Basic Computer Maintenance Tips

This section will present you the basic stuff you need to do, to ensure that your Computer serves you as well as it was designed to, for as long as it was built to last. Unlike most other equipment you purchase, a Computer (this definition includes Desktops as well as Notebooks) will continue to work for as long as you wish, provided you are careful about the basic steps we outline in these sections and provided you upgrade your Computer (in terms of Memory and/ or Hard Disk capacity), as and when required.

What will happen however is that 3 or 4 years after your purchase of the Computer, you will find it becoming increasingly incapable of running some of the latest applications and operating systems. At that point of time, you would be faced with the question of whether you need to upgrade your machine or dump it for a brand-new, faster, bigger machine!

Other sections at WellOiledPC will address the questions, "Do I upgrade or purchase a new Computer?", "Do I buy a new Desktop or Notebook?", "Do I buy an Assembled Desktop or a Branded Desktop?", "What software do I need to have at the bare minimum?", etc., apart from the pages upon pages of facts on how to run a safe, secure Computer. Other sections will also present you with the customized, chargeable services that we at WellOiledPC undertake, for Home Computer users, for Computer-using organizations as well as for vendors of Computer products/ services.

However, this is the section that presents you with the absolutely basic norms you need to take to ensure that your Computer runs the way it was designed to run, for as long as possible.

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Make sure your Desktop or Notebook PC is placed ideally	Dust, Heat, Cold, Moisture, Hard physical knocks… these are all bad for Desktops as well as Notebook PCs. As a precaution; Do not run PCs in ambient temperatures above 50 Degrees Celsius. Your PC's components generate a lot of heat. This heat cannot be expelled properly if the ambient temperature is high and would therefore lead to component breakdowns. Do not run your PCs in ambient temperatures below 0 Degrees Celsius. Your PC contains Printed Circuit Boards, which are not designed to run at very cold temperatures. Component failures would again result if you attempt to run your PC in very cold climates Do not run PCs in places where the Relative Humidity is 95% or above. Water Vapor causes degradation of the Processors and other electronic components of your PC, including the Hard Disk, Memory and CD/ DVD-ROM Drives. If you do not pay heed to this, you could end up with a crashed PC due to failed components. In case you use Desert Coolers to bring down the ambient temperature in hot and dry climates (such as in North India), make sure that the blast of water vapor-laden air is never directed straight at your PC! Dust is a silent villain - it strikes suddenly, leaving you with no clue as to what could have gone wrong with your PC! Thankfully many a time, a Desktop PC can be rectified by opening its cabinet, blowing the dust away with a vacuum cleaner or dry cloth and fixing the Motherboard and other components back in again. Our advise though is, "Don't push your luck too far!"
Make sure the Power Supply to your Desktop is good	Your PC needs clean power. Black-outs (no power), Brown-outs (low-voltage power), Surges (prolonged high-voltage power), Spikes (sudden and temporary bursts of high-voltage power) and sudden and temporary bursts of low-voltage power – these can suddenly snuff out your PC. At best, it would still subtract from the life of your PC. So if the power to your PC isn’t clean, you need to put in a good UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) For a Desktop PC, a recommended UPS should have at least 600 VA rating, with the Output Voltage matching the standard domestic supply voltage norms of your country. Notebooks are a lot less susceptible to Power Supply woes, since they run off a battery. The best way to charge & discharge a Notebook’s battery are discussed at the end of this Table. You also need to ensure that the supply to your PC is a Sine Wave DC Supply, at the frequency specified by your country's Electricity department. Anything that is not a Sine Wave power supply will slowly degrade your PC Components' life. Check out the different kinds of Electric Supply waveforms at the end of this page.
Use Authentic, Legal Software alone	Illegal/ Pirated software may not work at all, may not be complete, may not be free from viruses and will definitely not be supported by its manufacturer. You would therefore not be eligible for upgrades and patches released from time to time by the manufacturer. Besides, you could face legal action, if you cannot prove that you purchased the software that you use on your PC! When you plan to purchase a PC, you must factor in the budget for all software that you need to run. More about Software in the link Software for your PC, in the Left Panel.
Keep an eye out for any unusual behavior by your PC. When you notice anything unusual, study the symptoms and consult an expert, if the symptom does not go away	There are many varied reasons for unusual PC behavior, ranging from a few accidentally deleted files to Viruses and Spyware. Just as you need to convey the symptoms of a disease to even the best physician, you need to convey the symptoms of your 'PC's disease' to the PC technician - do not leave it to his observation skills! Its Your PC, You need it to be functioning normally much more than he or she does!
Make it second-nature to you, that you do not open mail with a suspicious Subject line or a suspiciously-named attachment. Especially mail sent by strangers!	If you use free e-Mail solutions such as Yahoo, GMail, Hotmail etc., this is less of a worry, for these organizations are very large. They have put in a great deal of protection at their end, so that their customers, people like you and me, are not exposed to unnecessary risks from e-Mail borne viruses and Spyware. In case you access your organization’s e-Mail domain, you must ensure that you do not open mail from unknown sources, containing suspicious attachments: you could end up bringing down the entire organization by doing so! The IT Department of your organization should ensure that Viruses, Spyware programs as well as plain, harmless Spam, are minimized as much as possible. This is a constant task and not one that can be taken for granted, 365 days of the year, though. You can contribute by not opening suspicious mail and by reporting such mail to the right personnel, who would then put up the necessary filters to block off such mail from inundating the organization.

Best Practices in charging and discharging Notebooks

One of the main attractions of a Notebook is the mobility it gives the user. So much so, that you do not need wires for connecting to the Internet (thanks to built-in Wi-Fi) and you can work on the Notebook without the need to be plugged into an electric socket. For may users - both corporate as well as home users, these factors overrule the fact that a similarly-configured Desktop would cost much less. And, that maintaining a Notebook is at least 15% costlier than maintaining a Desktop. And that you have very few options for upgrading a Notebook, while you have many, many options for upgrading a Desktop. And, if you are looking for a power-packed performer, a Notebook could cost more than twice a Desktop with the same power!

For a detailed comparison of what you should buy - a Notebook or a Desktop, click this link - Notebook or Desktop?

If you prefer a Notebook over a Desktop, you ought to be interested in the best practices for ensuring that it's battery lasts the full course - a replacement battery costs good money!

Today's Notebooks come with Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Batteries, while older Notebooks came with the Nickel-Cadmium Rechargeable ones. Whatever be the technology behind your Notebook's battery, you should know that it is designed for a certain number of charge-discharge cycles - usually about 2,500 cycles. Hence if you charge-discharge your Notebook daily, that works out to less than 7 years. Sounds Great?? Not quite - for, well before you reach the second year of the Notebook Battery's life, its capacity to charge diminishes. You would therefore be forced to charge-discharge more than once daily. An entry-level Notebook's battery therefore lasts no more than 3 years even when it is used very, very carefully.

Now, what you need to do, right from Day - 1, is to ensure that you use each charge-discharge cycle to the maximum. In other words, charge the battery to 100%, then switch off the power supply - let the battery drain off as much as possible (while you work, of course!!). Your Notebook will go into Hibernation when the charge in its battery goes down to your pre-set level - at that point, you must of course plug it back into the mains and let it charge up to 100% again.

While the Ideal Usage graph (in Dark Blue line) has charged and discharged the Battery 3 times in the graph shown here, the Non-Ideal Usage graph (in Dark Red line) shows that the Notebook has been charged and discharged 6 times during the same period. Hence, the user adopting the 'Not Ideal' way would only get about half the life that the 'Ideal' user gets from his Notebook battery!

Now, this is of course the ideal way for prolonging your Notebook's Battery life. You would obviously not be able to let it drain off completely or let it hibernate each time it is due for charging - you could be in the midst of a file download, in the midst of important work, you could be going off to a client to make a big presentation, where it would just not do to have to charge your battery...

The recommended practice is therefore to let your Notebook's Battery drain off until it hibernates, once a week. On other days, you may begin charging it before it drops down to hibernation levels.

AC Electric Power Waveforms

Sine Waveforms are 'clean power' that your PC loves to eat, while Square waves (and other forms of waves) aren't liked by your PC at all, since they could damage your PC's components. Check out whether the UPS you plan to purchase has a Sine Wave output or at least a Quasi-Sine Wave output