Seattle Laptop's Must Do Maintenance Tasks

Laptop Maintenance Article - Have you ever wondered why you never received instructions on properly maintaining your laptop when you bought it? I mean, when you bought it from someone other than Seattle Laptop of course. One has to wonder. Your friends at Seattle Laptop “The Laptop Experts” have decided to share a few tips on preventive laptop maintenance. Hopefully we can help you avoid many preventable laptop problems.

Must Do - The laptop maintenance tasks listed below MUST BE DONE for a laptop owner to have the best chance for trouble free laptop use.

Clean Your Heat Sink and Fan - Over time lint builds up blocking the air flow through your heat sink(s). Once this happens your fan may not be able to properly cool your processor and graphics card, causing component failure due to overheating. Your heat sink needs to be cleaned every six months, or at even shorter intervals, if your environment is extremely dusty. Keeping your heat sink clean will also extend the life of your fan which can be costly to replace if it fails. Heat sinks must be cleaned by a professional with compressed air. Just blowing canned air into the back of your laptop may help, but it also may cause your fan to stall if left over lint keeps your fan from spinning. Many companies like Seattle Laptop will clean your laptop’s heat sink(s) at no charge, as a service to their customers.

Anti Virus Software - Keep your anti virus software current, and updated. Make sure you scan your laptop’s hard drive every week or two for viruses, and update your anti virus software before running scans. If your anti virus software’s license has expired, you may not be able to download updates, and protect yourself from new threats, and this may cause your machine to become infected. Before you install a new anti virus program, make sure your old anti virus software has been removed. You can not run two anti virus programs at the same time without problems.

Anti Spyware and Anti Malware - Make sure you install and use good anti spyware, and anti malware programs to enhance your protection. Be sure to run scans with these programs on a regular basis. We recommend every two weeks or so.

Windows Updates - Make sure your Windows updates remain current. I usually set my laptop to download the updates for me automatically, and then notify me, so I can install them at my leisure.

Tighten Your Hinges - If the hinges holding your screen appear to be getting loose, or floppy, make sure to get the screws tightened by a laptop technician. If the screws holding your hinges get too loose, the hinges or screen cover can become damaged, or break, and these can be very expensive to replace.

No Drinking! - Always keep all liquids as far away from your laptop as possible. I always try to set my drinks on another surface near by so if I ever have a spill, my laptop is not shorted out by any kind of liquid.

Defrag - If you are constantly moving large amounts of data, you may also want to defrag your hard drive every 30 days or so.

Back Up - Remember to regularly back up any important data. If your data or information is important, we suggest you back it up to two or three different devices such as web backups, DVD discs, external hard drives, and flash drives, among other methods. Also, never count on any type of data back ups to last forever. External hard drives fail just like laptop hard drives. More than one of our customers have experienced a failed hard drive in their laptop, and then found out their backups didn’t work, or their backup device had also failed. The more important your data is, the more bakups you create the better!

There are many other things that may be helpful extending the life of your laptop. This is a short list of the “must do” maintenance tasks. Hopefully these few tips will help you avoid many of the more common avoidable laptop problems.