8 Essential Computer Maintenance Tasks

Maintenance of 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. Maintaining your computer is essential to ensure its proper functioning. And when we talk about maintenance, I mean everything, cleaning inside and out, revising, and optimizing software and hardware. This article 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 computer maintenance specialist. When we refer to the operating system of the PC, we will point to Windows since it is the most used in Spain. The aim will only take you a few minutes to see how it works much better.

Dust-free

It seems obvious, but sometimes we are unaware of the number of dust particles that sneak through our computer, even reaching the fans, graphics card, or hard drives. A quick and straightforward task is to do an external cleaning of the entire 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

It is perhaps the essential part of a smooth-running computer. There are a lot of 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 antiviruses come with a built-in firewall. This firewall will control the entrances and exits 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 freeing up disk space, and we must do it at least once a month. They are files and folders generated when installing or uninstalling programs, and Windows places them by deformity. If we get rid of them, the hard drive will run lighter, and the boot system will be faster.

Make a backup

Write down this task weekly, primarily if you work with critical files. The content of your hard drive is at stake, so we advise you to use an external drive separate from your computer for backup.

Defrag your hard drive

It is probably due to the fragmentation process when you notice that your hard drive starts to go slower than usual. 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 become disorganized, scattered on the disk and, therefore, the computer takes longer to load and slows down operations. Chores. This defragmentation on storage drives is what you should be doing. If you have Windows 10 installed, you do not need to do it because it already does it by itself, but you can do it manually in previous versions. Once a month is enough.

Empty the bin

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

Restart the computer

Instrumental when we talk about laptops since they are the computers that spend more time hibernating than wholly turned off. Turn your PC off and on again for your operating system to clean up 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 entirely and not just lower the screen to the keyboard.

Review installed programs and remove unnecessary ones

Throughout the year, we have 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, we review what programs we have installed in Windows and if we can remove any.