Comspec Computers - Mark Anderson ‘The Computer Guy’

From email to storing photos and playing games to booking your holiday, the PC is central to many people’s lives. However, despite its importance most people still know very little about how to look after their PCs – and even fewer actually do.

The good news is that PC manufacturers are building machines that are more robust than ever before. In fact, with a few simple measures you can help reduce breakdowns, limit maintenance costs and generally improve the lifespan of your PC – keeping it in tip top shape and running your life for years to come.

1) KEEP IT CLEAN

• All PC cases have air vents. These are crucial to the interior airflow within your PC case and to keep your components cooled to a safe temperature. Ensure that when you position your PC none of these vents are covered, and have a reasonable distance between them and any walls or other surfaces.

• Do not place your PC too close to any heating or cooling source (e.g. Radiators, direct sunlight, air conditioners, etc). Excessive heat and cold can damage your PC.

• Keep your PC away from areas of moisture – damp patches

• Do not smoke around your PC.

• Regularly vacuum around your PC case to remove the potential build up of dust or dirt. This can clog up vents and extraction fans to the point of destruction.

• Always turn off the power to your PC before moving it, even if you are only sliding it along the floor a little.

2) BACK IT UP & TIDY IT UP

• Always take regular backups of important data. This will be crucial if you have a major crash.

• External Hard Drives or USB memory devices are inexpensive, but very effective for backing up data. Remember it is not advised to backup data onto CD/DVD media, as these are not reliable enough.

• Store backups away from your computer, preferably in another room or building entirely.

• Remove unnecessary programs from your computer and run the Disk Cleanup utility (free with windows) once a month.

• Disk Defragmenter is another useful utility that comes free with Windows. As with Disk Cleanup, this should be run regularly, but only about every three months and make sure that you run the Disk Cleanup before running the Defragmenter.

3) KEEP THE BUGS OUT

• The Internet is home to Viruses, Spyware and Spam – all of which can affect how well your computer works

• Ensure you have Anti-Virus software running at all times on your PC. This should be automatically loaded when your PC starts up and set to automatically update itself.

• At reasonably regular intervals (or when you think your computer is slowing down) run a full system scan manually from your Anti-virus program yourself.

• Whilst Norton is a widely used Anti-Virus package, you should also check out AVG as it takes up less of your PC’s resources and is much easier to use.

• Ensure you have Anti-Spyware software running and updated regularly too. Again, a regular manual full scan is useful – even if your software runs its own scheduled scan.

• No matter what email system you use, ensure you use the email Rules functionality to set up rules to catch spam emails and place them into your junk folder.

• Never click on any email you cannot identify as clicking on a spam email lets the sender know they have reached a ‘live’ person and it will increase the number of spam emails you get.

• Never open any attachments to emails unless you are certain of the sender. Again, opening an attachment could infect your PC with a virus or dramatically increase the number of spam emails you will receive.

• Ensure that your Windows Firewall is turned on. If it is not, you will probably get a message from your PC anyway, but ensure that you put it on.

• Be extra careful when using these Peer-to-Peer sharing/downloading sites (Limewire, Filedonkey, Kazaa, etc) as these can leave your PC wide open to viruses and infection.

• When giving your email address to someone on a chat room or a forum, ensure to use ‘at’ instead of the ‘@’ symbol in your address – leaving them to manually substitute the correct symbol. This will reduce the chances of spammers/bots using the address.

4) WATCH THE POWER

• Don’t plug PC equipment directly into home/office wiring. Always use Anti-Surge devices

• Your PC itself is probably happier going into hibernation than being turned completely off, and this can help lengthen the lifespan of some of your internal components.

• The monitor belonging to your PC should always be turned off when not in use. This will extend its life. Even if your PC is still on, you can switch your monitor off.

• Ensure that you always power off your PC before cleaning it or around it. A slight vacuum around the case is useful, but ensure you are not trying to vacuum near an operational fan, etc.

5) LOOK AFTER THE EXTRAS TOO

• Print a test page occasionally to any inkjet printers that are not being used. This will help keep the nozzles clean and avoid ink clogging them up.

• Clean your mouse occasionally. If it is a ball mouse, then remove the ball and gently clean the contacts inside with a cotton bud. If not, clean around the underside with a cotton bud.

• Turn your printer off using the power switch on it rather than just unplugging it. The printer knows the difference!

• Turn your keyboard upside down and shake it to clear crumbs, etc. You can also use a brush to lightly clean between the keys (a clean paintbrush will suffice).

• Magnets or Electric Motors can cause PC problems, so keep these away from your PC at all times.

Regular maintenance, common sense and some care and attention will go a long way to keeping your PC in good health and keeping your repair bill low.

Mark Anderson, ‘the Computer Guy’, is the owner of Comspec

www.comspeccomputers.co.uk