Bits On Bytes

The mere thought of peeking inside your computers forbidding outer shell is enough to send most grown men cowering back into the shadows of cyber comfort, content to leave it to the pros rather than take the risk of fouling something up permanently and looking the fool. In reality, there are more than a few things you can do inside the box that will not only extend the life of your PC, but save you some time and money as well. Let’s take a quick look at some of these things you can do, and why you shouldn’t be afraid of them.

Some basics need mentioning before you get into the box, and the first of these would be to turn off the power and unplug the PC from the electrical outlet. Then make sure to properly ground yourself by either using a grounding wrist strap, or by touching something like a water pipe, or various other objects around the home that are already grounded. This will keep you from passing any static electrical charge to any of the components inside the PC, and frying your computers circuitry before you even begin to do any preventive maintenance. (That would be a drag, needless to say!)

Once you’ve cracked the case, you can begin some basic housekeeping. Make sure to avoid touching any circuit board surfaces when you do this cleanup. Give special attention to the systems cooling fans, as well as case itself and surrounding areas. You can use a can of compressed air, but if you’d rather remove the dust instead of just rearranging it, then you might want to use a mini vacuum instead. This will keep you from having to continually do this.

If your machine is ancient, say more than four years old, or if things inside the box are quite dusty, then you may wan to remove each of the expansion cards on your motherboard, cleaning each one of its contacts with isopropyl alcohol, and then gently reseat the cards back into the motherboard. Check all your connections to make sure everything is properly seated. While you’re at it, check all your other inside connections, such as power connectors, EIDE connectors, and other internal cables for proper fits.

One more thing you check on while you have the box open is the CMOS battery. If you have an old PC, or you notice that your system clock seems to be constantly losing time, you may want to find the location of this small battery on your motherboard by looking at the motherboard manual, and then see about replacing it. This is easier than it sounds.

Now comes the checkup of your systems hardware by using a good software checkup program. There are many, many of these out there, some free, some paid, and be aware that this should not cost an arm and a leg. Check out the latest diagnostic tools by either doing a search for “PC diagnostic tools” or by utilizing a site like PC World or something similar to find the latest offerings. You find a wealth of tools to choose from.

You may also want to avail yourself of one of the many Windows registry cleaners available on the market. Every time you use your computer there are files created that soon become orphaned. This backlog of files can clog up the registry and make your PC slow and otherwise hamper system performance, even to the point of finally crashing your computer. Most of these programs are very simple and fast to use, and yield great results.

One other easy fix, though somewhat time consuming, is to occasionally run your systems Windows Disk Defragmenter. This will optimize your hard drives ability to access and utilize files. This one is available by this sequence: Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter. Doing this once in while will definitely give your computer added zip. Take care to schedule this when your either asleep or not going to be needing your PC for a time, as it can take literally hours.

You may also want to defrag the file on your hard drive known as the swap file. This is a file that contains overflow data from the system memory. This is a file that is called on quite frequently, so defragging this file can definitely make your PC a lot more zippy. You can use a commercial application to accomplish this or you can do it through Windows. This is a somewhat more advanced procedure, involving partitioning the virtual memory. If you feel less than comfortable doing this, you should enlist a friend who has a little more savvy, as it really can be done.

Your PC with Windows XP can check and correct errors on your computer with it’s error checking utility. This is a basic and bare bones exam of your hard drives health, and can fix a few things. If you come up with hundreds of errors, though, you may want to get a more advanced and thorough solution. There are quite a few of them out there, and most do the job quickly and easily.

The final thing you’ll be able to do is to is to limit the amount of programs that Windows runs at startup. Most of the time you don’t need all these programs running, and most of them are set to automatically open for your availability. (Thank you very much!) To keep them from launching on startup, you can click Start-Run-and then type in msconfig and hit enter. You can then simply uncheck the boxes of the programs you don’t want to open.

Cleanup your computer quickly and easily with <a href=”http://www.pcnineoneone.com/ccleaner/”>ccleaner</a>.

Making these simple changes will help your PC a lot more responsive and faster. Most of them are very easy to accomplish and will yield good results. Don’t be afraid to get under the hood and take a look. Your PC will thank you for it!

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