Tips And Tricks!

Things You Can Do to Keep Your PC Running Smoothly and Free of Viruses and Spyware.

Preventive Maintenance - The key to trouble-free computing and making your system last longer.

Proper PC Usage and Habits - General Guidelines to Keep Your PC Healthy

Turning Your PC Off - Good or Bad? 

Well, it's both.  You shouldn't power your PC off every time you're done with it.  Cycling the power can damage components because powering up a machine causes a lot of stress on the system.  However, you should turn it off every now and then to clear out the memory.  At lest once a week is good. We recommend twicw a week if you use it heavily.

If you're going out of town for a few days, it's a good idea to turn it off.  Another good time to shut down is during lightning storms. 

Extending Your Computer's Life- If your PC is over 3 years old

My Computer is getting old. What do you recommend I do if I can't afford to buy a new one?

The major issues that we see deteriorating the performance of older computers are:

1) Memory (RAM): Machines that are in the 3-5 year range of life have low ammounts of RAM by today's standards.. This is because as time goes by, all those Windows updates you've been getting have actually made WIndows bigger, thus needing more RAM.

You may also have installed new software (programs) over time. Newer software has more features, and so is often larger than older programs, thus needing more RAM.

2) The Hard Drive: This is the storage device inside your computer. It is a mechanical device and like any mechanical device, the more usage you place on it, the more it wears down. It can become increasingly inaccurate as it reads and writes data, thus causing file corruption, data loss and a slowing down of its operation.

Replacing your hard drive gives you multiple benefits. The most important preserving your data. If you wait until it fails, you will lose your data, such as your pictures, documents, emails, address books and videos.

The second benefit is performance. With a new hard disk, you have the chance to reinstall or upgrade your Windows to a newer version. This is because a fresh installation of WIndows gives you a huge increase in performance. Also, the newer hard drives are usually faster than older ones.

3) Software and File Buildup: A lot of the software that came with your PC is outdated and is taking up space. You may also have lots of programs running in the background that you're not even aware of. Some of these programs came bundled with programs that you downloaded, but piggybacked themselves into the download and installed themselves without your knowledge.

Finally, there are many files that get created automatically in the background by the programs you're running. These are only temporarily needed, but are left behind even after they're needed. Clearing these out with a good cleanup utility can help regain performance.

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