PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE 2

Preventive Maintenance Tools

You can broadly classify the tools used to maintain computer components in two categories: materials and equipment, and software utilities.

• 1.    Materials and Equipment

A common cause of computer problems can be attributed to dust, dirt, and erratic power supply. To keep components dirt-free, you can use various liquid cleaning compounds. You can take care of dust using a vacuum cleaner. To control erratic power supply, you can either use a UPS or a suppressor. 

1.1 Liquid cleaning compounds

The most commonly used liquid cleaning compounds include various forms of alcohol (isopropyl and denatured alcohol) and soapy water. Before you use any liquid cleaning compound, it is important that you read the manufacturer’s instructions and documentation to ensure that the compound does not have a detrimental effect on the component. You can also buy specialized cleaning compounds direct from the manufacturer.

Use a sponge dampened with mild detergent or soapy water to clean the monitor, outer case of the system unit, keyboard, and other peripherals. If you decide to use a piece of cloth instead of a sponge, make sure that it is lint-free. 

1.2 Vacuum cleaners

Dirt and dust particles get inside your system unit through its air ducts and lodge themselves almost anywhere. If the air ducts become clogged, air circulation is affected, causing the system to heat up. Other common problems caused by these particles include wear and tear of components and conduction of charge that leads to a risk of damage to the components. Thus, it is important to vacuum clean the interior of the system unit regularly. You can use small, portable vacuum cleaners, since they are economical and easy to manage.

Ensure that the speed of the vacuum cleaner is never set to “high,” since high speed might damage the delicate components of the computer.

1.3 UPS and suppressors

Erratic power supply or voltage fluctuation might damage the components of the

computer. Over-voltage or under-voltage in power supply can cause voltage fluctuations. Over-voltage generates spikes and surges.

✦ Spike: A short burst of electricity exceeding 100 percent of the normal voltage for an extremely short duration (microseconds), usually at 400–5,600 volts. A spike is also known as an impulse.

✦ Surge: Occurs when power exceeds 110 percent of the normal voltage for more than a few seconds. Surges are the most common cause of computer damage.

Under-voltage is also unfavorable to the computer. The most common under-voltage problems are brownouts and blackouts:

✦ Brownout (or Sag): A partial loss of voltage or power. Brownouts occur when the voltage drops below 110 volts for a few seconds. This might happen when the usage of the voltage in your area increases suddenly. Brownouts can cause frozen keyboards and unexpected system crashes, resulting in corrupt disks and lost data. Brownouts also reduce the life and efficiency of your computer.

✦ Blackout: A complete loss of power. Possible causes of blackouts are blown fuses, transformers, and downed power lines. Though a blackout might not lead to hardware damage, it can result in data and memory loss.

To protect the computer against damages that might be caused from over-voltage and under voltage, you use power protection devices, such as Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and suppressors.

 A UPS monitors the power received from the AC source before sending it to the computer. It also acts as a backup power supply in the event of a power failure. A UPS has three components: an inverter, a battery, and a charger. There are two types of UPS: Standby UPS (SPS) and Online UPS.

✦ Standby UPS: Only provides backup power during a blackout. It does not take part in supplying normal power to the computer and therefore is not a good protection against the other types of power problems.

✦ Online UPS: Passes the power to the computer after conditioning it, thereby

providing protection against surges, spikes, and brownouts. A suppressor just takes care of the surges and spikes and provides voltage within the prescribed range. It does not act as a backup power supply.

• 2.     Software Utilities

A considerable decrease in the performance of your computer could result from scattered data or fragmentation on the disk. Fragmentation occurs when you frequently create, modify, or delete the files on the hard disk. Large files are usually scattered among various clusters. When you try to access a file that is scattered across various clusters, the access time increases. This is because a search needs to be carried on all clusters to put a file together. Also, some clusters of the disks might have gone bad. These clusters need to be identified and marked to prevent applications from using them.

You can use software utilities, such as Disk Defragmenter and ScanDisk, for assessing and fixing disk problems.

2.1 Disk Defragmenter 

Disk Defragmenter  is a utility in Microsoft Windows designed to increase access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique called defragmentation. Since the data is no longer scattered, the performance of the system increases. Defragmenting a disk minimizes head travel, which reduces the time it takes to read files from and write files to the disk. Beginning with Windows XP, Disk Defragmenter also reduces system startup times. It is advisable that you run the Disk Defragmenter utility regularly.  

Windows 7 reintroduces the analyze function and showing percent complete of the defragmentation, both of which were removed in Windows Vista. It can also defragment multiple volumes simultaneously. Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 do defragment a solid-state disk (SSD) but in a completely different way. There is less incentive for defragmentation of SSDs because file fragmentation has less performance impact on them and they handle a finite number of storage cycles before their lifespan expires.

2.2 Scandisk 

Scandisk utility is available with Windows 95, 98, and NT. However, ScanDisk cannot check NTFS disk drives, and therefore it is unavailable for computers that may be running NT based (including Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.) versions of Windows; for the purpose, a newer CHKDSK is provided instead - this is not to be confused with the older MS-DOS CHKDSK. On Unix-like systems there are tools like "fsck_msdosfs" to do the same task.

2.3 CCleaner

CCleaner helps you with preventive maintenance via two tools to help keep the "bad" out of your machine. Not only can CCleaner keep your disk cache clean, it can keep your registry free of errors. Both of these issues can, over time, result in a computer running less than efficiently or, in worst case scenarios, not running at all. Using CCleaner regularly will go a long way toward keeping your machines running well.

A little preventive maintenance and information can go a long way to protecting your costly investments. You want to get the most out of your PCs, but you don't want to have to constantly be repairing or maintaining them. With the help of a few tools, you can do the right amount of preventive maintenance and have healthy systems to keep your business running smoothly.