Spring Cleaning For Your Computer

By Bonnie Boots

Spring and the New Year call us all to a fresh start and just like the rest of your world, your computer needs an occasional good cleaning. So as you go around your home and office, shaking out the old year’s dust, don’t forget to shake out the digital dust and get your most important tool in good shape for a prosperous new year.

Computer techs have told me they see more computers destroyed by dust and debris than by viruses. Static electricity makes computers are magnets for dust, which collects around the processor and power supply. This can have disastrous consequences if it’s not occasionally cleaned out.

One technician told me about a computer whose case was so filled with cat hair that it blocked the fan. When the fan stopped running, tender computer parts overheated and burned out, transforming a $1200 computer into a doorstop.

Lesson number one, then, is don’t let your cat sleep by your computer. Sure, puss likes the warmth emitted by the buzzing box, but won’t a heating pad make a more affordable cat bed?

Lesson number two is learning how to open your computer case and blow out the dust. It’s a simple task that can be done in minutes once or twice a year. Your reward can be longer life for your personal computer.

To clean your computer, you’ll need to make a trip to an office supply store for a can of compressed air, a monitor cleaning cloth and cleaning solution and, unless you already own one, a screwdriver small enough to handle the tiny screws that secure the case cover. The entire shopping list will cost about $15.

1.Turn off your computer.

2.Remove the side cover of the computer case. You may need to lay your computer on its side to do this. Don’t worry. Your files won’t fall out of their folders!

3.Unless you’re familiar with computer innards, don’t touch anything. Don’t be afraid of it, but don’t touch it.

4. Read the directions on the can of compressed air before you begin. Now go back and really read the instructions on the can of compressed air before you begin! GENTLY shoot compressed air from the can at everything inside the computer. Hold the nozzle of the can about six inches away and at an angle, so that air does not shoot at computer parts head on. Shoot air in short bursts, rather than a prolonged spray. Pay special attention to the fan as this collects a lot of dust.

5. Close the case cover, tighten the case screws and your dusting is done. If you live with a lot of hairy pets, you may have just saved yourself the cost of a new computer.

While your computer is still off, use the computer cleaning cloth and solution to clean fingerprints and dust off the screen of your monitor.

1.Spray the solution on the cloth, not on the screen

2.Rub the screen gently in a circular pattern. Pressing too hard can damage some LCD screens. LCD screens can also be damaged by regular glass cleaner, so be certain to sue a cleaning solution prepared for computers.

Your keyboard is one part of your computer that needs to be cleaned far more often than once a year. The keyboard collects oil from your hands and food spills from your lunch. I clean mine once a month. It takes no longer than 5 minutes.

1.Disconnect the keyboard cable from the computer.

2.Turn the keyboard upside down and give it a firm smack on your desktop to knock out accumulated muffin crumbs and dirt.

3.Use the can of compressed air, again—held at an angle—to blow dust and debris out of the keyboard. Spray in a crisscross pattern to be sure you hit the keys from all angles.

4.Use damp—not wet but damp—cleaning cloth to wipe dirt and fingerprints off the keys. Isopropyl alcohol makes a good cleaning agent for this task because it evaporates so quickly.

5. Reconnect the keyboard cable.

(Do NOT, as a friend of mine once did, put a really dirty keyboard under the showerhead. Water is not your computer’s friend!)

As you can see, physical cleaning of your computer takes mere minutes. If your computer is exposed to tobacco smoke, pet dander or more than average dust and debris, you should certainly clean it out 3 or 4 times a year.

Now it’s time to turn your computer back on and get busy cleaning out the digital dust and debris that’s piled up over the past year.

You’ve undoubtedly noticed that the more you use a Windows-based computer, the more it slows down. Over time, things like Windows services and fixes, start-up programs, adware, spyware and other hidden files can slow your computer to a crawl.

Luckily, a little cleaning is usually all that’s needed to put the pep back into your personal computer. Windows comes with a collection of housecleaning tools that will do most of the work for you. Other tools can be downloaded free from the internet. All are easy to use.

The first thing I recommend you do to speed up your computer’s performance is to clean out your hard drive. Computers make it too easy to become a pack rat. And cleaning up the mess can be hard. Be prepared to spend actual hours going through your files one by one, decided what must be kept and what can be discarded. I make this task easier for myself by burning files I’m going to discard to a disc. I rarely go back and retrieve one of these files. But just knowing I can makes it easier for me to be ruthless when it comes to cleaning out old data.

As you clean out all those unneeded old files, organize your file system. I do this twice a year, without fail. I’m always amazed at how many valuable things I have that I’ve forgotten about. And how many product ideas I develop by making myself newly aware of what I have. This is the place to forget everything you’ve read about “how to organize” and simply do whatever works best for you. We all have our own unique ways of thinking and working, and the whole idea of personalizing your computer is to set it up so it works for you.

One of the things I love most about computers is that they let me file any single document under any number of folders. This is important to me when I’m using the same file in several different projects. But over time, it means I end up with many duplicate copies I no longer need. You undoubtedly have duplicate files taking up valuable hard drive space on your system. There are many good freeware tools that will find and destroy duplicate files. You can find the one that’s right for your operating system by typing, “search for duplicate files” into Google.

After you’ve cleaned up and cleaned out your old files, it’s time to take out the trash. Windows saves everything; every temporary file, program installer and browser cache is stashed away on your hard drive until you tell windows to clean it out.  This is where Windows Disk Cleanup tools come in handy.

If you’re using windows XP, go to your Start menu. Go to Programs, then to Accessories and then to System Tools.  Click on “Disc Cleanup.”  Select the drive you want to clean up. Disk Cleanup’s dialogue box will let you choose which items you want to delete. Make your selections and the program will get busy finding files it can delete or compress. If your really ant to keep unneeded files from overrunning your system, run Disc Cleanup every month or so.

Now it’s time to defrag that drive. I never cease to be amazed at how many people don’t even know they should do this.  Or why.

The discs in your hard drive are actual discs that look a little like CDs. And like re-writable CD's the discs in your computer are used to write and store data. When you install new programs onto your hard drive, or create new files, they are written, literally, onto these discs. Most of the time they are written as one continuous block of data without any gaps.

The exceptions are certain files that must be stored in specific locations. Install files for new software is one example of a file that may be chopped up into blocks and stored, a bit of it here and another bit of it over there. That kind of “ a bit here, a bit there” storage is called fragmentation.

Over time, then, as you install and delete files, you end up with bits of files stuck all over the place.

Why is this bad? Imagine trying to read a book where the chapters aren’t set in numerical order. You read chapter 1, then look around to find chapter 2 toward the back of the book. You flip through for ten minutes before your find chapter 3. It would take you twice as long to read such a book.

In the same way, it takes Windows twice as long to read data that’s fragmented. That’s why it’s important to defrag your hard drive. The built-in Windows defrag tool gathers all the fragments scattered about and collects them into one place on one of the discs, freeing up new disc space and making it faster to find and open your files.

To defrag your computer in Windows XP, go to your Start menu. Click on All Programs, then on Accessories, then on System Tools. In System Tools, click on Disc Defragmenter. Tell it, through menu selection, which drive you wish to defrag. (The main drive in your computer is always the C drive.)

How long it takes to defrag your hard drive will depend on the size of your drive and how long it’s been since you’ve defragged. If you have a drive over 8 gigs or so and you’ve never defragged, be prepared for this program to run all night.

Please note: Microsoft says it’s OK to use your computer while you defrag, but it’s really not. In actual practice, you will not be able to use your computer while you are defragging. This is why it’s best to set defrag to run overnight, especially if you’ve never defragged your drive or haven’t done it in quite a while.

Here’s something to remember about defragging. Before defragging, you need to create as much free space as possible so windows can fully optimize the new layout of your files. That’s why it’s important to clean out and re-organize old files and run Disc Cleanup before you run Disk Defragmenter.

If you haven’t paid much attention to computer maintenance, this simple plan for spring cleaning will leave your computer running so much faster, you may be amazed. You may even find yourself putting off plans to buy a new system. Imagine—starting out the new year by saving money.

 
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