Laptop has been the hottest gadget being used by all kinds of people regardless of ages. It is a revolutionary technology in the world of computing. For those who are familiar in working with a personal computer, this looks quite simple and as easy as that. But the fact is, laptops are prone to many technical glitches when compared to desktop computers. The better you take care of your laptop, the longer it will last and stay productive with less downtime.
Read the below guidelines to keep your laptop safe against many kinds of problems.
(1) Keep away from dust particles - Dust is one of the bad omens for the laptops. It is advisable to clean your laptops regularly with a soft cloth and not any rough material. Make sure you turn off your laptop for safety measures before cleaning carefully. Do not touch it if your hand is dirty. Avoid chemicals or acids to clean your laptop. You can use a small-tipped vacuum or a can of compressed air to clean it. Always cover your laptop in its bag during non-usage hours to get rid of environmental dusts. Do not forget the saying, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness".
(2) Keep away from liquid and food - Do not eat near any food your laptop notebook. The food particles could occupy the spaces in the keyboard and invite bugs along with its families. This would lead to the worst and frustrating situation. Also the liquids will produce short circuit issues and destroy your laptop.
(3) Keep away from abnormal temperature and weather - Laptops generate more amounts of heat and are capable of adequate thermal tolerances. To take care of it, keep it out of direct sunlight or a bad weather. Do not use laptops in the kitchen. Cover it with the tight laptop bag based on its size while transporting. Do not operate your laptop near any magnetic devices such as microwave oven as this could damage the hard disk.
Overheating is a big issue for all kinds of laptops. To get rid of it and to have the longer run, the above facts have to be incorporated carefully.
(4) Keep a track on manufacturer's manual, guide or their official website - The manufacturer will update all the relevant drivers and you can find all the details such as version number, file size, any patches, defect fixes, troubleshooting etc on their official website. Check the warranty period and preserve all the necessary paper documents to replace or repair if the product is found containing defects.
(5) Defrag the hard disk - Defragging your hard drive is one of the efficient mechanisms in the operating system as the files will usually be fragmented in the hard disk. It will ensure your laptop to run effectively by removing and reducing the unwanted spaces and make the programs run quickly. It is advisable to do this operation on a monthly basis. In Windows XP, you can find the defragmenter tool in the below path: START-> All Programs-> Accessories-> System Tools-> Disk Defragmenter.
(6) Clean the temporary and corrupt files - It is obvious that the internet files will be downloaded to a temporary location and over the period of time, the space consumption of these files rule over the hard disk. It is highly necessary to remove the temp files. To do so, go to (a) RUN-> type TEMP and hit enter. (b) Also try, %TEMP%, RECENT Delete all the files. One or few may not be deleted, not to worry though, as some system files will be in-progress. The sad news is that, there could also be some viruses in this case!
Also use CCleaner, a freeware that works great in deleting the temporary files, internet cache files, cookies and other unwanted or corrupted files in the registry.
(7) Protect against malicious programs - Malware programs are too dangerous that will eat away your data and capture sensitive information such as username, password and send it to the creator. The hall of shame is none other than the hacker or any intruder. Some of the types of malwares are viruses, spyware, adware, trojan, worm, rootkit, keylogger, botnet, backdoor. All are unique and special in its own job of hijacking user's data, playing as a spy and record your activities and much more vulnerable that what you think! These are indeed still the challenging area for all organizations. To protect against these, you should grab a copy of popular anti-virus such as Symantec. Also it is advisable to use Spyware Doctor or Anti Spyware tool to fight against spyware, adware etc. Do not forget to turn on your windows firewall. Update your products such as software, OS regularly to stay up-to-date.
(8) Full Backup - Taking full backups is highly recommended to be on the safer side of the journey. Data is really precious to all. Though other protection measures are taken, data backup is considered as an inevitable task. Try using Norton Ghost to backup the complete data in your hard drive. It would be beneficial if the System Restore option is turned on to revert back to earlier stage in the case of any issues.
(9) Security measures - Have a safety lock for your laptop. Try to use advanced login facilities such as face recognition, thumb impression recognizer such that if the laptop goes to the enemy or wrong user, the data can be preserved.
(10) Other safety measures - If you are not comfortable with touchpad, opt for a separate optical/wireless mouse. Keyboards are too fragile when compared with personal computer's keyboard and hence use gently.
What's more? Smoking is not only injurious to health but also for its surroundings! These chemicals accumulate more and more in the meager areas and affect the health of the laptop.
In desktop computers, every possible problem can be seen by uncovering it. In the case of laptops, it is too risky to uncover it as the spare parts are sensitive and fragile when compared to the pc. You have to hire the professionals to solve hardware issues, LCD screen, motherboard, power problems, RAM memory, hard disk, OS up-gradation etc.
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