Maintenance & Performance
In order to keep your computer running at optimal performance, you must be sure to perform maintenance on your computer as you would on your vehicle.
Performance and Maintenance go hand and hand in the Techie World, because without proper maintenance, your performance will soon fall short of anyone standards. There is a few factors to remember when performing a maintenance schedule on your computer, and while some may be following one or two of these maintenance plans, most do not know, or just dont do all of them. Here are the guidelines you cannot afford to ignore! These are the basics in computer maintenance, to help you get on your way to a better performing computer. |
There are many tools within your computers Operating System or within a specific program that are specifically designed for performing maintenance on your computer and to help keep it purring like a kitten. There is also things you should physically do to help keep your computer running optimally.
Some tools are designed specifically for boosting performance to the Windows Operating System, or reestablishing an optimal speed to sluggish internet performance, while others are actually designed to run diagnostics on hardware performance issues. We will only get into the basics of tools that can get your feet wet.
I will be going over a few of the most popular tools out there and how they can optimize your computers performance. While there can be many factors to performance issues, these are a few that are most popular maintenance steps to assure proper performance.
Some tools are designed specifically for boosting performance to the Windows Operating System, or reestablishing an optimal speed to sluggish internet performance, while others are actually designed to run diagnostics on hardware performance issues. We will only get into the basics of tools that can get your feet wet.
I will be going over a few of the most popular tools out there and how they can optimize your computers performance. While there can be many factors to performance issues, these are a few that are most popular maintenance steps to assure proper performance.
Disk Cleanup
One of the most popular tools that Windows provides is Disk Cleanup for handling your computer maintenance. Disk cleanup is a built in all in one cleanup tool that will assist you with cleaning up things like Temporary files in your computer, Internet Temporary Files, which removes temp files associated with your Internet browser (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Etc), as well as temporarily installation files. All of these files are OK to remove from your system, as they are temporary files, meaning that they were only created for temporary reasons, and removing them will not effect your programs or computer, but will help to keep your computer performing optimally. The easiest way to get to Disk Cleanup is to use the search feature in in any version of Windows and search "Disk Cleanup", when it pops up, simply click it to open the program. A quick google search for disk cleanup will give you all the information you need on how to accomplish this task. Note: Removing Temporary internet files will remove memory of your recently browsed to websites. It is very important that you save your important websites using your favorite browsers "Bookmarks", or "Favorites" feature. Disk Cleanup does remove these files automatically when the task is performed. |
Temporary Internet Files & Cookies
As I mentioned above, Disk cleanup does remove your temporary internet files, however this only will remove temp files for Internet Explorer and not third party browsers like Google Chrome, or Firefox for instance. All browsers have the ability to remove Temporary Internet files manually through their respective browser settings. The easiest way to find out how to perform this task is to do a quick google search on "Remove Temporary Internet Files in "Chrome" for instance. Temporary Internet Files & Cookies are files that are generated when a person types in a website address in their browser for instance when you came to my website (www.tech-tim.com). This is basically a file that stores information in a temp file on your computer that makes browsing to it the next time faster, and stores preferences. When you type a website address in the address bar, you will notice that the next time you go to it, all you have to do is type the first few letters and it will pull back up? This is what a temp file does. Best practice is to remove these files periodically, and to assure that you dont lose your recently browsed to sites, save your favorite websites using the bookmark or favorites feature in your browser instead of relying on temporary files If you choose to save passwords in your browser, and dont want to lose them when clearing your temporary internet files, be sure to find out how they are saved in your browser and how to exclude them when performing this task. |
Disk Defragment
Disk Defragmentation or Disk Defrag is a very popular integrated tool within Windows Operating Systems. It is a tool that was designed to increase the performance of a computer by rearranging files on the hard drive to basically make them accessible faster. The typical techie hears the statement "I ran a defrag on my computer" but its still running slow. And while a disk defrag is a common tool for resolving some performance issues, it is not a tool that you have to run very often. Disk defrag actually has a feature within in it in newer versions of Windows that will run an analysis on the computer to determine how much of the disk is fragmented. If the results are very low with this analysis, chances it is not necessary to run it. As a rule, I tend to run a disk defrag around every 3 months. It is not common that a hard drive gets fragmented often with today's technology in hard drives and Windows functionality. Depending on the Operating System, Disk defrag is accessed in different ways. Do a quick google searh on "How to disk defrag with your operating System to find out how. |
Data Management
We all know by now, if a computer does not have hard drive, well its just a paper weight. The thing is, just because it has an internal hard drive with tons of space, does not mean that you should keep everything you own on that one hard drive. The reason is that when a hard drive reaches half of its capacity, it actually begins to effect the performance of your computer. Cluttering up a internal hard drive with your entire music collection, and photo collections can take a toll on your performance over time. With today's technology, it s great idea to have an external hard drive or flash drive handy to store all of your important data on. Because these devices do not work as hard and are not on as often, they tend to have a longer life span one, and you save room for all those programs and games on your computer. With that being said, it is not necessary to store all of your files on an external drive, but instead prioritize the ones that take up the most room, or you don't use as often and those can be stored on an external device for safe keeping. This will not only save you hard drive space, but is a sure way to prevent performance issues in the future. |
Malware Scan
Most people would not consider a maleware scan as part of their maintenance. But in this day in age, beside having an updated virus protection software, it is a great idea to add a weekly malware scan to your maintenance plan. . Malwarebytes has a free version that this malware scanner is known for just that, scanning for malware. Ar you wondering what Malware is yet? Well, not all people are aware, but the term "Malware" refers to a wide variety of malicious software like a virus, tracking software, or worm, most of us call it "The Virus" these days. A virus is actually just a form of malware, and because their are many variations of malware, some may be more harmful then others, but the common denominator is they will all cause performance issues. Running a malware scan is a great idea because although you may not have a virus on your computer, that doesn't mean that you don't have other variations of malware. A good sweeping with Malwarebytes will clean you right up, and keep your computer up to speed. The good news is, you can download the free version of Malwarebytes in the Free-ware section of my website, so dont delay, go get it today. But make sure that everytime you scan, you are up to date on the upgrades and definitions. Note: After downloading and installing Malwarebytes, the last screen will have an option to "Continue with trial version of Malwarebytes" Uncheck that option to use the free version of the software. |
Cleaning Maintenance
Physically cleaning your computer is a must to assure that it continues to operate at optimal speeds. While dusting the monitor and cleaning the crubs out of the keyboard is good practice, the type of cleaning I am talking about is like spring cleaning your house. The inside of a desktop computer tower gets very dusty, along with other unknown fragments that get insode of a computer tower. Pulling off the side panel and taking canned air or an air compressor to it is great practice to keeping a computer performing correctly. You may ask, what does this have to do with the performance? Well, a computer cannot perform at optimal speeds, or even at all for that matter if a primary component inside goes bad. And dusting it out is the best thing you can do to prevent that. There are several variations of fans inside of a desktop computer thats primary job is to cool the computer, and keep it from overheating. There is the CPU or Processor fan, the Power Supply fan, and usually a case fan that helps circulate the air inside. These fans have a very important job, and must be working. There is also other parts of the inside of a computer that should be kept clan, like the motherboard, the hard drive, the power supply, and well just about everything should be dusted around every month to prevent hardware issue. Then there is the safety aspect of things, because lets face it, an accumulation of dust, junk and electricity dont mix. Fires have been known to start from a computer, keep it and everything around it clean of dust and debris. Obviously this is not required in a laptop, unless it has a quick release backing. Typically a laptop with a quick release has a quick release that is located near the same quick release like the battery uses, where you can quickly remove the backside of the computer. Check with your manufacturer or do a quick google search to find out if your laptop has this feature. If so, pull the back off and dust just what you can get too, no need to go to deep into it. And if it does not, the best thing to do is dust out the vent where the fan is located. |