Optimize your Computer by performing 6 important PC maintenance tasks. A computer becomes slow over time with regular everyday use. There are many tasks related to computer maintenance that optimize your PC. For the sake of simplicity you can narrow it down to 5 important tasks that should be on your PC maintenance checklist. By following a few simple guidelines, you can maintain your computer, help increase your PC speed, and help keep it running smoothly.
1. Physically clean the computer
Dust accumulates over time inside computers and can cause serious problems if left unchecked for a long period of time. Using compressed air is a great way to remove dust inside and outside your computer. If you are using a laptop be sure to clean the keyboard on a regular basis. Dirt, dust, and other foreign objects can be trapped underneath the keys and cause mechanical malfunctions. Use a small hand vacuum to clean out keyboards in laptops and also desktop keyboards.
2. Perform Disk Clean-Up
Having a clean and optimized hard drive can be a daunting task considering all the media and files we download on a daily basis. Increase your PC performance by running Disk Clean-Up on a regular basis. Disk Clean-Up will remove temporary files that are not in use, which frees up space for you to use.
Tip: Typically, temporary Internet files take the most amount of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access later.
To use Disk Cleanup - Windows 7 users.
3. Remove spyware, and help protect your computer from viruses
A virus can halt a computer dead in its tracks. If a computer is infected with a virus all PC maintenance can be for naught. Obtaining virus scanning software is relatively easy now.
Microsoft Security Essentials acts as a spyware removal tool and includes automatic updates to help keep your system protected from emerging threats. Download Microsoft Security Essentials for free to help guard your system in the future from viruses, spyware, adware, and other malicious software (also known as malware).
4. Updates
System updates are essential to computer maintenance. Updates can provide extra security measures to programs and can also optimize certain aspects how your computer interacts with that program.
In general, it is advisable to enable automatic updates within the Windows operating system. For the maximum PC performance, make sure that you select to update only the necessary programs for your computing needs.
5. Speed up access to data
Hard drives naturally store information in an inefficient fashion after a certain point. A file might be stored in multiple locations on the hard drive, which increases the time needed to recall the file and display it to the user. To address this problem, Microsoft includes a defragmenter utility in all of the Windows operating systems. The disk defragmenter will organize files on your hard drive to increase PC performance.
To use Disk Defragmenter – Windows 7 users.