Bi-Weekly PC Maintenance for OTS

A stitch in time saves nine! You are on your puter always even beyond the working hours but how much do you care about it so that the breakdowns are minimal and that you have a pleasant experience with your puter? You never think of routine maintenance at all until your system crashes! To avoid those irritating multiple crashes, hang-ups, snags etc., allot an hour or so monthly to perform these maintenance activities so that you dont end up with that frequent repair mode on your computer.

Initially I outlined a brisk post on routine computer maintenance, but had to be elaborate a bit due to the bitter experiences with my computer problems in the past so that some of you are benefited from my past experiences to perform your own computer repair and if you need brisk computer maintenance tips or computer troubleshooting, 6 ways to speed up your PC maybe useful on the go. My OS (operating system) is Windows XP and these points predominantly refer to that OS only and here it goes: 1. Create a boot disk to come handy at times of crash if you do not have your original Windows XP CD with you or if your computer does not support CD-ROM/DVD drive (or if your computer is not networked to any other computer); check out Microsofts help center on How to obtain Windows XP Setup disks for a floppy boot installation, but before that please note that by default, the Microsoft Windows XP CD itself is a bootable CD and mostly you may not need a bootable floppy diskette unless you do not have a CD-ROM/DVD drive in your computer or if your system is not networked. Booting from the Windows XP CD will not only allow you to install/re-install Windows XP but also to troubleshoot it. For troubleshooting bootable CDs not booting, refer How to or cant boot from a CD or DVD? Backup any sensitive files concerned with your work away from your computer on removable storage devices. This frees up your hard disk space; as well, you will not be affected by any sort of crash. Back up your registry entries. Refer How to make a backup of your registry using regedit? Once you are done with registry backup you can safely restore your computer back to its original state by just restoring this registry backup. All you need to do to restore is to double click the backed-up file and you will be presented with a dialog box asking if you are sure to add the data to your

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registry. Click on Yes and your system files will be restored to its former state, the date you created your registry backup. You can have further information from Microsofts help center on How to back up and restore the registry in Windows. Alternatively you may use System Restore to undo changes if problems occur. Furthermore, you can backup your hard drives with the aid of backup utility tool that comes along with Windows XP. Right click on the drive you want to backup, go to tools and click on backup now and you get the backup utility to create a backup of your drives. 4. Go to control panel and click Add or Remove programs. Check the programs that are rarely used or not used at all. Remove them to improve the performance of your computer so that only minimum required files are loaded on a boot and you save resources like RAM, processor usage etc. 5. Empty Windows temp, all other user temps, cookies, temporary internet files, history, recycle bin etc. To do this either right click the C drive (or rather any drive you want to clean up), go to properties/general/disk cleanup. You can also access disk cleanup via start menu/all programs/accessories/system tools/ disk cleanup. 6. If youre a bit techie and want a single advanced program to perform the above two points, viz., 4 and 5, then the answer is C Cleaner which will do the above two tasks in a single shot. Apart from these two tasks, the advantages are many and you may download it from C Cleaner download page. 7. If your computer is slow, it may be due to those obsolete and bloated/fragmented files sitting there in your registry. For better computer performance, keep the registry as compact as possible. Fix the registry errors either with Easy Cleaner or Reg Clean. Once you are done with this, defragment registry with tools like Free Registry Defrag. 8. Now that you have removed all those unnecessary/sensitive files, but still need to be confident that it hasnt left any traces of your passwords, bank documents or some sensitive information back on your hard disk; okay, confidently erase them with Eraser. 9. Perform a thorough virus scanning. If you still havent installed any virus scanner; check out, there are a lot of good freewares available like Avast and AVG. 10. Most of the antivirus softwares come along with anti-spyware but for some reason if your antivirus is not having an anti-spyware function, install/run an anti-spyware like Spybot search and destroy and be sure that somebody is not spying you from inside your computer. 11. The shortcut icons on the desktop is handy for everyone but all those unused or sparingly used icons cluttering up on the desktop is an irritating experience spoiling the overall mood when you look at the desktop. Look at my desktop. How clean it is?

Arent you feeling a sort of freshness to work on your puter with your desktop looking clean like this? Hence de-clutter your desktop. Create a new folder on the desktop and dump all those unused or sparingly used shortcut icons on your desktop into this folder so that these icons can be accessed as quickly as you access it from the desktop itself but with a clean looking desktop. 12. Check for the latest updates of Windows, MS Office, and Internet Explorer. Schedule automated updates wherever possible (anti-virus, Windows, MS Office, instant messengers or any other program/application on your computer so that you dont compromise with security running those outdated version applications). 13. Run (Disk Defragmenter.) Icon for this located at start menu/all programs/accessories/system tools or right click on the disk you want to defragment, go to properties/tools/defragmentation. 14. To maintain your computer time at par with the atomic clock servers of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), download, install and ping your time with the nuclear clock with synchronizer like Atomic Clock Sync. Okay, we are done with the software side of the maintenance and your computer is working perfect with accurate time; now lets do the hardware side maintenance. 1. Install a surge suppressor if you havent done yet. Check if the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) has adequate battery backup. If the backup time has gone down considerably, replace the batteries. Wipe the UPS cabinet clean. Check whether all the cords are snugged in appropriately to avoid loose connectivity problems. If your system time is getting lagged for hours in a week or so, the coin shaped battery located on your motherboard in the CPU must have expired and its time to replace it. Either call service personnel of your vendor to replace the battery for you or you may try it yourself after going through How to replace your PCs battery? or How to change the battery in a computer? Dust is bad for your computer hardware as it may lead to overheating of the components inside, especially the processor, and ultimately breakdown. So find time to blow out the dust inside your computer at least in a month or two or more often as appropriate. Remove the CPUs cover and blow off the dust inside with vacuum cleaner. (Note that I said to blow off and not to suck in the dust due to the complexity involved). Check if the CPUs cooling fan and all other cooling fans inside the cabinet are working. Dust the cabinet and monitor and wipe them clean. Clean the drives (CD, DVD, floppy). Clean the ports on the backside of your computer cabinet, where dust and dirt go left unnoticed being at the back there, same thing with the back and the top of the monitor. Wipe the keyboard clean. If adamant dirt is there on the keys, wipe with soap solution soaked damp cloth, take care to prevent any water/soap solution oozing into the keyboard. (Healthcare professionals, for your kind attention, apart from faucets, a dirty keyboard is the commonest source of nosocomial infection!) Wipe the mouse clean. Look for accumulated dirt underside the mouse and wipe it clean. Wipe the mouse pad clean. You may use the damp cloth here too but take care to avoid oozing inside the mouse. Wipe the printer clean. Print a test page. Make sure the printer is producing clean copies and the toner cartridges arent going to run out. If it is an inkjet printer, remove the cartridges and store them in a refrigerator when you are not using the printer. By doing so, you can avoid the ink getting dried off due to temperature especially in summer. If you are having an external modem to hook yourself to the Internet, wipe it clean. Check whether the cords are snugged in appropriately.

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