Computer Care and Maintenance

MAINTENANCE OF COMPUTERS

Computer Maintenance refers to a combination of actions carried out to retain or restore computer equipment and software to an acceptable condition.

The main function of maintenance work is to increase the longevity, reliability, productivity and profitability of equipment. Maintenance of computers includes activities such as:

• Cleaning your personal computer.
• Routinely checking for viruses and file system corruption.
• Backing up data.
• Knowing how to troubleshoot and fix problems as well as prevent problems in the first place.

One form of maintenance commonly practiced in computer departments and labs is Preventive Maintenance.

Preventive maintenance refers to performing proactive maintenance in order to prevent system problems. This is contrasted to diagnostic or corrective maintenance, which is performed to correct an already-existing problem. Taking care of your system, and establishing a preventive maintenance routine, are critical to ensuring that you have a reliable system that performs at top efficiency year after year.

Importance of Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance is one of the most ignored aspects of PC ownership. Most people seem to think that the PC doesn't need preventive maintenance, and so they use it until it breaks, and then repair or replace it. The reasons for developing a preventive maintenance plan for your PC include:

• Preventive Maintenance Saves Money: Avoiding problems with your PC will save you money in the long run, compared with spending cash for new components or repair jobs.
• Preventive Maintenance Saves Time: Maintenance saves you the much bigger hassles of dealing with system failures and data loss.
• Preventive Maintenance Helps Safeguard Your Data: The data on the hard disk is more important than the hardware that houses it. Taking steps to protect this data therefore makes sense.
• Preventive Maintenance Improves Performance: Some parts of your system will actually degrade in performance over time, and preventive maintenance will help to improve the speed of your system in that respect.

WHEN IS MAINTENANCE DONE?

Users need to perform some types of preventive maintenance more often than others. The frequency of preventive maintenance depends on the nature of the activity. PC maintenance activities are usually specified as time-based for example daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

One way of addressing this problem is through the use of a preventive maintenance schedule, which will remind you of when to perform key maintenance activities on your PC. Some software preventive maintenance activities can also be automated.

Automating Preventive Maintenance

There are software-related preventive maintenance activities that can be automated. By using system tools that automatically run programs at a specific time, you can set up your system to perform various software checks and maintenance activities without having to remember to do them yourself.

Some of the activities that can be set to run automatically include:

• Checking the file system for errors.
• Checking all hard disks for read errors.
• Scanning all hard disks and files for viruses.
• Defragmentation of all hard disk volumes.
• Backing up the computer system

Some forms of backup can be automated as well. For example, you can use a program scheduler to automatically duplicate files or directories on a nightly basis. Proper full backups cannot be truly automated because they require the backup media to be changed regularly.

Preventive Maintenance Schedule

A preventive maintenance schedule is a simple chart that shows various maintenance activities, and how often they should be done, to allow you to setup a calendar so you remember to do your preventive maintenance work.

Below is a sample preventive maintenance schedule, which includes approximate recommended time intervals for performing the various procedures. The frequency with which you perform preventive maintenance really depends on what your system is, how you use it, and what is important to you.