Regular Computer Maintenance

[Resler]

What do you do for regular maintenance of your OWN computers. I'm talking how often do you clean out the junk files, defrag, run a disk check, run a fill virus/malware scan, blow out all the dust, clean your keyboard, etc. I'm mostly interested in what you do for your own computers but you could also say what you recommend to customers.

Personally I tend to do all of those things once I feel I haven't done them in awhile. If things start to slow down I'll clean it all up. The one thing I do do is record the dates I open the case up and clean everything out, I try to keep on top of that before dust starts to cake onto parts.

 

[Daifne]

Not as often as I should. I'm usually too busy with my customers' computers. ;-)

 

[gunslinger]

Ccleaner every night before I go to bed. About once every two weeks I'll run glary utilities, NTRegopt,disk check, and a full defrag. I'll open the case up about once every 3-4 months and blow out the dust with a small leaf blower.

 

[l337]

defrag, clear temp etc just the basics lol

 

[nonchalant]

Auto defrag every 2nd day. ccCleaner probably once/mth. AV scan probably once every 3 months.

I also give the PC a good vaccuum out every couple of months or so. I can see when this needs needs doing because I get a slight build up of dust on the outer filters.

 

[arrow_runner]

I upgrade to a newer/better laptop about every 3 months.

The only maintenance I do is blow the keyboard and heatsink out every once in awhile.

 

[CnP Systems]

I second Glary. Use it daily: temp and tracks eraser only, weekly: everything else. CCleaner as well. Spybot, AusLogics Disk Defrag and AVG weekly. Occassionally Malwarebytes. Zone alarm in the background. Have not had any virus or other similar problems since I got this computer.

 

[reesk92]

well does anyone find that they maintain there pc to a higher standard than there customers

for instance a customers pc if it got infected would get 2-3 virus scans from different programs where as my own pc would get 6-10 virus scans and also i have no problems working to for a hour or freeying up space from my hard drive where as a customer i would spend a hour max my pc is treated like royaltie compared to a customers

 

[ProTech Support]

I use CCleaner every time I am done browsing the web & run MBAM every night....doesn't really take much to do both of them and usually finds nothing anyway since I do it so often. Defrag & virus I do about once a week.

I thought most people ran CCleaner every time, surprised at the responses that run it once a month.

 

[reesk92]

defrag once A WEEK isnt that bad because it will eventually burn the drive out once a month is more than ample unless you have a tb drive

 

[Simmy]

CCleaner every system startup and randomly throughout the day (right click recycle bin and "Run CCleaner").

Vista defrag automatically sorts that out for me - infact I've no idea when it runs but it's never fragmented. I run a virus scan once every month or two. Msconfig once a week to disable any crap that's worked its way into there.

Acronis does an incremental backup every night and I run Syncback on my vista profile every few hours to capture the changes to files I've made during the day.

That's about it really. I'll vacuum the PC once every two months or whenever the vacuum cleaner is out for another reason.

 

[Blues]

Not as often as I should. I'm usually too busy with my customers' computers. ;-)

Or finally finding time to relax I had put of some file moves and trransfers until yesterday I ment to do them about 2 months ago.

 

[Simmy]

defrag once A WEEK isnt that bad because it will eventually burn the drive out once a month is more than ample unless you have a tb drive

Worrying about defragging burning out a drive is rather pointless. I've heard a few people say the same thing and I've never understood why. The drive could fail at any time and for any reason. Plus drives usually come with 3/5 year warranties these days. I would much rather keep my drive regularly defragged and backed up.

Infact you could argue that the more frequently you defrag it, the less work it has to do each time. Leaving it a month between defrags could cause a large amount of fragmentation, depending on how much it's used.

 

[reesk92]

good point but the bul of my comment was why once a week because if its gonna reduce the drives life then the benifits of defragging once a week are non apparent

 

[PatrickB]

1. Confirm the file system is intact - CheckDisk with only "Fix File System Errors" checked
   
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2. Reboot and let the Checkdisk run
   
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3. Exit out of all possible programs to free system resources for further operations
   
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4. Create System Restore Point prior to making changes
   
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5. CCleaner with the WinApp2.INI file available on their forum so that additional application temp files are cleared out. Also use to clean out invalid Registry entries
   
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6. Windows Update, Custom option, to assure OS is current -- including the Root Certificates
7. Reboot to let any updates complete
   

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8. Review Add/Remove Programs to remove any unnecessary programs and to remove old version of Java prior to installing new version.
   
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9. Update anti-malware/virus programs and perform full scan. Remove any bad guys found and reboot.
   
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10. Update applications: Use FileHippo Update Checker, Secunia's PSI, and KCSoftwares' SUMo, and CleanSofts' Update Notifier
    
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11. Page Defrag from http://www.sysinternals.com/ to defrag system files
    
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12. Reboot to complete any application updates and to allow Page Defrag to do its job
    
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13. Backup clean, updated system to multiple media/locations
    
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14. Confirm the hard drive is intact - CheckDisk with both "Fix File System Errors" and "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" checked. Hard drives come with spare sectors at the end of the drive. This check will initiate the marking of a bad/failing sector as bad and logically replace it with one of the spares. WARNING - if the drive is on the verge of failing, this can push it over the edge. [ Newer, larger hard drives use vertical instead of horizontal placement of the bits so that more data can be squeezed into the same size platters. These need more attention since they are more prone to failure. ]
    
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15. Windows Defrag or JKDefrag (Scheduled Weekly or Monthly).
    
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-- Patrick B.

 

[purple_minion]

http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/myths/hard-drive-wear.aspx

Myth No. 4: You can wear out your hard drive if you defragment too often.

Not true. The truth is, your drive is going to work much harder if you never defrag at all! It is a common misconception that defragmentation is stressful to disk drives. In reality, fragmentation results in many more disk accesses.

Here is an example: If you have a file that is fragmented into 50 pieces, and you access it twice a day for a week, that's a total of 700 disk accesses (50 x 2 x 7). Defragmenting the file may cost 100 disk accesses (50 reads + 50 writes), but thereafter only one disk access will be required to use the file. That's 14 disk accesses over the course of a week (2 x 7), plus 100 for the defragmentation process = 114 total. 700 accesses for the fragmented computer versus 114 for the defragmented computer - the benefits are obvious.

Install Diskeeper and get longer-lasting, more reliable disk drives in addition to peak performance from your computer all the time.

Personally I setup JKDefrag to run as a screensaver, I set it to the highest which is once every 24 hours, only on the C drive. It never has to do too much at all really and it's really quick since it's done so often.

Also see http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245047-32-does-defragging-wear

 

[allanc]

Auto defrag every 2nd day. ccCleaner probably once/mth. AV scan probably once every 3 months.

I also give the PC a good vaccuum out every couple of months or so. I can see when this needs needs doing because I get a slight build up of dust on the outer filters.

Which vacuum cleaner do you use on the road?

 

[gumpoo]

Schedule Automated Defrag using Windows

Here's a good way to set automated defrags up on your systems..

Open Control Panel, double-click Scheduled Tasks (Under "Performance and Maintenance" in XP)
2. Double-click Add Scheduled Task and click Next.
3. Click Browse, navigate to your C:\Windows\system32 folder, select defrag.exe
4. Use the wizard to set a schedule, and be sure to supply a password for the account to run the command.
5. Check the box for "Open advanced properties dor this task when I click Finish"
6. On the Run line, add the drive letter for the drive to be defragged. For example:
c:\windows\system32\defrag.exe c: -f

The "-f" switch at the end forces defragmenting drives with less than 15% free space.

Notes:
defrag.exe is a command line tool. The dfrg.msc GUI program can't be scheduled to run automatically.
Only one instance of defrag.exe can run at a time. If defragmenting multiple drives, the tasks need to be spaced in time enough for previous ones to finish.
The account to run the command must have a non-empty password set.

 

[Methical]

@gumpoo

Since its run via the command line why not just make a batch file utilising the

start /wait

command. And add the batch file to your scheduled tasks.

 

[layoric]

Auto backups

CrashPlan FREE for backing up system documents to an external USB drive on another server. Everything else is as needed.

If the backup wasn't automated, it probably wouldn't get done...

Layoric