I bought the car I currently drive when it was five years old but with only 5000 km on the clock. The previous owner had had the car serviced yearly on schedule, which means that it had been serviced about every 1000 km. It was like buying a new car but for half the price! I guess there are two types of people in the world: those who use something until it breaks and then get it repaired (or not), and those who take better care of something so that it’s less likely to break and, when it does, hopefully it's a lesser job to get it repaired. As it is with cars, so it is with computers.
One of the services offered by Norm’s Computer Services is a thorough health check on your computer. Normally this involves the following steps.
1. Check the health of your hard drive. It’s always a good idea to replace your hard drive before it fails completely as you risk losing your files in the event of a total failure. If you do need a new hard drive this also potentially provides you with the opportunity to upgrade to a much faster Solid State Drive (SSD). You can read all about this upgrade in an earlier blog post here.
2. Clean up your hard disk. This involves removing unnecessary files and clutter and freeing up valuable space.
3. Check for malware, viruses and other intrusions. Some viruses make their presence fairly obvious because of how they affect the performance of your computer. Others lurk under the surface and you may not even be aware of their presence. You may have antivirus software running on your computer, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fully protected.
4. Uninstall unnecessary software. The older your computer is, the more likely it is that you have applications and software which you no longer use, or which you may not even be aware you’ve installed. It’s always good to streamline things and remove whatever you no longer need.
5. Optimise your computer’s startup. Some of the software you have on your computer will have set itself to launch automatically when you start up the computer. This means you’re likely to have software unnecessarily consuming your computer’s resources. Optimising the startup will mean that you have more CPU capacity and memory available for the things you actually want to do.
6. Check the processes and services running in the background. The purpose of this check is to see if there are any anomalies or rogue software running under the surface.
7. Clear your internet browser caches. This will result in your browsers running more efficiently and securely.
If you think it's time to have your computer’s health checked and its performance tuned up, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Norm’s Computer Services. I'm here to help, whether you’re in Brisbane, or anywhere in the City of Ipswich, Logan City or the Redlands. I cover a wide range of suburbs.