Clean PC – Efficient PC

Proper maintenance of any device will help extend its lifespan and also maintain a good level of efficiency. This rule applies equally to your personal computer and you should periodically take steps to clean your PC to keep it in optimum working order. In this article, we outline 5 quick steps to clean your PC.

1. Cleaning the hardware

Over time, dust gets collected on the system components inside your computer. dust can accumulate in vents and fans and prevent efficient cooling, thereby leading to overheating of the system components and reducing their life span. Clean the exhaust fans of your computer and also blow off the dust accumulated on motherboard and other parts by using a compressed air cleaner.

2. Remove spyware and adware

Spyware and Adware Programs can slow down your PC and reduce its efficiency. These programs spawn several processes which hog system resources. Also, these programs try to transmit information over the Internet which can be harmful. Some Spyware programs are tough to remove as they do not show up in the Add/Remove programs tool in Windows. You could download and install a good Spyware and Adware removal tool to get rid of these nasty programs.

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3. Uninstalling unnecessary programs

Many times we install programs for a specific task and forget to uninstall these programs after completing the task. Almost every program runs a background process that utilizes system resources.  The processes Tab in the Task Manager will give you an idea about different application processes and the system resources they use. Uninstalling unnecessary programs will free up valuable hard drive space and system resources and also reduce the burden on your system. 

4. Perform Maintenance tasks

Over time as you use your computer;  several files and unnecessary data entries are created. For example, when you surf the Internet, the website you visit stores cookies and Internet files on your computer for later use. These internet files and cookies occupy space on your C drive and a large amount of such files (even the most moderate surfer can accumulate a substantial amount) can considerably burden your system. You should periodically delete cookies and temporary internet files from your computer to make your system more efficient.

5. Defrag your hard drive

Fragmentation is a common problem in Windows that becomes more severe over time. The data in your hard drive is stored in small clusters. When there is large amount of space in your HDD, Windows operating system stores data in contiguous clusters. When there is less space on drive, it stores data wherever it finds free clusters. When the data is heavily fragmented, the read and write heads of the HDD have to work extra hard to find data scattered in different places on the drive. Defragging the hard drive ensures the data is arranged in contiguous clusters and the access time is greatly reduced. Windows has in-built defrag tool. If you are not happy with its performance, you also have several free and premium defrag tools that can defrag your hard drive and optimize it for performance. The Speedy PC Pro tool above would prove very useful in this respect.