Maintaining A Computer: 8 Essential And Simple Tasks

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Maintaining A Computer

Is your computer slow, hangs, or gives some error? If you’ve been through any of these situations, your PC is crying out for a review. The maintenance of the computer is essential to ensure smooth operation. And when we talk about maintenance, I mean everything, cleaning inside and out, reviewing, and optimizing software and hardware.

In this article, we will offer you a list of the main tasks that must be taken into account to have your computer ready and without the need to call a specialist computer maintenance technician. When we refer to the PC operating system, we will point to Windows since it is the most used in Spain. The aim will only take a few minutes, and you will see how it works much better.

Dust-Free

It seems obvious, but sometimes we are not aware of the number of dust particles that sneak through our computer, even reaching the fans, graphics card or hard drives. A quick and easy task is to perform external cleaning throughout the computer periodically. In addition, you can use a can of compressed air to remove accumulated dust in internal areas that are more difficult to access. For fans and heatsinks, use a brush.

Use A Good Antivirus Program

Perhaps it is the most important part of a good computer operation. There are many so-called malicious or malicious programs that can damage your hard drive (spyware, worms, Trojans, adware or advertising support, phishing, rootkits, ransomware, etc.). To do this, download antivirus programs that perform periodic scans on your system.

Also, check from time to time that the antivirus you have installed is up to date. Most antivirus software comes with a built-in firewall. This firewall will control the inputs and outputs of your computer over the internet. Another essential that you should not forget for good maintenance!

Free Up Space On Your Hard Drive

The Windows system is called a disk space cleaner, and we must do it at least once a month. They are files and folders generated when we install or uninstall programs, and that Windows places them by the deformity. If we get rid of them, the hard drive will run lighter, and the boot system will be faster.

Make Backup

Write this task weekly, especially if you work with very important files. The content of your hard drive is at stake. Therefore, we advise you to use an external drive independent of your computer for backup.

Defragment Your Hard Drive

When you notice that your hard drive starts to go slower than usual, it is surely due to the fragmentation process. What does this mean? The files that you save on the hard disk (whether they are texts that you write, that you delete, photos or videos), over time, tend to be cluttered, dispersed on the disk and, therefore, the computer takes longer to load and slows down the homework.

This defragmentation of the storage drives is what you should do. If you have Windows 10 installed, you don’t need to do it because it already does it by itself, but in previous versions, you do it manually. It is enough once a month.

Empty The Bin

Make sure first that what you are going to delete will not serve you later, especially when we talk about work files. You can carry out this task every month.

Restart The Computer

It is very useful when we talk about laptops since they spend more time hibernating than completely turned off. Turn your PC off and on again so that your operating system cleans all the processes you have started. Also, if you will not use the laptop for more than a day, it is better to turn it off completely and not just by lowering the screen to the keyboard.

Review Installed Programs And Remove Unnecessary Ones

Over a year, we have surely installed and uninstalled many programs, some that we no longer use. They can take up a lot of space. So it doesn’t hurt that, at least, once a year, let’s check what programs we have installed in Windows and if we can eliminate any.