Your computer is similar to your car. It needs maintenance at certain intervals to keep it humming along. Remember, your car needs it’s oil changed about every 5,000 miles 
and your transmission should be flushed about every 30,000 or else you run the risk of a costly mechanical breakdown.
About every 100,000 most cars require the spark plugs to be changed. If you own a car with a timing belt, it needs to be changed about every 60,000 miles. Skipping any of the above maintenance could leave you stranded on the side of the road.
Your computer also needs a regular regime of maintenance in order to keep running and not leaving you stranded while you are working. Unlike a car, maintaining your computer is a lot less expensive. You do not need to change the oil and fortunately through the magic of Remote Support, you do not even have to take your computer out of your house or office!
There are a lot of simple tips you can use to help keep your system running normally yourself. Like your car, there is a maintenance schedule for heavy users and there is a schedule for light users.
If you use your system everyday like I do, you are in the category of a heavy user. I run my system almost every day and most of the night. It gets used for remotely cleaning computers as well as delivering articles like this to you in our blog. Our computers go through lots of changes during the course of the day like installing and uninstalling programs, updating Windows, updating your anti-virus and well, you get the idea.
There are other PC users that only use their computers for maybe checking e-mail and maybe checking your posts on Facebook. You might even play an occasional game. This is probably the group that has the majority of the market share. You are in the light-use category. This category does not make a lot of changes to Windows nor do you frequently install and remove software. Most aspects of the machine are fixed and do not change.
So now that you know what group you fall under, what schedule do I need to follow? If you fall under the heavy use category, you should be doing a virus an/or Malware quick scan of your system daily. You should use Ccleaner to clean your temp files and also perform a defrag of your system on a daily basis. If you use a program like Disk Keeper, you can automate this process and have one last thing to do.
Heavy users will also need to do Malware full scans and check to be sure your programs definitions are up to date at least weekly. You will also want to do an incremental backup and check to be sure your system backup is up to date. This task should be done once a week.
At least once a month, you should do a complete check of all your updates and be sure you are current. You should also run a full system virus scan of your PC. If you are using an Image program to do your backups, perform a full backup of your entire system. This should be done at least once a month. Personally, I do this every 2 weeks.
About every 6 months, you should have your system checked and cleaned by a professional computer technician. This semi-annual check can help prevent system failures and data loss. Ion addition, it is a good time to change all your passwords for added security.
At least once a year, you need to remove the side case from your PC and clean the dirt out of the case. This is important as dust collecting near the processor can both slow down your system and can create a fire hazard. You can even fry your processor. In addition, contact your favorite computer tech and have them check your system including the SMART status of your hard drive. You should also do a complete image backup of your drive to be sure all your precious files are safe and sound.
If you are a light user, the duties are not quite as stringent. Daily, you should run an anti virus/Malware scan and backup important files you might of added to your system. Once a week, you should check to be sure your virus definitions are up to date and use Ccleaner to remove your temp files.
For the light users, once a month you need to be sure that you have all the Windows security updates do a complete image of your hard drive to be sure your files are safe.
As with the Heavy users, you should have your system serviced by a professional technician at least every 6 months. Remember, this step is just as important as changing the oil on your car. This should be done to prevent a breakdown of your computer.
At least once a year, as with the heavy users, you should clean the inside of your computer case. If you own a laptop, use canned air to remove dirt from the intake ports of your fan. This is important to retain airflow and keep the system cool. You also need to make a complete image backup of your drive. You should again call your favorite computer professional to check and clean your system professional as well as check the SMART status of your hard drive.
This list shows the main tasks that should be done under different operating conditions. One of the tasks that you should never skimp on or ignore is backing up your system. Another step you should do at least once a year is to check and see how much disk space you have left. If you have been collecting pictures and movies over the course of the year, you could be running low on disk space. If you find that you are, you will have too decide on either moving the data to another external drive of imaging your information to a new larger hard drive. Upgrading to a larger drive is the step that I would do simply because you can use your older smaller drive for backups.
There you have it, a full schedule to keep your PC from breaking down. So do yourself a favor and give your computer some TLC so you are not left stranded on the side of the road of the information highway.
Article posted by , Ross Deprey
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