Underclocking and Formatting an SSD Partition

[Jaguar]

Here are two separate questions for someone with more technical expertise than me.

First, I am interested in experimenting with underclocking the CPU in my music server. I'm hesitant to set this in the BIOS, because I have a 2nd OS installation in another partition that I use for things like Blu-ray and need more speed. I'm going to try reducing the Maximum CPU Frequency setting in Windows Power Management. Both methods seem to reduce the power consumption of the CPU. Does anyone know what the underlying difference is between these two?

Second, as I mentioned, I have two OS installations, which are on my SSD. I do a lot of tweaking with the installation used for audio. Should my tinkering corrupt this installation, what is the best way to delete it for re-installation, in a way that doesn't leave clutter in the registry? Maybe I need to download some sort of utility and I'm not sure if there are special considerations with SSD?

 

[Orb]

Here are two separate questions for someone with more technical expertise than me.

First, I am interested in experimenting with underclocking the CPU in my music server. I'm hesitant to set this in the BIOS, because I have a 2nd OS installation in another partition that I use for things like Blu-ray and need more speed. I'm going to try reducing the Maximum CPU Frequency setting in Windows Power Management. Both methods seem to reduce the power consumption of the CPU. Does anyone know what the underlying difference is between these two?

Second, as I mentioned, I have two OS installations, which are on my SSD. I do a lot of tweaking with the installation used for audio. Should my tinkering corrupt this installation, what is the best way to delete it for re-installation, in a way that doesn't leave clutter in the registry? Maybe I need to download some sort of utility and I'm not sure if there are special considerations with SSD?

Hmm most usually go with a 3rd party utility to manage clocking the processor/bus-bridge/memory, from what I remember going too low will cause stability issues in same way going too high (appreciate this also causes damage at high voltages) can and knowing a bit about which processor you use is important (such as frequency multiplier).
Xbit labs (used them over the years and are good) has a pretty good article that provides the fundamentals; its long and is for overclocking but important to read as it covers the fundamentals that you still need.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/newbie-oc-guide.html

Relating to backups, I use a 3rd party product that enables partition management and also backups/emergency install that is a hot key pressed on bootup and reverts to that image.
Check out the reviews for some of the backup utilities as IMO this saves a lot of hassle (such as reinstalling up to date drivers after OS,etc).

Hope this helps.
Orb

 

[Jaguar]

Thanks Orb. I might try the utility Clockgen, which seems to offer more adjustability than Windows and doesn't require changes in the BIOS.