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Tips for Maintaining Your Computer
Witten by: Matthew McSpadden
Physical Maintenance
Keeping your computer clean.
Computer cases are designed to suck air in the front and blow it out the back to aid in cooling the computer, but in doing so it also sucks in all the dust from the air, and that dust builds up on the components of the computer. Dust buildup can cause overheating, which in turn causes computer parts to go bad, and you to have to buy new parts.
Keeping your computer dust free is a simple thing you can do to help keep it running for longer. You should always unplug your computer from the power when working on it. It would probably be good to unplug everything, just don't forget where it goes. Find a Phillips screw driver and take the side off your case. Don't be afraid of the case. Don't unplug any cables or take any screws out besides the ones for the side of the case. Then blow out the dust inside.
It is possible to do this with the air in your lungs, but I would recommend using compressed air. It is easier on the allergies. If you have an air compressor available, they work great for blowing out the computer. Just be careful that you do not set the air pressure too high then blow it directly on the fans. This can damage them. If you do not have an air compressor, then you can buy cans of compressed air from nearly any computer store, department store, or office store. You can then use that to blow out the dust. How often should you blow out the dust? This will depend on how dusty it gets. Also see location.
Choosing the location of the computer
A computer on the floor will collect more dust than one sitting on top of a desk. The more people in a house, the more dust created. Animals can also add a lot of dust and hair into the air that can be sucked into your computer. If you computer is inside a cabinet, you should leave the front or the back open for ventilation or you increase the risk of overheating.
Protect your Computer
One should always protect their computer from what is known as dirty power. When the electricity comes into your home, it is supposed to give off a steady 115V of power. When this voltage fluctuates up or down, it is called dirty power. Too much electricity, such as a lightning strike, can damage the components of your computer. Here is something you may not know; too little electricity can also cause damage to your computer.
A power strip is a device that gives you multiple outlets from a single outlet. These are nice to have but offer no protection whatsoever. A surge protector is a good thing to have since it helps guard against surges (too much power). Because most houses have at least a little bit of dirty power, over time your surge protection gets worn down. On a standard surge protector the protection can get worn down in a year, while some quality surge protectors will last up to two years before loosing its protection. In short, this means if you have a surge protector that is more than 2 years old, chances are all you have is a power strip. Let's say that it is about time to get a new surge protector, but you want to protect your computer from too little power; this is where a battery backup comes in. You might have heard of battery backups and think they are only for businesses and to be used with servers. True, most businesses use them in case of power outages so that they will not lose any data that was not saved, but they can be very useful even in a home situation. A battery backup protects against surges and dips. When the power goes up, the battery backup will only send on the proper amount. When the power dips down below the optimal level, the battery backup will use the excess power from the battery to bring the power level back up to where it should be. PG&E has compiled a good article on general electrical surges and interruptions for your whole house including computers.
General Maintenance
Check the Disk
1. Close all open programs
2. Open My Computer
3. Right-click on the hard drive you want to check. (Probably C:)
4. Click on properties
5. Click on the tab marked "tools"
6. Click the button that says "Check Now"
7. Check the box next to "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors".
8. Click the start button at the bottom of the box.
9. The computer will let you know that you need to restart the computer and it will run scandisk/checkdisk at the next boot.
10. You are finished
What is Scandisk?
Scandisk was a utility to check for errors on your hard disk drive. Scandisk was a part of Windows 95, Windows 98(SE), and Windows ME. Imagine that your hard drive is a road, and bad sectors are like potholes. If it finds an error that it cannot fix it will mark that section as bad and tell the operating system not to use it. Imagine putting orange cones around a pothole in the road. If you get too many bad sectors the hard drive is said to be "bad". Checkdisk is a utility that does the same thing as scandisk in Windows NT, XP, and Vista.
Why should you run Checkdisk? Running Checkdisk will help warn you of hard drive failure and decreases the chance of lost data or corrupt files by telling the operating system to stop writing to bad sectors of the hard drive.
Defrag your hard drive.
1. It is recommended that you run Checkdisk prior to defragmenting your hard drive.
2. Close all open programs
3. Open My Computer
4. Right-click on the hard drive you want to defrag. (Probable C:)
5. Left-click on properties
6. When the box pops up, left-click on the tab marked "tools"
7. Left-click the button that says "Defragment Now"
8. When the Disk Defragmenter box pops up click the button "Defragment"
9. Wait 15 minutes to several hours (Depending on speed and size of your harddrive)
10. You are finished
What is fragmentation?
Imagine for a minute that your hard drive is like a book shelf. When you get it, there are books scattered here and there with empty spaces in between. Now imagine that a librarian comes along and adds a couple different series of books to the bookshelf, when one empty spot is used up he jumps to the next, so by the time he is finished the series are scattered throughout the bookshelf. It takes you longer to find the books that you want because they are not all together. This is the idea of fragmentation. The files to run the different programs are scattered all over the hard drive. Whenever you save a file, or install a new program the computer will fill in the spaces from the beginning where ever they will fit. The more programs installed the more scattered the files become and the longer it takes the computer to find all the pieces and put them together to run the program. Defragging your hard drive is putting all the pieces of a program together so the computer can find them more quickly.
Why should you defrag your hard drive? For better performance and to decrease the chances of corrupted files. Most of the time the performance increase will not be readily noticeable, though in some cases you will see a big improvement in speed.
Don't download any registry cleaners.
Registry cleaners are everywhere. You can buy them, download them from the internet, or they might even pop-up and tell you that you need to download it. We highly advise you not to.
What is the registry? The Windows registry is a database which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft Windows. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, operating system software, most non-operating system software, users, preferences of the PC, etc. A good majority of registry cleaners are actually considered malware and will mess up your computer. Some will slow down the computer more. The registry should never be modified by a user unless you are an advanced computer technician; this includes modifying it with a program.
The Internet
Delete your temporary files.
IE7:
1. Close all programs except Internet Explorer
2. Click the "Tools" buttons
3. Click "Delete Browsing History"
4. Click "Delete all"
5. Click "Yes" on the box that pops up
IE6:
1. Close all programs except Internet Explorer
2. Click the "Tools" menu option
3. Click on "Internet Options"
4. Verify that you are on the "General" tab
5. Find the section titled "Temporary Internet Files"
6. Click "Delete Cookies" and "Delete Files"
Firefox 2:
1. Close all programs except Firefox
2. Click the "Tools" option
3. Click "Clear private data"
4. Select all the options that you want deleted
5. Click "clear private data now"
Firefox 3:
1. Exactly the same way as Firefox 2
MS Disk Cleanup:
1. Close all programs
2. Click on the start menu
3. Highlight "All Programs"
4. Highlight "Accessories"
5. Highlight "System Tools"
6. Click Disk Cleanup
7. You may see a box popup "Calculating the disk space you can save"
Third Party Programs:
1. Windows creates many temporary files that the aforementioned things will take care of, you can download free programs from the internet like Windows Cleanup!, and Ccleaner. (These programs, Windows Cleanup! and CCleaner, and more can be found at www.anvilsmithtech.com )
What are temporary files? Whenever you visit a website, download a file, open an attachment, or do many other things on the internet it creates a number of files called temporary files or cookies. These files are created to allow your computer to remember settings or store temporary information.
Why should you delete the temporary files? There are many reason why you should delete your temporary files. Some people are worried about privacy and security, and these temporary files store information about you and your web browsing habits. On some computers these temporary files start filling up the hard drive and don't leave room for any programs. Lastly the temporary folders are a favorite place for Spyware and Viruses to hide out.
Have an up to date anti-malware program.
Keep your Anti-Virus or Anti-Spyware program up to date. NEVER download an anti-spyware or antivirus program from a website that popped up on your computer. No anti-virus or anti-spyware is 100% protection, but there are some that are better than others.
There are many types of files that can get on your computer. Malware, Spyware, Ad-ware, Virus, Trojan, Worm, Tracking Cookie, *Bloatware, etc. There are technical differences to each of these, but for now we will simply call them collectively Spyware and Viruses. Some ISP companies (we will refrain from mentioning them by name) offer Security software that say blocks out this sort of thing. As of the writing of this article none of these offer significant protection. Don't bother putting them on there. We recommend AVG for the best all-around protection. Kaspersky and Spysweeper are also quite good programs. We will refrain from mentioning in this article the programs that we highly UN-recommend.
* Bloatware is a word used especially in reference to applications and OS upgrades when the software requires abnormally high amounts of disk space and memory compared to the functions provided.
Beware the pop-ups
Do these annoy you as much as they annoy me? I dare say yes. Not only are pop-ups just plain annoying, but you have to worry about some that contain spyware and will download malicious software onto your computer if you so much as click anywhere in the box.
How do you get rid of them? The best way to get rid of pop-ups is to never have them in the first place, but if you end up like so many of us and end up with a pop-up on the screen, DO NOT CLICK "OK" or "CANCEL" ever. The people who make pop-ups are getting good at making them look legitimate. The best thing to do is to select the pop-up from the taskbar at the bottom of your screen. Then hit Alt-F4. This should close out the pop-up without any extra ill effects. Be careful about downloading just any old pop-up blocker too. We would recommend using Firefox. Firefox is an internet browser similar to Internet Explorer. Firefox has a pop-up blocker built in. Internet Explorer 7 that recently came out also has a built in pop-up blocker. Either one will help you out a lot without having to spend any money. And "FREE" is something that everyone can enjoy.
Beware the screensavers
Screensavers were something invented in order to keep people in cubicles occupied during the long hours.... not really. Actually they were invented to keep monitors from "burn-in".
Screensavers have now become something to make your computer look cool. Be warned if you choose to go outside those screensavers given by Microsoft it could have an adverse affect on your computer. In other words, most of the free screensaver downloads from the internet include spyware or other malicious software that can slow down or even crash your computer. We recommend not downloading any.
Toolbars: Are they really helpful?
Toolbars allow easy access to things that you use frequently such as: search... email... different websites... etc, but do you know all that they do?
Some toolbars are just fine and help with productivity, but most toolbars actually contain spyware or another malicious software that can slow down or crash your computer. We would recommend not downloading any.
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