Keeping Your PC Healthy - Manifest

This thread is for people to share tips and methods on keeping your computer (PC, Mac, Commodore, etc) healthy and in excellent working order.

Here are some things I do to keep my computers in nice health, and have performance optimized.

Windows:

Defragment your hard drive Regularly. This helps things running smoothly and fast. It also clears up space, and organizes files on your hard drive. (Notice difference that the pathnames and directories are not affected.)
Disk Cleanup regularly. This frees up a lot of space. Doing this once a week could help your PC run faster and easier, and clearing up your PC's sinuses as it does so.
Have a good AV piece of software. I personally recommend avast! AntiVirus. Having a good AntiVirus program helps keep your PC protected and secured. Also remember, that common sense on the internet helps.
Keep junk programs to a minimum. You know what this is, keeping those ugly ads, Toolbars-for-, offers, and programs you don't use off your computer. This helps your PC run fast and smooth, also freeing up unnecessarily used space, and keeps your registry clean as well.
Keep start-up items to a low. Keep things that aren't absolutely needed out of the startup folder, or things that you can just run after bootup when the computer has had a chance to get a steady breath going. Having a lot of startup items has proven to slow down a computer tremendously, and even have the machine come to a screeching halt when it comes time to press the power button.
Background programs. Having loads of things running in the background (ex, things in your taskbar) or having things run idle seriously robs your system of resources and your processor's speed. Keep these things low. Done using an app? Exit, don't let it run in the background. A common example is LimeWire. When done using it, exit. It helps.
Stay up to date. Yes we know that one of Windows' many infamies are the Updates put out for it by Microsoft. But remember that they are there for a reason. Keep up to date to get the most secure and optimum performance out of your PC.

Let's hear what else you do to keep your PC working the way you want it to.

#480984

Add on cleaning the registry every now and then, and running CCleaner.

#480997

back up at least once a month, especially near signs of degradation or instability. You can always clear a fair amount of disk space by switching system restore off and on, therefore deleting all old save points.

#481016

Spyware scans maybe?

And I reinstall my OS every 6 months.

Is that too much?

#481027

Stay out of porn sites

#481035

I'd like to add;

- defragmentation isnt as good as everyone thinks it to be. It was useful during the days of slow HDs, but now it only need be done every month max. Over defragmenting is not recommended... best approach

click "analyse" in defragmenter, if it says "you should defragment" then do. If it says "you do not need to" then dont!

- disk cleanup is good specially for cleaning out nasty cookies/spyware/junk. i agree.

- As for anti-virus. stick with AVG free. its lightweight, uninvasive and offers good protection without watching you *cough* Norton *cough*.

- Yep. Know what programs you install, and uninstall the ones you dont need. (using the uninstall program, dont just delete)

In terms of crapware- if you've just bought a new PC- "Add/Remove programs" in the control panel. remove everything. lol.

Also- modification programs will slow ur system (eg- RKLauncher, avedesk). True emulation uses lots of system resources.

- Startup items- go to start>run and type "msconfig". go to the last two tabs and untick ones you know you dont need. Be careful not to untick system related ones as u can screw up ur system. But if its called "ispy easy web toolbar" (or the like) get rid of it! (also programs like quicktime, office, realplayer etc do not need to be ran at startup).

- Background items. Yep ctrl+alt+del to get rid of ones still open (programs dont always close tidily). . . if theres always some annoying program running in the background using lots of memory then repeat the point above.

- Avoid windows update...unless u hav genuine windows ... WGA! (windows genuine advantage, anti-software piracy tool is virtually spyware). GAHH!!!

@ZEROCOOL> good advice ... add crack, serial and keygen sites to that. and anything that has a warning in google.

BEST ADVICE:

Learn how to backup and format (and reinstall windows) on your hard drive. its an invaluable skill and will give ur computer new life with each one.

its always a hassle reinstalling programs and copying accross files- but well worth it.

I recommend that you create a multi-partition hard drive. Have the small partition for the system files (AKA- windows, documents and settings, program files etc) and the other partition for YOUR stuff.

then when u want to reinstall windows- just wipe the system partition and leave your partition intact.

Do your research first- I take no responsibility if you mistakenly wipe everything from ur drive.

You will need- all software you need to run. your "stuff". Your browser bookmarks/favourites. certain program settings/ files.

#481044

May I just give you a good link : http://www.tweakxp.com/

#481052

Levi's BEST advice is the most used one by me, lol

And defragmenting is very useful. Especially if you're constantly moving large files to and fro the hdd (eg, downloading lots of music and movies), defragmenting becomes necessary at least once a week. And the default windows defragmenter sucks, really. My tip would be to use JkDefrag, much better than most paid apps like PerfectDisk as well as the default crap. It also has options that allow you to sort files on the basis of filenames, etc: very useful if you have a partition full of programs that you want to start faster.

Also, I'd like to give my way of partitioning, one 5-6 Gb partition for system files and virtual memory; one 10-15 GB one for all apps; and a really large one for data. I find this saves me time each time I reinstall/reformat my system.

#481073

Being a guy who is making his way switching from Desktops to Laptops, I keep all my (Music, Movies, Backups, Downloads, Installers, whatever) on large externals. I do backups regularly, and archive sensable data (such as iTunes playlist info & album art, for example). Then, after say 5 months, and I could use a fresh OS, I could take half a day to do so and have everything back up and running in about an hour.

Externals also help because I can move them computer to computer, and everything inbetween. Networked Drives are also helpful with this.

So basically, only Operating Systems and the programs that go with it are stored locally on my machines. Everything else is on externals.

#481083

Well, you can search for spyware by using Ad-Aware software. It searches the whole PC for spyware and viruses. I give it a two thumbs up. Download it at: http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2007/3000....html?tag=lst-1

#481085

my regimen is tad paranoid, but my pc has been running XP for 4 years without a reinstall, using hard drives that are 6 years old. Maybe you can get some ideas from it…

1. I leave it running 24/7. Power cycling your pc (turning it on/off) may actually wear out hard drives and the mobo faster than just leaving them on.

2. Between 1-5 am the computer is scheduled to heal itself. It does a nightly defrag, quick virus scan, virus signature update, and incremental data backup of my documents, pictures, and mods to an external drive.

3. I keep the operating system, data, swap file and downloads folder on separate partitions across two discs.

4. I use Norton Ghost to make backup images of the operating system partition to an external drive, perhaps every 2-3 months.

5. I use an all in one security suite called Blink from eEye security. Currently you can download a free one year trial version here:

http://www.eeye.com/html/consumer/products...load/index.html. It is a HIPS system that protects against zero day exploits. It requires some configuration; not the easiest solution, but I believe one of the best.

6. Also, as said above, its good to install xp updates by hand. Running auto updates exposes your computer to Microsoft's WGA tomfoolery

(phoning home, etc).

This regimen is for my home desktop which holds all my critical data. I don’t do all this with my laptop(s).

#481089

....add crack, serial and keygen sites to that. and anything that has a warning in google.

That too, those are the most important parts that help the PC running smoothly

#481101

All my machines are left on 24/7. They are always on.

#481111

i agree with ertai88, just clearing the slate every 6 or so months, keeps everything fresh and fast,

#481114

rjohnstone might back me up on this too, clearing your os every 6 months doesn't really help. I've tried it, and if you just make sure you don't fiddle with it, it'll run fine for longer than that, i've not touched mine for a year and a bit . I'm sure if the programmers meant for you to reformat every 6 months, they'd have made it easier for newer users.

i agree mostly with the first post, but an antivirus program isn't really necessary for everyone. I used to have mine running all the time and it sucked the life out of my system. Now i run it about once every 2 weeks, and when i update it and come back after 3 hours, i get "0 threats detected" all the time.

A good idea is to read what the heck you're installing. Uncheck "install this toolbar", and "run on startup" and "create desktop/quicklaunch shortcut". I've seen my sister double click an installer and rapidly hit next through 8 steps of installation, it doesn't help when you're THAT lazy, i don't spend the time to read the license agreement, granted. But i do make sure i'm not adding some extra crap i don't need.

Take the time to find out what is launching at startup, and figure out how to disable it. Quicktime is a good example, go to properties and uncheck "install tray icon", it saves you just a teeny bit of memory for your new game or w/e to use. It only needs to be done once, and will save you so much time. It may seem a bit anally retentive behaviour now, but it'll stop you from spending around 5 hours every 6 months reformatting and installing...

#481118

//Thread Stickied.

Nice topic .

-NC

#481144

Ahhh, cool .

Thanks, NC!

_________

Here's something; about every 2 months or so I do 'inventory' of my installed software on my machines. Then I purge out all the ones that have become inactive to me, bloatware, or ones that aren't worth using anymore.

Frees up space, keeps the registry relatively neat, and your computer up and fast to its potential.

#481147

As soon as I get my two 1GB's for $20 tomorrow (Black Friday Sale) then I'm going to reformat the computer. I think I'll be reformatting after almost one year.

#481148

That too, those are the most important parts that help the PC running smoothly

my advice, search for PC cracks using a mac or just go to a torrent site and well... download whole freeware packages

#481157

Isn't getting a Mac just so you can search for PC cracks that save you money is overkill, isn't it?

#481179

^agreed...just install linux on the already-owned PC.

#481181

All my machines are left on 24/7. They are always on.

That's a criminal waste of energy and no good advice at all, to nobody.

1. Remember that 60% of every kWh comes from fossil, not renewable sources of energy.

2. Computers that couldn't stand to be shut down daily have vanished from history along with their vacuum tubes.

#482066

That's a criminal waste of energy and no good advice at all, to nobody.
1. Remember that 60% of every kWh comes from fossil, not renewable sources of energy.

2. Computers that couldn't stand to be shut down daily have vanished from history along with their vacuum tubes.

Yep, knew someone was gonna say that. I got solar panels on my house

#482073

That's a criminal waste of energy and no good advice at all, to nobody.
1. Remember that 60% of every kWh comes from fossil, not renewable sources of energy.
2. Computers that couldn't stand to be shut down daily have vanished from history along with their vacuum tubes.

point taken. if that's a law in New Jersey, USA, I'll quit doing it. But not before noting that Al Gore runs three 30" monitors and a widescreen TV simultaneously. If people are so gung ho about saving energy, I recommend we use one monitor each and return to the use of the abacus (not Vista compatible).

#482092

Yep, knew someone was gonna say that. I got solar panels on my house

thats even more terrible! just because we have a lot of it doesn't mean solar power is renewable!! what a waste of a ray of sunshine!!

#482093