Technology

Computer 101: Top Tips To Keep Your Machine Running Smoothly

Living with computers can make life a lot easier and a lot more complicated. Most people are having to use these machines nowadays, with the productivity and ease of use they provide being well worth having them around. Of course, though, computers don’t always work as expected, and this can be hard to deal with when you don’t like doing anything more than using your computer for chores.

To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some top tips which will help you to keep your machine running smoothly, without having to throw loads of your precious time at it.

Security & Viruses

Operating systems like Windows have gotten much better at dealing with viruses than they used to be. The built-in security software you find on these platforms are usually more than enough to keep you protected, though you will have to do a little bit of work to make sure that this is being handled correctly. To start, your anti-virus software needs to be kept up to date, and this may have to be a manual process. Alongside this, you also need to make sure that weekly scans are in place, as this will do a lot to keep you protected.

Keeping your machine secure is also going to take some work. Your password will be easy to guess if it is the same on every site you use, and this makes it well worth working to change them every couple of months or so. This will be different if you use your face to login to your machine, but it’s still worth thinking about security and the ways that people might gain access to your machine.

Data & Backups

It doesn’t take much to wipe all of the data from a machine like a laptop. Simply spilling a drink on your machine can be enough to kill it, and this can leave you without the photographs, important documents, and other files which you treasure. Devices like the Memory SafeX can solve this for you. Working as an automatic backup device, it will keep all of your files stored securely and offline, ensuring that people don’t have access to them. You can check it out here, and it’s well worth reading some of the reviews to see if it could work for you.

Alongside this, it also makes sense to avoid keeping sensitive data on a machine which connects to the web all the time. Not all viruses are easy to pick up, with a lot of modern examples being designed to be almost unnoticeable as they do their work. This can leave your data in the open if you’re not careful. If you want to store confidential information digitally, it will be worth using external storage which can be disconnected from the web for it.

Speed

Keeping a machine running quickly is one of the hardest parts of computer use. As time goes on, your machine will slowly get bogged down with files, programs, and other things which will make it perform poorly. This can be hard to overcome, and can force people to buy new machines when they don’t need to. Running regular clean ups with the built-in software which came with your operating system should be enough for this.

It’s rarely worth downloading software from the web to help you with this. Most of the options which claim to speed up your PC will actually serve to slow it down, and this can force you to buy something new even faster. If your machine is truly too slow to live with, it could be worth looking to start fresh with a new version of your operating system, as this will clean up all of the bad stuff nice and quickly. Of course, though, you will need to backup your files before you approach something like this.

Cleaning

The components inside a computer use a lot of power, and much of this is turned into heat. Some processors will easily reach more than 80 degrees, and will slow down when they reach this point to make sure that they don’t overheat. Throttling can make a machine very slow. Unfortunately, though, not a lot of people realize that the most common cause of this is dust build up inside their machine. This makes it worth using a can of compressed air to dust your PC from time to time, using the instructions you find online to make the process easier.

Cleaning a computer can be a risky process. Vacuum cleaners can cause static electricity to build up, and this can damage your components. Alongside this, water will short your computer’s parts, and this means that you will either want to keep your cleaning dry or use alternatives like alcohol to clean the machine. One of the biggest risks you’ll face is breaking the components physically. While computers have become more robust over the years, they are still very sensitive, and this makes it well worth working hard to keep your actions gentle as you go through this process.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of keeping your computer running smoothly. A lot of people struggle with this sort of work, finding it hard to know what needs to be done when they are trying to improve their computer. In reality, though, the work you do in this area doesn’t have to be difficult, as long as you’re willing to do it regularly.

 

One thought on “Computer 101: Top Tips To Keep Your Machine Running Smoothly

  • External hard drives are a good way to back up your data offline. You can store your data on the hard drive and then disconnect it from your computer when you are not using it.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *