Keeping Your Computer Healthy

[Chuck Sadler]

It has occurred to me that a lot of people have presumed that you can just use a computer and it will never need any maintenance. The fact is, your computer is like a car, you go to long without maintenance or a tuneup, something is bound to happen.
I have listed the most common practices that will keep your computer from slowing down or crashing.

I.Virus Protection
Virus scans are a dime a dozen, so its important to find one that suites you.
Do you need a virus scan with a firewall and realtime shields of every kind, or do you want something that just scans on boot-up? I have included a list of virus scans that I have personally used and personally rated.

1.Avast! Pro
This is my longtime favorite. It comes with anything and everything you would ever need and it runs silent in the background besides when it tells you it has successfully updated.
Protection:Realtime Virus Protection, File system shield, mail shield, webshield, p2p shield, im shield, networkshield, script shield, and behavior shield. WOAH, that's a lot of protection. If you don't want, or need, to use one of the shields you can simply turn it off to save on resources.

2.BitDefender
Another worthy anti-virus to mention. Bitdefender also runs silently in the background. For all the gamers out there it has a "game mode" that turns off some componet while gaming to make sure it does not interfere with your game.
Protection:Realtime Virus Protection, Antispam, parental controls, privacy controls, built in firewall, built in computer tune-up.

3.ESET NOD32
A very good anti-virus that runs silently in the background, and does what it needs to do. It has a simple interface and nothing extra.
Protection:Realtime Virus Protection, antispyware.

For more information on these virus scans, please go to the manufactures website.

II. Registry
This is one thing most people put off for too long. Cleaning and defragging your registry is critical to keeping your computer healthy. It is good practice to clean your registry every month, and defrag your registry every few months. (2-3) There are plenty of free and cheap registry cleaners on the market, i personally use Fix-It.

III. Disc Defragment
Another common thing that is defragging your hard drive. Sure this takes a long time to do, and is no fun, but it's something that needs to be done every 4 months or so, depending on your computer usage.

IV. Cleaning
One very important thing to keep in mind is keeping the inside of your computer clean. Yes this means turning it off for half an hour, i promise you won't die.
The first step to the is simply shutting down your computer and unplugging it from the wall. Before you touch anything, make sure you touch a piece of metal to make sure you do not have any static buildup, which can damage the chips in side your computer.
Next remove the side case to your computer and start inspecting for dust build. It is common around fans and your heat sink around the processor. If you have a can of air, you can use this to carefully blow out the dust buildup which will most likely reduce heat inside your computer if you have not done this in awhile. If you do not have a can of air, you may have to disassemble your computer to clean it. I recommend doing this every month.

V.Conclusion
Just doing these simple things can keep your computer running better for longer. Most of these things take only a few minutes and will save you wasted days of maintenance time due to problems.

Thanks for your time.

[Samsss]

Some very helpful suggestions there Chuck. It has taken me a long time to come to some of the same conclusions and I appreciate all of yours for sure.
I'm new to this forum (not an active member of any) and cannot seem to find how to "post new message"! Guess I'm kida dumb on that one but if you could maybe help me -----?

I have anew DVDirect and really need to belong to a forum for some help!
thanks
Samss
Mississippi

[fxmulder]

..AVG is over-Rated..I find for most systems that a newer Anti-virus/spam program is Threatfire..it's light(as far as space), and of the 10-12 towers/laptops that I've put it on, have not had a problem yet....Another program that works great is Evonsoft Computer Repair..it's simple, one click, and it's done...I especially like the junk files cleaner on it...

When I say AVG is over-rated is that it is a very heavy program as far as space is concerned,,,try Threatfire..CNet has it as a free download....

Also; try MyDefrag..you can actually see the defrag of the hard drive, and identify problems with your hard drive..it works great!!

[rb]

Avira Premium is my top pick, Webroot, then Nod32, and, Microsoft Security Essentials for a good free choice that provides decent protection.
Add to that Malwarebytes, AdMuncher, and, a Backup/Clone utility such as Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost in the event of hardware failure, will give good overall system/data protection.

[RizaHawkeye]

Those are definitely some wonderful suggestions! I never thought of some of them! Thanks for that!

I have Spybot Search and Destroy and AntiMalwarebytes, which keep my computer clean and clear of spyware and viruses. I suggest to everyone CCleaner! It's a free program that cleans all the unneeded crap off your computer! You can choose exactly what it cleans and what it doesn't. It's wonderful! It gets all the places you never think to look, but builds up with lots of files you don't need and are sometimes harmful!

[rb]

I discourage the use of Registry cleaners. All too often they cause more problems than they solve, including hosing systems, especially for users who have limited pc troubleshooting skills to being with.

[davy]

I'm with rb on reg cleaners.

If you look through some of the pages on various boards here you will see problems that they have caused, usually a repair or a complete installation is required.

Having to use a registry cleaner is 'usually' due to some other underlying cause.

The registry is only a register... containing references to settings and values for your operating system, the programs, user profiles, document types as well as hardware etc. What goes into and comes out of your computer is noted here in the registry.

The main bugbear of problems here is usually deleting 'shared' files that other programs needs

Should you ever have to use registry cleaner, always allow it to save files before it deletes them and keep them safe just in case you discover you have problems at a later date.

davy

[rb]

Originally Posted by davy

Should you ever have to use registry cleaner, always allow it to save files before it deletes them and keep them safe just in case you discover you have problems at a later date.

davy

Better yet.... make a clone of your OS drive/partition.

But at the very least, create a backup of the registry using Windows Regedit....
Click 'Start' button, select 'Run', in the run text box type--> regedit
then Press 'Enter'.
Regedit window opens, click 'File', select Export. Select location of where you want to store the registry backup file, and type in a name for the file. Click 'Save'.