Computer Maintenance & Care

Your Computer’s Environment

Summer weather has got to be your computer’s worst environmental enemy.  The heat and humidity can do a number on your machine.  It’s preferable to have the computer out of direct sunlight and in an air-conditioned environment.  If the latter isn’t possible, installing more case fans and/or a better HSF might help with overheating issues.

Dust is a major factor in overheating.  It can insulate components, and without having some way of cooling off, they will burn up.  A good collection of dust can also go to attract moisture.  The combination of both the dust and moisture can lead to corrosion of the metal parts within your computer.  It doesn’t happen often, but it’s not unheard of happening.  It can mainly be seen in computers that have a couple years behind them, however, if conditions are extreme enough, the same thing can happen to newer computers.  If your computer resides in a climate-controlled environment, you don’t have much to worry about.  A thorough annual dusting and cleaning should suffice.  For anywhere else (such as an office, workshop or living room), a dusting and cleaning may be necessary every few months.

The dust buildup in this old Dell will eventually start to cause problems.

It’s best to keep the computer up off the floor so dust and dirt from the floor or carpet isn’t pulled in.  This goes double if there are pets with hair, fur or feathers in the house.  Keep potted plants away as well.  The water, dirt and dead leaves aren’t all that healthy for a computer.  Keep open drink containers away from your hardware as well.  If you need to have something nearby, make sure it has a top of some sort.  Keeping the computer in a smoke-free environment can also help extend a computer’s life.  Tobacco smoke can build up inside a computer and cause extensive damage to hardware components.

Make sure your computer isn’t in a precarious position where it would be likely to topple over.  A good jar like that can cause irreparable damage to drives.  The same goes for moving the computer while it is on.  If you need to move it, turn it off first.  This allows the drives to go into a “parked” position, so gentle handling will not cause damage.  Jostling the computer while it is on can cause a hard drive to go haywire, resulting in, at the very least, a system lock-up.  At the most, data loss and possibly a drive failure can be the end result.

Now, as for turning the computer on and off, this is an extensively debated issue.  Should the computer be left on all the time, or should it be turned off?  Leaving it on all the time avoids the sudden stress on the system when it is turned on after being off—in other words, a cold start-up.  Cold start-ups may harm your computer or they may not.  A good argument can be made either way.  The good thing about completely shutting down a computer is that it clears the RAM and gets rid of any random junk that gets left over and lodged in memory.  In any case, just use common sense: if you are going to be away from the computer for a few hours and don’t need it to run anything while you’re gone, turn it off and save yourself a little electricity.

As for power management, there have always been issues with computers sometimes not being able to come out of hibernation, stand-by, or sleep mode.  If any of these power saving modes work on your computer, it’s fine and you have nothing to worry about.  If not, simply hold the power switch in for 10 seconds, which should shut down the computer completely.  After that, just turn it back on.

The only power management feature that really needs to be turned on is the automatic “power off” of a CRT monitor.  They really suck up electricity and, not to mention, after the hours and hours of use add up, it can fail just like a TV.  The most common setting for the CRT’s power saving feature to turn off after 20 minutes of non-use.  You can set power management options by going into your control panel and double clicking on the “Power Management” or “Power Options” icon (note that in XP, if you are not using the classic view, go to “Performance and Maintenance”, then “Power Options”).