Spring Clean Your Computer

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• You spend a lot of money on your equipment take
  care of it and it will take care of you..

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Section 1 Before Beginning
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Are You Backed Up?

• Before starting your maintenance work make sure
  youve backed up your priceless photos and
  documents!

If you dont know how, ask a kid to show you!
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Create a Restore Point

• If you dont have Ghost, True Image or a similar
  type of full hard drive backup you will want to
  make a Restore Point just in case things go wrong.

Note Creating a Restore Point does not
necessarily mean that you will be able to restore
from all things, if something should go wrong. It
is very rudimentary, but better then nothing!.
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Creating a Restore Point
For Windows XP 1. Click Start, point to All
Programs, point to Accessories / System
Tools and click System Restore. 2. On the
Welcome page, click Create a restore point. 3.
On the Create a Restore Point page, enter a
descriptive name for your restore point and
then click Create. The Restore Point
Created page confirms that the new restore point
has been created.
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Creating a Restore Point
For Windows Vista 1. Click on Start / Computer
/ Properties / System Protection tab 2. Click on
Create button. You'll be prompted for a name
you might want to give it a useful name that
you'll be able to easily identify later.
3. Click the Create button, and then the system
will create the restore point. 4. When
it's all finished, you'll get a message saying
it's completed successfully. Now you are
ready to start your Preventive Maintenance
routine
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Section 2 Checking Backup Systems
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Data/OS Power Backups

• Check that your data/OS backup system is working.
• Is Norton Ghost, Acronis True Image, Mozy, or
  whatever your backup system - running?
• Do you see recent backup dates?

• Check that your Uninterruptible Power Supply is
  working.
• Is it on?
• Try pulling the computers power cord out of it.
  Is the computer still running?

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Section 3Air Flow
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Do you have room around your computer for air to
flow?
Check Air Flow
Deadly
Bad Not enough room for air to circulate
Good
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Here the computers have room to breathe out their
hot air!
Air Flow
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Section 4How to Clean Your Computer
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Cleaning Your Computer Case

• Clean with water, never use household detergents
  on plastic cases as they can become discolored.
• If you need to remove a stubborn stain add just a
  little detergent to a cloth and try a small
  section first.

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Cleaning Your Keyboard and Mouse

• According to a report done by ABC News in May,
  2008 your keyboard and mouse can carry a host of
  harmful bacteria - including E. coli and staph!
• You should clean the keys and mouse with rubbing
  alcohol regularly.
• Turn the keyboard upside down and spray it gently
  with compressed air a couple of times a year, too.

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Cleaning Your Keyboard

• If you spill coffee or soda on the keyboard.
• 1. Immediately flip it over so that it drains
  out onto a cloth or something and unplug it from
  the computer.
• 2. Clean up keys with water or rubbing alcohol.
  Do so while turned upside down.
• 3. After drying for 24 hours, plug back in.
• 4. If really bad, flush it clean with distilled
  water . Flip it on its back to dry and wait till
  completely dry before plugging back in.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Keeping your computer in shape with a regularly
  scheduled cleaning may prevent your system from
  going down on you. Maybe even save you a trip to
  the repairman.
• Tools youll need
• Philips screwdriver
• A can of compressed air

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Cleaning inside your computer

• How often?
• Once or twice a year for 95 of people will do
  just fine.
• If your computer is in an industrial environment
  with a lot of dust then you might need to do it
  more often.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Caked-on dust around the CPU Fan can cause
  overheating problems, such as
• Spontaneous shut downs and restarts
• Blue screens
• Erratic behavior

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Here the motherboard is covered with caked-on
  dust that can fry a motherboard.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Warning
• Disconnect the computer power from the wall
  outlet.Do not open the Power Supply EVER!
• Static
• Discharge yourself by touching the metal case.
• Avoid touching components inside the case.
• Dont use a vacuum to clean within the case.
• Water
• When using compressed air, never hold thecan on
  one component too long, keep it moving. or
  condensed water will build up.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Open the case
• If required, use a screwdriver to remove the side
  of the case.
• With most cases, the back side will have three
  screws holding the cases side panel on. Remove
  them.

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Cleaning inside your computer
Pull away the side panel.
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Cleaning inside your computer

• Start with the power supply.
• Blow compressed air into the fan/s of the power
  supply.
• There may be a fan on the bottom of the power
  supply too.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Now spray the case fans, both front and back.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Air vents in the front of the computer are often
  missed when dusting around the house.
• Do this one often.

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Cleaning inside your computer

• Use short bursts of 2 or 3 seconds only on the
  motherboard. The compressed air can produce ice
  which turns to liquid on the parts if you do more
  then 2 or 3 second bursts.

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Parts Identification
gt
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Cleaning Laptops
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Cleaning Laptops

• Hold fan with a pencil while spraying. If you
  dont you may damage it.

• Spray through the exhaust ports on the outside.

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Cleaning Laptops

• If you can easily open the fan compartments like
  below, go ahead, but only if you are comfortable
  in doing so.
• Always remove the battery before working inside a
  laptop.
• Be careful to watch where the parts go back in
  when youre done!

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Cleaning Monitors

• The next tips apply to
• Laptop Screens
• LCDs
• HDTVs
• Projection TVs
• Plasma TVs

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Cleaning Monitors

• Never spray liquid directly onto the screen. It
  can drip down and inside the monitor.
• Instead moisten your cloth with the cleaning
  solution.

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Cleaning Monitors

• Always use a soft cloth, (old cotton T-shirt) or
  micro fiber cloth. Some materials, such as paper
  towels, toilet paper, or old dirty rags, can
  cause scratches and damage the screen.
• Be careful on your first pass over, remove all
  the big dirt lightly or you'll get scratches.

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Cleaning Monitors

• Do not use household cleaners that contain any of
  the following agents
• Acetone
• Ethyl alcohol
• Toluene
• Ethyl acid
• Ammonia
• Methyl chloride

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Cleaning Monitors

• So how do you clean an LCD monitor screen
  without buying one of those expensive bottled
  cleaning solutions?

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Cleaning Monitors

• Make your own solution for cleaning LCD monitors.
• Mix in a bottle
• 50 Distilled water
• 50 Isopropyl alcohol.

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Section 5 Strengthen Your Hard Drives Health
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Run CHKDSK Utility

• Heres a tip that could save you from losing your
  data and maybe a trip to the repairman.
• Run Check Disk twice a year.
• Takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hrs depending
  on the size and speed of the hard drive.
• CHKDSK scans your hard drive checking for and
  correcting a wide range of hard drive problems
  such as
• Bad sectors and damaged or unusable areas of the
  hard drive which it marks and prevents your
  computer from using in the future.
• It also automatically checks and fixes file
  system errors that could cripple the computer.
• Be sure to always run this before defragging.

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Run CHKDSK Utility

• To run CHKDSK in Vista
• Click on Start
• Computer
• Right-click on hard drive
• Properties

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Run CHKDSK Utility

• Click on Tools Tab
• Check Now Button
• Checkmark both disk options.
• Click Start

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Section 6Speeding Up Your Computer
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Remove Un-Needed System Tray Apps

• Those icons down by the clock represent programs
  that start up as your computer boots.
• Many are not needed and slow your computer down.
• Open msconfig to remove these unwanted startup
  programs.
• Go to Start
• Run (in XP) in Vista use the search bar)
• Type msconfig
• Click the Startup tab.

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Remove Un-Needed System Tray Apps

• Uncheck the box next to the ones you don't need.
  You can start them yourself when you need them.
• Do not uncheck ones of these types -
• Microsoft Windows Operating System
• Your Anti-Virus
• You can safely uncheck ones with these words in
  them.
• Adobe
• AOL
• iTunes
• Instant Messenger
• Realplayer
• Office
• OpenOffice

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Defrag Hard Drive

• A disk defragmenter rearranges fragmented data on
  your hard drive so it can work more efficiently
  (quickly).
• There are many out there, both paid and free,
  that can do this. My only advice is dont use
  Vistas defragmenter, because it is as slow as
  molasses, and a big step backward from XPs
  built-in one.
• For a free defragmenter look at
• Power Defragmenter 3.0 (freeware) for XP and
  Vista
• Note It requires Contig by Sysinternals to run,
  (also freeware) which it will install
  automatically.
• For a paid solution look at one called -
• Diskkeeper 2009 - Costs 29.95 for personal use.

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XPs Built-in Disk Defragmenter

• To run go to -
• Start
• All Programs
• Accessories
• System Tools
• Disk Defragmenter
• Note
• Run in Safemode

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• Fragmented areas are in red.
• Before
  After

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Registry Cleaners

• When it comes to registry cleaners, my motto is
  If it ain't broke, dont fix it.Mess with the
  registry and it will mess with you!

• System Mechanic, Regcure, WinCleaner etc. all
  sound great, but every once in a while I get a
  computer in that does not work anymore because
  someone used one to clean their registry.
• So, do I ever say you should you use one? Yes.
• If your computer is running slow and you have
  done all the other mentioned steps in this
  presentation to speed it up, such as adding
  memory, defragging, deleting system tray apps,
  etc., then back up your system and go for it.

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Section 7 Identify Needed Upgrades
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Should You Upgrade?

• First, is it worth upgrading?
• If its over 7 years old(2002)no, its probably
  not worth upgrading. Its most likely cheaper to
  buy a new computer.
• Is the Processor (CPU) really old? (Pentium 4 2.5
  GHz or older). If so, then it is best to buy a
  new computer.

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Check Processor (CPU) Capacity

• Go to -
• Start
• Rightclick Computer
• Properties

gt
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Check Processor (CPU) Capacity

• Minimum to run smoothly (in most situations). If
  less then minimum do not upgrade, buy a new PC.

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Check Memory Capacity
Minimum to run smoothly XP - 1GB or more Vista -
2GBs Windows 7 - 2GBs
System Type32bit systems have a limit of 3GBs of
memory.
gt
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Check Hard Drive Capacity

• Make sure you have plenty of hard drive space
  available for the future.
• Very low free space can cause your computer to
  run slow so make sure you have at least 25 free.
• Click on Start
• Computer (My Computer)
• Right-click on C drive
• Properties

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The End