Computer Preventative Maintenance

Spring is officially here and it is a good idea to do some P.C Spring Cleaning. Computer preventative maintenance can help prolong the life of your operating system and keeping the computer system running well. It doesn’t take that much work and in most cases can be done in less than an hour or so depending on your computers configuration.

The first step in preventative maintenance is physical cleaning. This can be done with basic tools such as compressed air, cotton swabs, electronic cleaning agents and a screw driver. In this step, you would open the side of the computer with the screwdriver and use the compressed air to clean the fans, fan openings, and dust that may accumulate inside the computer.

The purpose is to help with maintaining the computers airflow to ensure the computer is staying properly cooled because overheating can cause the computer not to operate correctly and in severe cases, it can cause the computer to fail. In addition to cleaning the inside of the computer case, you can clean the outside of the case in the same fashion. If needed, you can use an electronic cleaning solution with cotton swabs to clean the hard to reach crevices such as fan openings or port opening.

Compressed air is good for cleaning dust and dirt from between the keys on your keyboard as the keyboard collects a massive amount of dust, dirt, and grime. Using cotton swabs and electronics cleaner you can clean the keys and the spaces in between the keys to remove caked on dirt or debris on your keyboard or on your mouse. If you have an old mechanical mouse that has a mouse ball, you can clean the rollers and the ball using cotton swabs and the electronics cleaner to restore the mouse to like new operation.

Backing up your files would be the second step in preventative maintenance. Keeping your files backed up onto a thumb drive, removable hard drive or cloud service is a good idea to protect your important documents and files. Keeping a local copy is good but having offsite back up is extremely important if something happens to your computer or your local backup. There are many online storage services you can use. Some of them are free and some are paid depending on the amount of storage you need.

Google offers Google Drive, Microsoft has Sky Drive and Drop box have free options that are good for starting and you can pay for extra space if needed. If you are looking at backing up several computers you can check out Carbonite or Crash plan which offers options for backing up more data at reasonable prices.  For a list of free cloud, services with paid options you can check out Network Worlds 12 free Cloud Services Article.

The third step in preventative maintenance would be cleaning out your computer of unused programs and files. As you use your computer, the computer stores temporary files that can fill up your hard drive and it can cause your computer to run slow. I recommend cleaning out your temporary files and caches using a program like CCleaner.

CCleaner does a great job in cleaning out your temporary internet files, caches, cookies and other items that can fill your hard drive up and cause your computer to run slowly. The program is free for personal use and you would be amazed on how much “JUNK” files can accumulate over time on your computer.

In addition to cleaning the “Junk” files, I recommend uninstalling programs that you do not use anymore as they can take up space on your computer. If you do not use them and have the installation media or files, uninstalling can be a great way of freeing up space on your computer and improve its performance.

Defragging your computers’ hard drive would be the fourth step in my preventative maintenance routine. This process takes the files that are scattered throughout your hard drive and places them near each other which will help improve read and write times. This will help speed up your computer.

All computers have a basic Defragging program installed, which in most cases is good. I personally recommend Defraggler. The program is by the same company as CCleaner and they have a free version for personal use. Defraggler has more options and allows you tweak the defragment process to include larger or smaller file sizes and it gives you better statistics in an easy to use graphical user interface.

The next step would be updating all your programs and operating system. Keeping the programs up to date helps keep your computer secure and helps improve software operability stability. Windows updates it good for keeping windows up to date. Keeping your anti-virus, an anti-malware and anti-spyware program ensures that your computer has the latest definitions to fight against those network threats.

A great program to help inspect your computer to ensure your programs are up to date is Secunia PSI. The program is free and runs at predefined intervals, gives you a score on how many programs you have that are not up to date, and it will either patch the program for you or give you the option to update the program.

The final step in preventative maintenance would be running full system scans for your anti-virus, anti-malware and anti-spyware programs. This allows your computer to detect threats that may be causing your computer to run slow or could pose a security risk to your personal data.

A great idea is to setting your security software and Operating system to automatically update every day and run full scans at least once a week is a good idea to help mitigate threats to your computer and help keep it safe. That way you do not need to worry about having to manually running those tasks and allows you to go about your daily business.

While this list of preventative maintenance routines isn’t mutually exclusive it should give you a good overview of good practices to keeping your computer running like new while keeping your data safe. As you operate your own computer, you can take additional preventative maintenance steps or modify the list that I have outlined above. There is no right or wrong way. The goal is to keep your computer running like new and preventing a full operating system reinstall, which would always be my last resort.