Thursday, August 26, 2010

Weekly maintenance on your PC

Your PC is a machine which winds up every week. You got to unwind the stress in it; else you can expect to see lags now and then. Many thought that a new PC is fast because it’s new.

It’s a myth. Yes. Your PC can run as good as a new one.

Doubt it? Many people who reformatted their computers realised that their PC are back to the fast old times. This shows that it isn’t the hardware that slows down due to age, it’s the software.

I own a desktop with an age of 8 years old, and though there are various minor hardware problems along the way, I didn't change anything inside except adding an extra RAM. Making your PC last requires maintenance.

Aging hardware problems aside, your PC always ends up screwed due to the vast amount of rubbish files and poor maintenance. So this post is going to teach you the basics of PC maintenance.


1. Defragment

Fragmented: existing or functioning as though broken into separate parts; disorganized; disunified (Definition from dictionary.com)

When files are written into your hard disk drive, it is randomly written into any space in the drive. As your hard drive gets filled up, the bigger files could not be fully slotted into the space in between the different files segments. Your PC splits the big file up into small portions to fit into these spaces, hence files are fragmented.

Defragment rearranges the files in your drive to minimize the number of files split up, saving on the time required by your PC searching for these small parts.

On Win7 and Vista OS:

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Defragmenter

Simply select your drive and click defragment. If your drive has lots of file and has not been defragmented for a long time, this process will take a few hours to complete.


2. Virus Scan

Basic. I don’t think I need to explain why we need to do virus scans. Run it weekly along with your defragmenter.


3. Disk Cleanup

Rubbish and useless files clog up your hard drive as time goes by, such files are often hidden deep in your system folders. You need to clean them up regularly to ensure that your hard drive remains tidy and clean of all these files.

Frankly speaking, the disk cleanup utility that windows provide is really bad, really sh*tty. You should download a program called CCleaner from: http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/?tag=mncol


This application is easy to run, just select analyse and click run.


4. Registry Cleanup

In the program CCleaner which I mentioned above, it comes with a decent registry cleaner. If you prefer a better registry cleaner, I would recommend Wise Registry Cleaner which can be downloaded from: http://download.cnet.com/Wise-Registry-Cleaner/3000-18512_4-10605508.html?tag=mncol

Install and run the application, just simply click “scan”. After the program has scanned through the registry, click on the “checks safe” then click “fix”. Done.



5. Startup Cleanup

Often we find that after we login to our PC, the PC will be very much irresponsive as it still has to load the anti-virus, windows live messenger, etc. all these programs that are scheduled to start when you logon always leave users slamming their keyboard. Here is the method to choose what programs to run at startup.

Win7 and Vista:

Start > type “msconfig”

Win XP:

Start > click "run" > type "msconfig.exe" and Enter

System configuration opens up and click on the startup tab. You will see a list of programs which are scheduled for startup. You can uncheck many of the programs which you don’t want to run at startup, such as windows live messenger or apple updater etc. When you are done, click ok and restart your computer. Your computer should be able to startup much faster now.

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