A Few Tips & Software Recommendations
- Power Strips – Investing in a good power strip will greatly reduce the likelihood of a power surge destroying the hard drive during a storm.
- Clicking, Grinding, or Other Strange Sounds – If an odd clicking sound is coming from the computer, it is most likely that internal parts of the hard drive that have failed over time and become stuck, which results in the grinding or clicking noise. If this is happening, the best thing to do is to immediately turn off the computer, detach the drive, and place it somewhere safe. Because of the degraded state the drive is already in, it can easily become much worse if experimented on or with continued usage.
- Airflow – Without proper airflow and dust removal you laptop or desktop will begin to over heat and put the system under large amounts of stress. Canned air is always good to keep around and use every few months. Also make sure fans are functioning properly when de-dusting the computer.
- Antivirus Software – Believe it or not, a good anti-virus program can prevent a lot of data loss. If a virus hacks into a computer, it has the potential to quickly destroy data. The anti-virus software we use and recommend is: AVG or Panda Cloud. AVG tends to use more computing resources but better protection while Panda Cloud is a lite resource intensive program but acceptable protection. Free copies for both of these programs are available at AVG: http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-free-antivirus Panda Cloud: http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/. The free versions are enough to keep viruses off of a computer.
- Spyware Removal – In the unfortunately event that you get malware or spyware on your system I recommend is Malwarebytes. I have found this to be useful in many situations from my IT experience. http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free
- System Cleanup – After months and years of adding/ removing programs, deleting files, and surfing the Internet will cause a multitude of computer issues. Every time you install, update, or remove a program there are left over registry files that do not get removed. For every file improperly place in your Windows operating system it causes unneeded processing. I have found the CCleaner puts system cleanup and management tool easily in your lap. http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
