Whether you own a Laptop or a Desktop computer maintaining it is necessary so they can perform well. Technology advances day by day and there is always new and better hardware available in the market. However, if you don’t plan on upgrading or you just upgraded it is good idea to maintain your hardware properly. Since most of our hardware does not have any moving parts it does not require much physical hardware maintenance. However, you still have to maintain your computer software wise and some aspects of your hardware for consistent performance
Maintaining your computer is necessary to avoid performance issues. If you maintain your computer you can get the best performance out of your current hardware. Even if the new hardware comes along sometimes you don’t always require an upgrade because your computer just needs proper maintenance to stay in a healthy state. I have noticed many people complaining that their hardware is not performing on par with the hardware capabilities. So, performing basic maintenance on your device can solve this problem
Basics for Maintaining Your Computer
There are two types of maintenance that you should perform on your computer. One is mostly minor hardware maintenance and then there is software maintenance which can be extensive. Let’s talk about hardware maintenance first. Before performing hardware maintenance, it is always a good idea to monitor your computer temperatures
Note: In this article we will provide basic tips for computer maintenance. This article does not give information about extreme performance optimization. We will write an extensive article on how to optimize your Windows 10 PC for performance or gaming soon.
Hardware Maintenance
If you own a desktop computer you can easily open up your case and clean your computer with a blower. The reason for cleaning the dust off your computer is to prevent your PC parts from overheating. The frequency of dust cleaning depends on your location and computer casing. If your computer has good filters embedded in the case you can just clean the filters instead of cleaning the whole case. Computer technology is pretty durable and will not fail if you do not perform a cleaning.
Aside from cleaning changing thermal paste in your hardware is necessary. As time passes the thermal paste degrades and it can lead to heating issues. So periodic change of thermal paste is always recommended. However, if you own a laptop only change the thermal paste if required and hire a professional to perform this action. Changing thermal paste your self in your laptop CPU or GPU can void your warranty and is highly technical. Change thermal paste when your hardware temperature starts throttling.
If you are wondering what exactly is thermal paste. In simple words it is a paste that you apply between your processor and CPU or GPU cooler. It provides efficient heat transfer form your Processor to your cooler. However, the quality of the thermal paste matters, so always use a high quality thermal paste.
Software Maintenance
When you initially buy your computer and Install a fresh OS you will feel it performing pretty well. However, when time passes and you add stuff to your computer the performance degrades. The temporary files, caches, or even viruses can degrade the performance. You can delete the temporary files and clear caches yourself manually however we recommend using third-party software such as CCleaner.
CCleaner is free software that you can use to clear temporary files, caches, etc. on your computer. So download and install this software. Please remember to decline any optional offer that CCleaner gives you during installation as it will just add unnecessary bloatware.
When the install completes open CCleaner and select custom clean. Select the files you want to clean and click on analyze.
After the analysis completes carefully go through the files that the software will clean. De-select things that you do not want to clean and press Run Cleaner. This software also offers many other features such as registry issue fix, software uninstallation, driver updater, etc.
Once the cleanup completes, its time to get rid of any viruses or malware that is slowing your PC Down. You can use the built-in Windows defender to get rid of most of the viruses but some malware is particularly difficult to remove. So we recommend using Malwarebytes for this operation.
You can use the free version of Malwarebytes to get rid of most of your hard to remove malware. It is a very light software that doesn’t add unnecessary load on your computer. However, if you don’t want to install external software try the scan options in Windows defender.
Tips to Protect Your Self from Malwares
The best way to protect yourself from malware is through self-awareness. Here are a few things that you should be aware of.
- Do not plug in fishy USBs on your computer. Even if you plug in a usb scan it with Malwarebytes or Windows Defender before opening.
- Do not click on suspicious links especially in emails. Also, you should not open any suspicious emails.
- Do not try to download illegal files form torrents as most of the time they contain malware.
- Check URLs properly before entering any details about yourself on any website.
- Enable Controlled Folder Access in Windows Defender
- Always backup your data.
- Keep your Windows and Antivirus Software up to date.
In this article, we wrote out some basic information about maintaining your computer so it can perform well. However, please note that this article only provided some tips, not the whole procedures. If you are confused and want us to write an extensive article on some specific procedure just comment down below
Update: I have written an extensive article on Windows 10 optimizations check it out > Optimize Windows 10 For Gaming
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