Unused devices that are not needed should really be disabled either from the bios Or disabled from device manager. Some examples include disabling onboard firewire, soundcards and ethernet.
These should only really be disabled if you have more than 1 of the devices or never use the device.
To Disable:
Select Start and Run.
Type in 'devmgmt.msc' and press OK.
Now disable any uneeded devices.
Close the device manager.
Labels: xp