How Often Should You Perform Regular Computer Maintenance and Checkup Tasks?

Just like maintaining a vehicle to keep it running in tip-top condition, you need to do the same thing with all your tech devices. It’s important to never forget to do maintenance and checkup tasks periodically on all your computers, laptops, and tablets to keep things running smoothly. Here are the important tasks that are often forgotten or ignored, but should be carried out regularly.

On a Daily Basis

Back up your data. You don't want to lose yesterday’s work anymore than you want to lose last week’s, so your important work documents, pictures, and other data you deem very important for your work or personal use should be backed up daily. You can find different methods of backing up on the net such as the cloud, or you can use external physical drives or rewritable CD’s.

On a Weekly Basis

Scan for viruses and malware. Your real-time antivirus program isn’t perfect, so to be on the safe side, get a second opinion every week by scanning with another anti-malware security program. You don’t really need to spend money on a reliable antivirus or anti-malware program because there are free and reliable ones available online. While you can use real-time protection for your antivirus program, you don’t need it with anti-malware. But, again, don’t ever forget to scan your PC, laptop, and tablet every week.

On a Monthly Basis

Defragment your hard drive. Over time, your files become fragmented, with any single file split over multiple physical parts of the drive. Fragmentation can slow your devices, especially your PC or laptop, and render lost files less retrievable. Windows comes with a perfectly fine defragmenter. You can easily access this in the programs – accessories – system tools.

Scan your hard drive for errors using Disk Cleanup. You’re not looking for viruses or worms here, but physical and logical problems with the disk that could render parts of it unreadable. It’s also handy to do this chore at the same time you defragment, because both chores start on the programs – accessories – system tools tabs.

When you defragment and undergo disk cleanup, make sure you’re not doing anything else so you can just leave the computer to do this while you’re doing something else. It may take anywhere from 15 minutes up to an hour depending on how much you’re disk needs to be defragmented or cleaned up.

Clean out your computers. If you have a desktop computer, it ends up collecting a lot of dust internally, so it’s a good idea to blow it out with a gas duster, commonly known as canned or compressed air. This will help make sure all of the connections aren’t compromised and keeps your CPU from overheating. Unplug the power cord before taking off the case cover to clean it up. When blowing it out, make sure not to point the canned air too close at internal parts as it can make some of them come loose.