Keeping your Computer Clean

Why is it Important to Keep your Computer Clean?
 
On a fairly regular basis you probably clean your home, your bathrooms, your kitchen, and even your car sometimes. Do you also take the time to clean your computer? Most people are not aware that you need to clean a computer—both inside and out—and if you’ve never learned how to clean a computer before, it can be difficult to know where to start.

Why Clean Computers

You probably spend money and time thinking about how you can protect your computer from external threats such as spyware, viruses, and malware. At the same time, very few people understand how and how often to clean the computer to protect against a hardware failure from a dust and dirt.

Without regular cleanings, dust and other irritants begin to collect inside the computer, affecting the hard drive, motherboard, and even disc drives, which eventually adds up to a lot of damage and requires costly replacement parts. Over time all this dust can lead to overheating, lower performance, and damage to the random access memory (RAM).

How to Clean the Computer

You can begin by taking off the cover of the computer, and vacuuming the internal parts of the machine to remove any loose dust that has accumulated over the years. Next, get a can of pressurized air that you can spray in hard-to-reach areas, focusing a blast of air to continue removing dust and dirt. Finally, use paper towels to wipe down the wires, sides, and bottom so you don’t have lingering dust.

You should also vacuum or dust around the base to remove excess dust that is in the area and prevent it from getting into the computer, and check for proper air flow to keep things moving the right way inside the machine. Fans are designed to maintain the proper temperature inside your computer, which means if they are not working right, or they are not receiving the right amount of airflow, the machine could be at risk of overheating. Use these tactics to clean your machine at least twice per year, more often if you are able. If the build up is too much for you to handle feel free to make an appointment! Computerfix Salt Lake City is happy to serve you. Computerfix SLC 801-415-9595 

Cleaning the Inside

You can also keep the internal files on your computer “clean” by performing regular maintenance. In these cases, it’s important that you keep up with a regular schedule to ensure smooth operations throughout the life of your machine.

First, begin by reviewing all the programs and applications you have installed. Go through and find ones that are no longer in use, and remove them from the system completely (uninstall them). Too many programs, especially unnecessary and unused programs, can quickly slow your machine down.

Next, consider “defragmenting” your disk about once a month. This consolidates files and organizes them in an efficient way so your machine doesn’t have to expend extra energy trying to find them later.

Finally, make sure you have proper antivirus software installed and it is updated and running whenever you use your machine, especially on the Internet. Without it, you could end up with nasty computer viruses that could harm the computer.