How to maintain a computer

Today computer becomes an essential part of our life. Most of the time the first time computer users, they don’t have any idea to maintain a computer. I was not a different person. I did not have any knowledge about the maintenance of computer hardware and software.

This article will help you to find the easiest steps to maintain a computer.

Why should you take care of your computer?

Yes, you should take care of your computer. And if you don’t, then you are decreasing the life of your computer. Inside the computer, you can find very sensitive electronic devices. To protect these electronic devices, you should take care of your computer.

I faced a few problems with my first gaming computer. I did some researches to care for my gaming computer. And finally, I was able to remove those problems. Here, I am sharing my knowledge with you so that you can maintain your PC. I am 100% sure my “laptop or computer maintenance tips“ will help you to manage a computer in the easiest way.

Is computer maintenance is an easy process?

Yes, It is. The environment, where you keep your computer is very important. You want to use your computer for long then keep your computer in a proper environment.

What is the environment to keep your computer safe?

The answer is simple. You need a neat and clean environment with proper normal (room) temperature. So, find a dust-free place in your home to keep your computer.

How to maintain a computer system

To use a computer for long you need to maintain your computer in a regular period of time. You can maintain your computer hardware to protect physical damage on the computer. To protect your data on the computer you can use some simple and easy tricks. You can take care of your computer system by using some software too.

Here I have created PC preventive maintenance checklist for you.

1. Control the temperature in a computer system.
2. Keep your computer clean of dust.
3. Protect your computer from electrical damages.
4. Use the Disk Cleanup tool.
5. Run ScanDisk or CHKDSK to check drive errors.
6. Use Disk Defragmenter to make fast your computer speed.

You should use the above checklist as a computer maintenance habits. This way you can properly take care of an laptop or desktop.

How to maintain computer Hardware

This is the first maintenance tips for the computer. Generally, we always neglect hardware (input/output devices) on a computer. High temperatures can damage the hardware used on the computer. It can damage the RAM, the HDD, the graphics card, and other parts of the motherboard.

Therefore, you need a proper cooling system for the computer to avoid high temperatures. Thus you can make your laptop or PC last longer.

Step1: How to control the temperature in a computer system

User: I don’t have enough money to invest.

This is not a big deal to control the temperature of a computer. You don’t need to invest money to buy the cooling hardware. You only need to find a place in your room where fresh and cool air can move without any obstacle. While using the computer, do not cover any part of the computer CPU. Computers are designed to function at room temperature. Only you need to provide enough space for the computer for proper cooling.

User: I have money to invest.

This is an expensive procedure to cool your computer. To control the temperature, you can attach an AC (Air conditioner) in your computer room.

You can buy a more advanced cooling system for the computer which will create better airflow. Thus, you can cool the CPU to take care of your computer.

The low temperature

Keep in mind that very low temperatures can also damage your computer parts.

Dust! the enemy…

Dust! yes, it is an enemy of the cooling system of your computer. In times, dust accumulates in the computer system parts like FAN, heat sinks, and other system components. Dust can disrupt the airflow in the computer system component which can cause the system component to overheat.

Step2: How to keep your computer clean of dust

It is very important to check and clean your computer system regularly. A portable manual vacuum is necessary to clean your computer system component. This will help to spray compressed air to clean computer components. While cleaning, you need to take extra care to the computer system components. You can use a soft brush to clean the dust from the computer.

Step3: How to protect your computer from electrical damages

Always use a good quality UPS to protect your computer from electrical damage. And during thunderstorm unplug all cords that are, connected to the electrical outlet. If you are using a wired network in your computer, then unplug it.

How to use software to maintain?

You can maintain your computer by using your software. In windows operating system you can find some inbuilt programs to maintain your computer. With the help of these programs, you can speed up the performance of your computer. Disk clean up, ScanDisk, disk defragmenter are the programs you can use to maintain your computer.

Step4: Disk Cleanup

You can free up disk spaces on your computer hard drive by using this program. Disk Cleanup helps to remove junk and unnecessary file from the hard drive. There are different procedures to run disk Cleanup in windows OS. 

You can use the following common procedure to run disk Cleanup

1. Open “My Computer” or “This PC”.
2. Select the drive you want to run disk Cleanup. This is usually Local Disk(C:) where windows OS is installed.
3. Click “Properties”.
4. Left mouse click on the “General” tab.
5. Click Disk Cleanup.

Step5: ScanDisk or CHKDSK

You can use this program to check and repair file systems errors on the hard drive. It can check also the bad sectors on the hard drive.

To run ScanDisk

1. Open “My Computer” or “This PC”.
2. Select the drive you want to run disk ScanDisk.
3. Go down and click “Properties”.
4. Click on the “Tools” tab.
5. Click “Check“.

Step6: Disk Defragmenter

This tool is very useful to maintain the computer. In times, you feel that your computer become very slow. This is happened because of fragmentation occur inside your computer hard drive. Fragmented files delay the file reading time in your hard drive. Therefore, your computer takes time to access a file from the hard drive and, it feels that the computer becomes slow.

Disk Defragmenter programs can decrease the file access time from your hard drive by arranging them in contiguous blocks. You can increase the overall system performance by running Disk Defragmenter periodically on your computer.

To run Disk Defragmenter

1. Open “My Computer” or “This PC”.
2. Select the drive you want to run Disk Defragmenter.
3. Click “Properties”.
4. Find the tab “Tools” and click.
5. Click “Defragment now…” (Windows 7 OS)  or Click “Optimize”. (Windows 10)

Important Note: If you are using SSD (Solid State Drive) storage device, then do not run Disk Defragmenter on your computer. It will reduce your SSD lifetime.

Step7: Antivirus

Wao! Think antivirus can maintain the computer! yes, it is true, an antivirus can improve computer performance. People use an antivirus to protect the computer from viruses, malware, etc. You can use an antivirus to speed up your computer performance.

If you feel that your computer becomes very slow, and you tried all the maintenance tips discuss above. Still, you don’t have any solution for this, then you can try a good antivirus software with an updated database to maintain the computer. Viruses, malware can slow down your computer performance. A good antivirus can detect these viruses and remove them from your computer. In this way, an antivirus can speed up your computer performance.

Tips: Install only one antivirus software on your computer. Avoid multiple antivirus software at an instance.

Conclusion

You have learned from this article to maintain a computer for long life. I use these above tips to maintain my own home computer, laptop. These are the 100% successful tricks you can use to increase the performance of a computer or laptop.

Computer maintenance is an easy process to do. I hope, you have understood the computer maintenance and troubleshooting ideas and tools used in computer maintenance.

This is an extra special tip for maintaining your computer, assuming that, you have been using your computer for the last three years. You tried everything with your computer or laptop, still, you have not found any solution to speed up the computer performance. Then, it is the best time for you to replace the hard drive with a new one to gain computer performance.

Instead of purchasing a normal Hard Disk Drive (HDD), you should buy SSD.