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Everyone wants there computer to run the best that it can but, a lot of people don’t know what they need to be doing to make this happen. Just like a car, your computer needs regular maintenance to run at peak performance. Performing some simple maintenance steps on your computer can help to keep things running smoothly and you can do these steps yourself. Here are a few things that you should do to maintain your computer.
- Install updates: When you get a message that there are updates ready to install, you should install them. A lot of these updates are to improve the security of your computer, also some are to improve the performance of already installed programs. If you have any hardware that you use with your computer (like an external hard drive or wireless router) it is a good idea to occasionally check to see if there are any updates for their software.
- Disk maintenance: Over time your hard drive can fill up with unwanted and unused files. At least once a month it is a good idea to run disc cleanup to remove any unneeded files from your computer. After running disk cleanup you should also run disk defragmenter. Uninstalling any unused programs to open up more space on your hard drive.
- Run only the programs being used: If you have a lot of programs running at once your computer may start to slow down. It is a good idea to only have programs running that are currently being used. Also you should not have very many, if any, programs set to start as soon as you start your computer up, this can cause your computer to take much longer to get everything loaded at start up.
- Keep it clean: Dust can kill a computer. Make sure to keep your computer clean, especially around the vents.
