Keeping Your PC Healthy
- Be Proactive - PC performance will slowly degrade unless you perform some daily, weekly, or monthly services yourself. Most can be setup to execute on a specific schedule. Anti-virus, Adware, and Spyware scanners should be scheduled to run automatically. Viruses, pop-up ads, and spyware can busy out a PC and make it run sluggishly and slow. The more files you create, the more software you install, the more you surf the Internet, the more you'll need to perform a little preventative service.
- Keep up-to-date - Windows Operating Systems (Win 98/98SE, ME, 2000, XP, Visa, Windows 7) offer updates from Microsoft's website. Windows XP, Vista and Windows7 updates should be setup to download automatically, whenever online. Most are critical security patches, bug fixes, or performance improvements.
- Protect Yourself - There are over 100,000 known viruses floating around on the Internet. New ones are created every week. Insure that you are using a good anti-virus software package (Norton/Symantec, McAfee). AND . . Make sure that your subscription is current, that new virus definitions are downloaded whenever available, and scanning is turned ON. Remember, an expired anti-virus software package that doesn't have the latest virus definitions will not even 'see' that new virus that you just received. There are viruses that can attack critical sectors on your hard drive, any system file on your hard drive, even documents. Viruses can range from just being a nuisance to being very malicious and destroying your PC's operating system.
- Clean House Occasionally - Get rid of junk, or un-needed temporary files from your hard drive. Use Window's Disk Clean-up utility. Get rid of old programs that you haven't used in ages. Use the Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. If you have the media, you could always reinstall them later. (Keep the DLLs. Say 'No to All' to removing them)
- Optimize the Hard Drive - After a good file or program house cleaning, defrag the hard drive. This will reorganize all the segmented files back into sequential file clusters. This will dramatically improve the hard drive's access speed and efficiency. Use Window's Disk Defragmenter utility. Do this at least once a month, set-up a third-party Defragmenter program.
- Keep it Clean - Computers have fans in them to keep things cool. That means that they also suck in a lot of dirt and dust. Unplug the power cable and remove the PC's case. Using a can of "Canned Air" blow all the dust and debris out of the case. You may want to do this outside. Pay particular attention to the processor fan, power supply fans, or any other fans on the motherboard or case. Fans can really load up and even stop. A modern PC's computer chip (CPU) doesn't last long without the cooling fan. If you smoke, have pets, or the PC sits on the floor, perform this operation at least twice a year.
- Plan for the disaster - Backup, backup, backup. Those who never backup will eventuality loose all those documents, family pictures, e-mail addresses, or website Favorites. There are two types of PC users; Those who have had a hard drive crash, and those who are going to have a hard drive crash. Operating systems and programs can be reinstalled, but data cannot be recovered unless it was backed up (copied) somewhere. You can use the Windows Backup utility if installed or copy the 'My Documents' folder and any other folder containing important documents or pictures to a removable media like a Writable CD/DVD. Another alternative is to copy to a second hard drive, if installed. So, if the primary drive (C:\) crashes and has to be replaced, you can restore the data after a new drive has been installed and rebuilt with Windows. Depending on your activity and the importance of the data, a backup should be performed a minimum of at least once a week. Dailey in some cases.
- If things go wrong, get professional help - Even in the best of conditions, hardware can fail or files can get corrupted. Call a 'Certified' PC technician. The 'Geek' next door may be cheap, but may not do a proper or complete job of restoring your PC to full health.
When you do need help, Call . . .
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