FREE Basic Computer Maintenance Instructions

 

DISCLAIMER: These instructions are in no way fool-proof or all encompassing. In no way should these instructions be relied upon as a guarantee that you will not accidentally damage your computer or lose data. Always regularly back up your data.

PCR no longer provides computer "tune up" service. All too often the root cause of a slow computer is a more complex problem such as viruses, system damage from viruses, etc. If these steps fail to get your computer running fast again, then a software repair or reinstalling Windows may be the solution.

 

1 ) Is your hard drive getting full?  Let's see.... START > My Computer > hold mouse over the drive and right click "properties" > "General" tab If you've only got 25% of disk space remaining then you need to start thinking about freeing up space by deleting and / or migrating data, and /or deleting unneeded programs. Consider upgrading your hard drive for more space.  Once you get to 15% remaining space or less then you will start to experience computer performance problems.

2) Check for viruses on all hard drives

Do you have signs of viruses? Firstly you should be running an anti-virus program on your computer (such as the freeware Microsoft Security Essentials) and it should be CURRENT (not expired or overdue for a virus definition update).  To open the anti-virus program, usually you click the anti-virus icon located in the task bar (bottom right hand corner). 

3 ) Disc Cleanup

START > My Computer > Right click a hard drive > Select "Properties" > General tab > Disc Cleanup

4 ) Defragment hard drive(s) In order to perform a defragment, there should be at least 15% of free space remaining on the drive. If you are unsure you can check by analyzing the disc first... START > My Computer > Right click a hard drive > Select "Properties" > Tools tab > Defragment now > Analyze  If you have at least 15% free space remaining then proceed to defragment the drive... START > My Computer > Right click a hard drive > Select "Properties" > Tools tab > Defragment now Note: By default Vista and Windows 7 computers automatically defragment the hard drive. 5 ) Hard drive(s) error checking START > My Computer > Right click a hard drive > Select "Properties" > Tools > Error Checking > Check now > check "automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" (This diagnostic will require a restart of your computer. You will see a blue screen as the diagnostic is running. This may take 30 minutes or more depending on the size of your hard drive. When the diagnostic is done the computer will resolve back to the desktop.) Why run an error check? Error checking is important to run once in a while (perhaps every 4 months or so) because this check will locate and "flag" any "bad sectors" that it may find on your hard drive. Then your computer knows NOT to write data to those bad sectors. Otherwise, if data is written to bad sectors, then that document file, critical Windows update or other file would be unreadable. The end result might be that a document file or photograph becomes corrupted and won't open or worse -- your whole computer could fail. And finally, error checking can actually RECOVER files that were written to corrupted sectors!

Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 above for any other hard internal drives that may be connected to your system.

 

6 ) Uninstall unused programs.

START > Control Panel > Add or remove programs > select programs that you no longer use and uninstall

If you are unsure of what a program does then just leave it alone.

 

DISCLAIMER: These instructions are in no way fool-proof or all encompassing. In no way should these instructions be relied upon as a guarantee that you will not damage your computer or lose data. Always regularly back up your data.

 

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