Basic Pc maintenance

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I don't Know about you Guy's But i often come across Pc users that poorly amintain their pc's and often have a slow computer because of It.

Heres my tips

1> Do proper Antivirus scans atleast once a week Microsof security essential FTW
2> Defrag once a month at least If you need a great defrag tool that is free use smart defrag
3> perofrm registry repairs using Ccleaner or Advanced system care free
4> Avoid Downloading alot of toolbars and excessive addons to browesers (having 1 or 2 is ok as long as you utilize them But i see people with 7-10 toolbars and it makes their intern et extremely slow)
5 > Update and patch ASAP this means check for windows/mac updates aswell as drivers
6> Do not download from torrent websites these are sure ways to get viruses
7> BACKUP FILES (this will save your life)
8> Blow out the dust from your case at least 4 times a year (dust can bulid up and cause heating issues and other hardware failures
9> keep up to date on current hardware and trends and upgrade as necessary

Fair enough. But most antivirus software these days do it automatically for you.



What's defrag for? It's really pointless unless you're running a very old computer with low memory and disk space. With newer computers, it's of no use.



No, don't ever do that. The only consequence(s) of using any tools that automatically f*ck with the Registry are neutral and negative consequences. There is no benefit whatsoever of using such software.

In fact, manually editing the Registry is of much less risk than using an automatic tool to do it. At least, if you stuff up, most of the time you'll know what happened exactly.



I agree. They are a big reason why their Internet browsers load so slowly. And some of them tend to be malware, too.



Good point. But always make sure you have the System Restore Service running at all times (for Windows). I don't know much about Macs.



Agreed. Same with crack sites.



Totally. You never know when the hard drive will die.



I don't know about 4 times a year, but at least once a year is good.



It depends. I'd only upgrade if I need the upgrade.

For example, I still have Windows XP on my own home PC and have yet to install Windows 7 even though I have easy access to various Windows OEM CDs. That's because I find no use for it just yet.

I somewhat disagree. Smart defragging (or "optimizing" rearranges data for more effective access and retrieval. I've seen noticeable system speed improvement after a much-needed "smart" defrag of the HDD. Doing it once every 3-4 months is usually good enough for most people.

A quality registry cleaner should back up before it starts working, and I find them to be important. Most software makes changes that are not 100% removed if you uninstall the software. If nothing else, a quality registry analysis will let you know of errors in the registry that can cause problems. What you choose to do about it is your option.

If you routinely image your HDD, the worst thing you could have happen is be forced to back up your personal files and restore a prior HDD image. Never had a HDD/system problem from cleaning the registry.

Defragging does nothing significant to my computer. It's disabling startups and unneeded services that speeds the system up for me.

And at work, when optimizing computers for customers, I tried various defrag programs in the past just to see how effective they are. They were quite useless compared to other things I could do for optimization.



All registry cleaners I used in the past have backup features. But so what? What happens when your system ends up being unbootable because of one minor but significant edit in a corrupted Registry? How will backups help you then?



That's exactly why they're not safe to use by novice users.



Neither have I, but I once followed a technical support thread live in which an expert was trying to help someone get his system repaired after it got corrupted by - guess what? - CCleaner itself. The expert couldn't do anything for him but have him reinstall the Windows.

And images are not always effective. What if the person doesn't want to go back to an old image of his Windows (for example)? And why would you want to make various images for backup when that would take too much time and effort? It's much better to just play it safe and learn about the consequences of using so-called Registry cleaners instead of taking unnecessary risks and then go back to images every time you stuff up the system.

You're totally missing the point with defragging. It's not expected to make the startup process much faster, only file access after the fact quicker.

And before somebody comes in here and applies this advice to SSDs, let's lay down the set of rules for those that are nothing like HDDs:

SSDs perform worse after defragging. Defragging benefits hard drives where physical location of data is relevant; on SSDs, physical location of the data is totally irrelevant, therefore there is no reason to unnecessarily shuffle data around incurring extra writes that wear down one section of the drive more than the other. This just corrupts the entire system. You want the data spread out over the drive to have the longest life of all the memory sectors.

If the SSD supports the TRIM command, enable it - now. Hit google to find out how, and follow word-for-word. The TRIM command is basically a call that an OS can use to tell a drive that it's done using select memory sectors, is allowed to "refresh" them, or return them to factory state before being written to again.

Disable write-caching. This is a technique used for HDDs that keeps the number of spin-ups for writing data to a reasonable number, but doesn't benefit SSDs at all. SSDs are "cache"; write-caching would only write the same information to the drive twice, wearing it out.

Make sure your interface mode is SATA; the TRIM command is not supported under IDE or RAID. You will most-likely have to do this by going into your BIOS and changing the necessary settings. I had to do this on my motherboard and it was relatively new.

On the point of uninstallation, google "Revo uninstaller" first.

Defraging a hard drive is important if you use hard disk intensive programs like some computer games, video and image editors since they are constantly loading files from the HD into memory.

A defrag a month is all that's needed really.


Registry cleaners do NOT ever use them. CCcleaner in particular. Killing portions of a registry is a sure way to f*k up your computer. If you don't know how to manually edit the registry then you should not even touch the registry.

One tip I'll add to speed up systems:

Start->Run-> type :Msconfig

click on the startup tab.

Take the check marks off everything except Systray and any items that mention your video card, antivirus or touchscreen system.

That alone will speed up the computer significantly. Windows xp and above its idiot-proof so you can't screw up your system by taking checkmarks out.

I'd say defragging once a year is more than enough ... that's if you really need to do it.

And Biokinetica, just one thing: services and startup programs don't stop running after the Windows starts up.

I never said they did.

I agree it's not expected to make the startup process faster (although some defrag programs do attempt to take care of that bit, too). But file access can still be hindered by the fact that startup processes continue to run in the background unless manually stopped or something.

Most of the time, disabling startup processes is more effective than doing a defrag.

it's a good idea to do so, especially if you download lots of programs and have to read shady e-mails. On the other hand, if you download files with low probability of having viruses (movies, pictures, music), make sure to play those in a safe player first (most malicious videos attack Windows Media player through the licensing system)... but it depends on what you download, what pages you visit etc. if you really need an antivirus



For those who don't know, derfrag makes sure that files that are normally sequential will become and remain sequential. On regular hard drives, it still gives a notable performance boost if done regularly, however defragging is of no use on SSDs because of the elimination of seek times, also, since defragging is essentially about moving data, you'll be wasting a lot of writes on that expensive SSD.




Registry cleaning is useful for getting a buggy program out or properly removing some viruses (if the AV can't do it), but it should only be used if the person in charge knows that he's doing, never as a system optimization tool.

true, but some keys etc. may be hard to identify, automatic tools may make use of additional metadata to help identify some keys


Toolbars are, in todays world, almost useless. Most of them may offer some kind of fast link to a website or some form of search function. Truth is, the stuff you need is already in most browsers. Worse is, many of them are a b***h to get off the hard drive again or are embedded in the installation routine of legit programs.


Many updates are in fact to fix bugs that will only rarely be encountered by the layman, and then usually only if said layman were to have this and that setup.... many programs and learly all OSes can be set up to update in the background. Many security updates are in fact not needed if the user has sufficient security in place (good firewall etc.)
Windows does somewhat half-ass this by forcing the user to restart his computer, Granted the user is allowed to postpone the reboot, it's still a pain to have that box pop up...


As said before, movies, pictures and music are generally safe, most ISO images are as well. If you are responsible with your torrents, you will never get a virus from a torrent... Some sites like the Pirate Bay have a quality assurance system of sorts; uploaders can be granted "trusted" and "VIP" status if they keep uploading good and authentic torrents.
Crack sites are, sadly, another case... unless you are on the lookout for no-media cracks for games, there you can find some respectable sites.


An old saying goes: "Real men don't take backup, they cry"
I prefer to avoid the pain and backup my important stuff


i'd go with once, maybe twice a year depending on how much dust there is in your home. If you are a smoker, you should go with about 3 times a year, as the brown, nicotine-laden dust quickly collects... NEVER use a vacuum cleaner for this though, as they can generate static electricity. Buy a can of air instead or use a small compressor.


It really depends on what you use the computer for... if you are a gamer, 3D modeller or you do lots of video editing on the machine, you need all the power you can get, whereas the layman, who uses his computer for internet and writing, there's not much sense in doing so.
For anyone who needs a high-end system, I recommend planning ahead 2, maybe 3 years, but the truth is, if you're a gamer, you can make a system last for at least 5 years with a single GPU and RAM upgrade, afterwards it's still a good office computer...

Here's what I do:

- backup important files to Dropbox or USB flash drives, larger files to DVD's
- check temps
- open the case and suck out dust bunnies (should do it more often)
- reinstall Windows 1-2 times a year
- check task manager and startup programs, uninstall or disable redundant sofware and processes

I've never had a need for scheduled virus scans because the software I've used (AVG, Avast) have a real-time scanners. I download torrents all the time and haven't yet seen a virus. Just gotta be smart about it. I used to defrag before the HDD failed and I decided it was time to buy an SSD. SSD's should never be defragged.

When I want to speed up a computer I put Linux on it

I love my SSD. I use a 60 GB SSD(with a 6 GB/s sata line) for my system and a 500 GB platter drive(sata 3 GB/s) for my personal files. Because of this I can have two streams of data flowing from storage, giving me a nice boost on my already excellent hardware. Needless to say it boots fast.

What baffles me is that MS actively discourages and hinders users from using two hard drives (unless it is in raid). I looked into doing this for my brothers computer and immediately ran into a half dozen hack solutions. He uses vista and seven. That there need be hack solutions to do this points out the obvious: There is no official way to do it.

It used to be possible. I did this as late as windows xp, but later service packs repudiated the installers authority to make this happen. They want you to use C drive and C drive only it seems.

This is what I like about linux. Windows and OSX prepares their operating system for casual users by sandboxing activities - or even walling them right off. This just dumbs down the user in the end.

Linux on the other hand seeks to make the technical stuff more approachable. For example, The aforementioned trick is dead simple in the installer and it is extensible. I could have my system divided up among 10 different drives if I wanted. I dont have to touch the terminal and I dont have to 'hack' anything. This is true user friendliness.

Pertaining to SSDs, I was told not to raid them as that can be disruptive to the TRIM type processes. Any thoughts?

Oh I totally went off topic.

I clean my computer twice yearly or whenever it needs it. This includes removing the CPU fan and reapplying arctic silver. I disassemble whatever I cant and clean the dust out.

For fragmentation I would have to hazard a guess that having a dynamic page file makes things worse. Any one agree?

Leave the registry cleaners alone; dont install dumb toolbars. Top notch advice.

Always be up to date on security fixes.

Actually, Vista is the first time M$ provided an official UI to use additional drive. You just right click on a library (eg: Documents), select Properties. In the new dialog, press "Include a folder...", and add a folder on the 2nd drive. You likely also want to press "Set save location" to change the default save location.

True. There was some noise about upcoming driver/BIOS update that will support TRIM in RAID mode, but so far it's still just noise.