How To Maintain A Computer System Essay

, Research Paper

How to Maintain A Computer System

Start a notebook that includes information on your system. This notebook

should be a single source of information about your entire system, both hardware

and software. Each time you make a change to your system, adding or removing

hardware or software, record the change. Always include the serial numbers of all

equipment, vendor support numbers, and print outs for key system files.

Secondly periodically review disk directories and delete unneeded files.

Files have a way of building up and can quickly use up your disk space. If you think

you may need a file in the future, back it up to a disk. At a minimum, you should

have a system disk with your command.com, autoexec.bat, and config.sys files. If

your system crashes, these files will help you get it going again. In addition, back up

any files with an extension of .sys. For Windows systems, all files with an extension

of .ini and .grp should also be backed up.

Next any time you work inside you computer turn off the power and

disconnect the equipment form the power source. Before you touch anything inside

the computer, touch and unpainted metal surface such as the power supply. This

will help to discharge any static electricity that could damage internal components.

Now you should periodically, defragment your hard disk. Defragmenting

your hard disk reorganizes files so they are in contiguous clusters and makes disk

operations faster. Defragmentation programs have been known to damage files so

make sure your disk is backed up first.

A good thing to do now would be to protect your system from computer

viruses. Computer viruses are programs designed to infect computer systems by

copying themselves into other computer files. The virus program spreads when the

infected files are used by or copied to another system. Virus programs are

dangerous because they are often designed to damage the files in a system. You

can protect yourself from viruses by installing an anti-virus program.

Lastly learn to use system diagnostic programs, if they did not come with

your system, obtain a set. These programs help you identify and possibly solve

problems before you call for technical assistance. Some system manufactures now

include diagnostic programs with their systems and ask that you run the programs

before you call for help.