Computer maintenance

Winchester

In the kitchen with my cookies
Thread starter
Veteran
Joined
Aug 28, 2009
Messages
29,730
Purraise
28,024
Location
In the kitchen
This isn't a request for help or anything like that....on another board, there was a discussion on general computer maintenance. I was surprised at the number of people who don't do anything to their computers. They just do their thing and then shut it down. There's no maintenance, nothing. Ever. And then they're surprised when their computer dies and they can't get to the hard drive to save anything. (And that actually happened to me once, a long time ago. I lost my hard drive and didn't have it backed up. And I lost everything....all the pages to my web site, my cookbook, all my recipes, everything. I was heartbroken. It only took one time for me to learn that lesson.)

So then, I started doing regular back-ups of my computer and of Rick's computer. (I have a 500 gb external hard drive that I use for the computers) I don't do them often, a thorough back-up of each computer once a month, with smaller back-ups of certain projects weekly (things I'm doing for Rick or for work, Rick's Quicken stuff, etc.). I'm constantly purging our Temp files, our PreFetch files, our cookies. I have our virus scans set for every other night (mine is every night), with virus updates every night and to come in right before the scans start. I have systems back-ups of both computers on the external drive and on CDs, too, so that if anything happens to either Vista or 8, I have something to work with. I transfer any pictures from our phones to the computer and from our cameras to the computer on a regular basis (usually my computer, not Rick's) and whenever Rick comes home from Oregon, I always transfer any pictures he has taken. I defrag once every three months (haven't defragged the new computer yet).

I started doing this for my GF's computer, too, because she doesn't bother. She's not concerned about it in the slightest. She'll call me and say, "Hey, how about coming up and doing the stuff you do to my computer?" Or, "Hey, I just bought a new virus thingie, how about coming up and installing it for me?" When I remind her that I've showed her how to do this stuff and even written it down in steps, then I get a "Yeah, but you can do it faster than I can." 
 She simply doesn't care. She doesn't know how to do anything and she doesn't care.

So.....do you maintain your computer? What do you do? And how often do you do it? And is there anything I should be doing that I'm not doing now? 
 

denice

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Feb 7, 2006
Messages
18,836
Purraise
13,144
Location
Columbus OH
I am one of those people that doesn't do much.  I worked as a computer operator for a number of years, didn't really like it and it all seems too much like work.  I really don't keep that much on my laptop.  The few things that I don't want to lose are also on a flash drive.  All of my updates and scans run automatically and I defrag the hard drive every so often.
 

pinkdagger

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
2,158
Purraise
468
Location
oh Canada~
Haha! I don't do it very frequently.. the most I do is back up my work files and school files, since they're kind of important and they're all completely digital art pieces. Some of the stuff gets stored online on my domain, but the high quality, larger versions and work-in-progress files get backed up to external hard drives that I tote back and forth to school. I have a second external hard drive that I use for large drive backups. I believe it's 1TB, so I'll grab my important non-C drive files and toss them there for safe keeping. Back at my parents' place, my brother set up a NAS that we stream TV shows and movies from, so back when I lived there, we'd back up all our TV shows there.

I don't keep anything I actually need on my C-drive.. just applications that I can reinstall because the executables or discs are elsewhere. I seldom do virus checks or defrags. I just can't be bothered during the day... maybe I'll have to set one up for this weekend when I'm out for the entire day.
 

swampwitch

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 30, 2006
Messages
7,753
Purraise
158
Location
Tall Trees & Cold Seas Vancouver Island
I don't do any maintenance on my MacBook Air. I run disk utilities once in awhile if it is running a little slow, and we have Time Capsule doing automatic back ups. I work from home and my job provides a MacBook Pro with all the virus protection possible, but same thing, there's really no maintenance for me to do.

My daughter's older MacBook slowed down to a halt a few months ago, so I just reinstalled the system and it works great again. I don't know what the heck she did to it, but whatever was wrong, it was easy to fix.
 
Last edited:

larussa

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jan 28, 2007
Messages
4,899
Purraise
71
Location
Central New Jersey
I back up everything once a month with my 'click free' Pam, you know what I mean.  For those of you who don't, it's a little back up machine no bigger than a pack of cigarettes.  It reminds me each month to back up my files.

Norton, my security also backs up my files so I think I'm ok.
 

fhicat

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Sep 21, 2013
Messages
3,261
Purraise
635
Location
Orange party
I maintain my computer regularly. It's actually scary once I knew what kind of risks computers face every day. 

I do two kinds of backup: a weekly/bi-weekly backup to a cheapy DVD-R and a copy on my cloud storage. These include university-related documents, pictures, music and pretty much everything in my Library.

The other backup I do is a full system image backup, usually every other month or so. I put the image onto my slim, sexy 1TB external drive. Which isn't a very good idea because that's where I keep my virtual machines too.

I'm bad with defragging. With Windows 7+, defragging is not as necessary as it used to be, although Win8 is much better at automatic scheduling. Win7 tend to schedule it at night, and won't run if your computer isn't idle, so in my case, my last defrag was almost two months ago, but only 1% fragmented, so I may not even bother. My OS is on an SSD, so I don't even defrag that drive.

Virus and malware are run weekly. Quick scans every week, and full scans every other month. My firewall is set to hide every open and idle port, which is default.

My internet browsers is also loaded with privacy walls, security extensions and script blockers. I maintain a whitelist and try to update them regularly. I never surf the internet on port 80 (HTTP), all my browsing connect to port 8080 (HTTPS -- the S stands for secure, and is the default mode for sensitive sites like those requiring passwords or payment information). 
 

catsallaround

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
3,104
Purraise
66
Husband takes care of it as that is his hobby I know what I would have to do though if he did not enjoy it.  I have nothing that can not be replaced as I save pics onto both laptops and they are also saved into yahoo. Nothing of importance saved in my files-shopping list or a to do list. I live a boring life:)
 

AbbysMom

At Abby's beck and call
Staff Member
Moderator
Joined
May 18, 2005
Messages
78,297
Purraise
19,402
Location
Massachusetts
A virus scan runs daily. :nod: I'm behind on backups because our external backup drive is dying. We've had a replacement disk for it for months now. Just waiting for my computer tech to get to it. :rolleyes:
 

dragonheart

TCS Member
Adult Cat
Joined
Jun 25, 2009
Messages
102
Purraise
2
Location
New Hampshire
I most certainly do maintain my system. It amazes me that people will spend lots of money on a computer (or phone, or tablet, etc) and then not take the time to take care of it. My system is 6 years old and still runs better than my mom's year old PC, which functionally should be blowing mine out of the water but...doesn't. It probably helps that over the years I've tinkered with dozens of options and disabled all kinds of unnecessary programs, services and settings, and also upgraded the OS from Vista to 7 a couple years ago. I have done some hardware replacements--one of my RAM sticks failed, and the battery on the motherboard eventually died.

For regular maintenance, I have it run updates and virus scans automatically. I update and run Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware on a regular basis. I also have Spyware Blaster as a protective measure, and of course AdBlockPlus on every browser. My normal, always active antivirus is Microsoft Security Essentials, though every year or so I reevaluate and decide to keep or change it. I've also used Avast, Avira and a few others over the years (never at the same time of course).

If you want to check up on how secure your computer is, definitely visit GRC ShieldsUP, which detects possible vulnerabilities in your network security. My computer is in stealth mode and actually will outright ignore solicited and unsolicited packets, making it all but invisible on the internet. I also don't use Internet Explorer, which is a massive security hole in any Windows machine.

As for backups, I use Dropbox and Evernote for anything critical. I don't generally do full system backups, though I do have the capability (and external HDD) to do so. I also run CCleaner and a defrag on a regular basis, especially after any updates.
 

rachelinaz

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
754
Purraise
36
Location
Mesa, AZ and S.E. ALASKA
We went and out and bout a 4Terrabyte external drive last night PLUS a secondary internal drive... Not sure as dh does the internal work...
I do all of the backing up, cleaning temp and prefetch files and anything else I can delete.

I upload my photos to two sites and an external drive. My cell automatically uploads photos to Smugmug as I take or edit on my phone. I love it.

I AM paranoid after we had an external hooked to our little TiVo like box and some how my husband did something and ripped out the USB port. Years of backups... Gone. :(
 

rachelinaz

TCS Member
Super Cat
Joined
Apr 29, 2014
Messages
754
Purraise
36
Location
Mesa, AZ and S.E. ALASKA
****
Plus... Not that my 5 and 6 year old HAVE ever screwed anything up... But my paranoia is even higher. Lol
You just never know. They use it the mosy
 
Top