You use your computer for playing games looking at websites or doing things, at once. Your computer is something you spent money on. Computer hardware and operating systems are very strong. They do not last forever. Computer parts get old and computer programs can make your computer slow. Dust also gets inside your computer. Makes it not work properly.
The good thing is that you do not need to be an expert to keep your computer working well for a while. Most of the time computers get old because of how people use them. If you do things every day you can make your computer last longer.
Here are 5 easy things you can do daily to help your computer:
1. Give Your Hardware Room to Breathe
Your computer is like a vacuum cleaner. It pulls in the air from the room to keep the parts from getting too hot. The air it pulls in is not clean it has dust and pet hair and lint in it. All this stuff gets inside your computer. Builds up on the fans and the things that help keep it cool like the fans and the heat sinks.
This buildup of dust and hair and lint is like a blanket that wraps around your computers brain, which is the central processing unit and its special video part, which is the graphics card. When this happens the heat gets stuck inside your computer. Your computer does not like this. It slows down on purpose, which is called throttling. It is like when you feel too hot and you need to slow down and take a break.
If your computer gets too hot all the time the parts, inside your computer can get damaged fast. Your computers parts are sensitive so they need to stay cool to work properly. That is why it is important to keep your computer clean and make sure it has airflow so it can stay cool and keep working well.
The Habit:
The Environment: Do not put your desktop computer directly on the floor or a carpet. Carpets attract dust. Can block the vents at the bottom of your computers power supply. Keep your computer on a table or a sturdy stand.
The Routine: Clean your computer every six months. Turn it off move it to a place, with airflow and use a can of compressed air to remove the dust. Hold the fans still while you spray so they do not get damaged. This only takes a minutes. Keeping your computer parts cool helps them longer.
2. Master the Art of the "Clean Boot" and Startup Hygiene
When you first get a computer it starts up really fast.. After a while it takes a long time to start up. You have time to get a cup of coffee. What is going on? It is usually not a problem with the computer itself. The problem is that there are many programs running at the same time.
Every time you add a program or game to your computer it will often start running as soon as you turn it on. Even if you close the program it will still be running in the background. This uses up a lot of the computers memory. Makes the central processing unit work really hard. This is what slows down your computer.
For example consider the computers memory it is like a table. If you have a lot of things on the table it gets cluttered. The computers central processing unit is, like a person trying to clean up the table. If there are many things to clean up it takes a long time. This is what happens when you have many programs running on your computer.
The Habit:
You should get into the habit of checking the applications that start up when you turn on your computer every month.
Windows: On Windows you can do this by pressing the Ctrl and Shift and Esc keys at the time to open the Task Manager then you click on the part that says Startup apps.
Linux: On Linux, when you are using something, like XFCE or GNOME you need to look for the menu that says Session and Startup.
3. Rethink Your Power Habits: Shutdown vs. Sleep
There is a debate in the tech world. It is about shutting down your computer every night or just letting it sleep. When you leave your computer on all the time. Its parts are always getting a bit of electricity. The fans are always pulling in dust. Temporary files are never deleted.
Turning a computer on and off many times a day used to be bad for old hardware. It caused stress because of temperature changes. Now modern parts are okay, with it. They can handle it fine.
The Habit:
Find Balance: You should find a balance. If you are going to be from your computer for an hour or two you can use Sleep mode to save energy while keeping your workspace ready. However you should make it a habit to turn off your computer completely at the end of the day or at a few times a week.
Startup Tip: When you restart your computer it is like giving it a start. This helps to clear out the memory stop any programs that are running in the background get rid of temporary files and let the parts inside your computer cool down to the temperature of the room, which helps to prevent unnecessary damage, to your computer.
4. Treat Your Storage Right
Your computer has a Hard Disk Drive or a Solid-State Drive. If you fill up all the space on your computer it will start to work slowly and your drive might stop working too soon.
Most new computers have Solid-State Drives. These drives use something called "wear leveling". This means that the drive needs some space to keep all the parts working well. When the drive is almost full it has to try hard to add new things, which makes your computer work slower. This also means your drive will not last long as it should. Solid-State Drives need some space to work properly. It is a good idea to keep some space free, on your Solid-State Drive.
Most new computers have Solid-State Drives. These drives use something called "wear leveling". This means that the drive needs some space to keep all the parts working well. When the drive is almost full it has to try hard to add new things, which makes your computer work slower. This also means your drive will not last long as it should. Solid-State Drives need some space to work properly. It is a good idea to keep some space free, on your Solid-State Drive.
The Habit:
Do not let your main operating system drive get too full. You should try to keep a lot of space free on your operating system drive. Try to keep least 15% to 20% of your main operating system drive capacity completely free.
Tools: Use the tools that come with your operating system to clean up your main operating system drive. For example you can use Disk Cleanup if you have Windows. You can use these tools to get rid of update files for your main operating system empty the recycling bin, on your main operating system and delete big files that you downloaded a long time ago and do not look at anymore.
Backup: If your main operating system drive is still too full you can move media files to external drives or cloud storage to free up space on your main operating system drive.
5. Clean Your Browser and Avoid "Tab Hoarding"
The web browser is something we use all the time on our computer. We have browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Brave. These browsers are very powerful.. They use up a lot of resources.
If you are someone who likes to keep a lot of tabs open, like 50 tabs open across three windows and you keep them open, for weeks your computer has to work very hard. Every tab that is open takes up some of your computers memory. When your computer does not have memory to handle all the open tabs it starts using your storage drive as extra memory. This is called swapping. It makes your computer slow down. It can also hurt your storage drive because it has to read and write more often.
The Habit:
The Daily Purge: When the day is over go through the articles you want to read and save them. Then you can close all the ones you were not going to read anyway.
Extension Cleanout: A times a year take a good look at the extensions you have on your browser. Each one of these extensions is, like a program that runs inside your browser. If you do not use an extension you should turn it off. Get rid of it. This will help your computer run better.
Conclusion
Taking care of a computer is not that hard. You do not need to use scripts or buy expensive software to keep your computer running well. Actually you should stay away from programs that say they will clean your computer or make it run faster because they can make your computer slower. These programs can make your computer worse by putting things on it that you do not need.
Instead you should do these things to take care of your computer. Keep dust out of your computer do not let many things run at the same time turn your computer off and on again sometimes leave some space free on your computers hard drive and be careful about what you do, on the internet.
Taking care of your computer in these ways will make a difference. If you treat your computer well it will work fast and well for a time. Taking care of a computer is easy if you just do a simple things.
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