Do it yourself computer maintenance and repairs steps to keep your computer performing at its peak!

The following guidelines/best practices list out preventive computer maintenance measures to keep your PC healthy. These are simple activities that every PC user must perform at least once a month.

Basic hardware maintenance

• Avoid environments that are conducive to dust and grime. Dust and dirt can clog the internal mechanisms of your computer.

• Avoid subjecting your PC to extreme temperature fluctuations. The case can become very brittle and easy to break in cold temperatures and can melt or warp in high temperatures. Damage due to either extreme is not covered by any warranty. Ideal environment to operate your computer would be at slightly below room temperature. Avoid exposing your PC to direct sunlight.

• Keep all liquids and spill able items away from your computer. Almost any liquid can result in extremely expensive repairs that are not covered under your warranty!

Basic computer maintenance tips

• A note on Harddisk partitioning – For single hard drive setups; create at least two partitions – System partition (drive C) and a Data partition (drive D). The system partition must be dedicated to the operating system and other shared application files. By separating OS files from our actual data, we are decreasing the overhead on disk reads to perform routine OS level activities. Further, in a scenario where a OS repair/repair may be needed, the Data partition can be retained intact while we work on fixing Systems partition. Make sure the system’s partition has enough space for windows and other program shared files. Proper planning of partition space will avoid paging and other performance sappers. Read this best practice article

• Clean/Defragment the Hard drive regularly – Use the disk clean up and defragment utilities at least once a month. This is a great way to clean up unwanted temporary files and re-arrange important ones in an easily/quickly accessible manner on the harddrive. Read this computer maintenance article on improving system performance.

• Remove unwanted programs – We tend to install different softwares like games, trial version softwares on our computers and forget about them as time progresses simply because we either don’t want them or they have stopped working. This only eats up disk space and increases system response times drastically. Defragmenting or scanning these files is a waste of time anyways. Most programs come with an uninstaller to remove all files placed on the computer by its corresponding installer program previously. Read this article on removing unwanted programs

• Clean the windows registry – More like an index for the OS, this is one area which is worth optimizing/compacting regularly. Manual tweaking of the registry to improve system’s performance is not advisable, especially for a novice user! There are tools and utilities available which are built to read and optimize the registry automatically. Take a back up of the registry at regular intervals. The registry optimizing tools available can also be configured to perform registry backup before cleaning/optimizing/compacting the it. Follow the process to optimize windows registry

• Stop unwanted programs from loading at system startup – Lot of computer users complain about slow system’s startup time. Learning how to block unwanted programs form loading automatically at system’s startup can boost performance noticeably! Here’s a handy tool to do block unwanted programs. Note : Please make sure you read the entire article thoroughly before making any changes. Blocking legit windows programs can cause your system to crash! Read how to stop unwanted programs

• Windows update – Keep your system updated with the latest patches and fixes from Microsoft. Read here how to configure automatic updates on your PC. Learn how to configure your system to get updates automatically

• Antivirus & Firewall – Use good Antivirus and Firewall softwares to protect your PC from Viruses, Trojans, Keyloggers and the like. This one of the most basic computer maintenance strategy. Research well on the net and decide which Antivirus and Firewall to use. Some Antivirus softwares are known to hog up a lot of system resources and if your PC is not equipped well, it can bring your PC to a grinding halt! The key is to balance good Antiviral features provided by the software against system resources needed to run the application.

• Power supply – Run your PC through an UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply). Don’t shutdown your machine by holding the power button pressed for a few seconds. Follow the normal shutdown procedure to power off your computer. Shutting the PC down abruptly may cause day loss and in the long run, may damage the hard disks as well!

Using these basic maintenance tips will ensure long term efficient performance of your PC!

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