With Spring in the air, now is a good time to do an annual clean up of the computers, servers and electronic equipment in your office, both inside and out. Failure to thoroughly clean your computers and servers at least once or twice a year will result in decreased performance and possibly even system failures.
Here’s why:
Dust clogs the computer’s cooling system causing it to heat up, damaging sensitive electronic equipment. Dust can also cause fan noise and (believe it or not) slow performance!
Crumbs and dirt in your keyboard can cause keys to stick and crunchy sounds when typing. Plus, it’s just dirty and unhealthy; do you know there are more germs on your computer keyboard than the average public toilet? Even dust, fingerprints and dirt build-up will make your computer monitor dim and fuzzy.
But the physical “dirt” is only the beginning…
Here are 5 quick steps you can take today to clean up your systems and improve performance:
1. Delete temporary files, unused programs and any other file taking up space and slowing things down.
2. Defrag your hard drive to speed up access to your data.
3. Update your spyware and antivirus software with the newest definitions. The internet changes fast. Having outdated security can slow you down dramatically.
4. Make sure you have the latest security patches and updates installed and configured properly.
5. Check your backups and conduct an emergency “restore” of the data. Remember, the best time to check your backups is when you DON’T desperately need to recover your data!
6. Make sure that your computers are properly cleaned for dust and grime, inside and out.
If you don’t know how do any of the above suggestions, make sure you seek out a professional like our company. When performed incorrectly these are things that could also damage your computers.
Published on 15th May 2014 by Jeanne DeWitt.
