and then slave the old drive to it so I keep file continuity.

What's your favorite performance tweak or tuner or registry cleaner or the like?

etc?

There's ton of things yeh can tweak.

Here's what I run a p4 with one gig of ram some eons old pci graphics card.
I can run 3 with minimal lag at low setting and can do up to 4 in an instance with a bunch of lag.

start-control panel-Administrative Tools-system click advanced tab-performance settings and click adjust for best performance.

Remove all those thing that auto-load in "start-all programs-startup"

get rid of all the extra stuff yeh dont need.
start-control panel-Administrative Tools-services sort by started
yeh can google each one to see what it does and get a good idea what to remove.

does items will net yeh the biggest returns.

do you have maxfps and maxfpsbk set? I use maxfps 20 and maxfpsbk 5

artifacts in my experience generally come from some sort of hardware or driver fault. update all your drivers, download some sort of hardware monitor and watch the temperatures to see if anything looks like it's overheating. Try re-seating your video card and memory.

go install CCleaner. It'll clean up all the garbage that's polluting your computer.

uninstall any crappy software/program you have only used once or never again. I know you got these, we all do.

Get a new video card 8600 is ancient. Swap to something betterer.

Also check your graphic card for dust.
Artifacts usually come from either overheating gfx card (my old old 6600gt used to run 105c in oblivion and started to give weird results, i swapped the cooler to a zalman and it dropped to 60 - removing artifacts) or faulty components.

I'd start making sure the gfx card can handle the load, also lower the backgroundfps on your slave clients to as low as you can and still have acceptable updates, perhaps even as low as 10 can be playable

I run either 10 or 15 as my max fps on the background windows currently, keyclone is magic.

CCleaner is one of the sort of thing I was talking about, I haven't gone hunting for a registry cleaner or the like in a long time. Windows XP made me lazy, it used to be when you updated motherboards or the like you had to wipe and start fresh, I think this XP install is on it's third motherboard and processor (I was amazed the first time I made major system changes and XP handled them without complaint).

Are there any utilities that can scan your processes that load on startup and give you a summary of what they all do? I know I can google each one independently and give it thumbs up or down based on that, but that's a lot more time than I often have.

The 8600 GT is unlikely to be upgradeable for a while, domestic aggro unless ridiculous cheap. I had considered getting another one and going SLi before finding WoW hates it. Though I am wondering if getting to a 512 MB card would make a major difference. Doesn't help that I drastically prefer BFGTech or XFX products based on past warranty experience.

Dust is an issue, the case I'm using has a dust screen on the intake vents (Antec Sonata) I'm due to clean it again, but in general my house and the office especially is a high dust area. I'd have better luck avoiding wife aggro buying a dust eater of some sort for that room than spending more on puter parts.

And true irony is I might be able to buy her a new comp shortly after her old basic system is showing signs of physical decline. Goin' pre-built on her new one, I've had bad luck with Gremlins every time me or my buddy touch her computer.

Thanks.

nice piece of software I use is process explorer from microsoft to check and see everything that running gives yeh a good idea what everything is.
I also use hjackthis and StartupList from www.merijn.org/programs.php

Buy yer still gonna need to take the time to research/google to understand what can and cant be removed.

you can overclock your cpu and gpu. maximumpc.com has great forums to tell how.