Five Must Dos to Keep Your PC Fit and Running

How many times have you been fed up with that slow PC of yours? This very PC seemed to be working just fine a couple of months ago. So what went wrong? Why does your PC suddenly seem sick?

Machines are like humans in a way. They need maintenance. And the best running machine is always the best maintained one. Read on to keep that machine of your in the best shape.

1. Antivirus and spyware check.

Run antivirus software to keep out all the viruses and the Trojans. There are a number of options available to choose from. The best being

a) Avast Home Edition:

Price: Free

This is a free antivirus but you have to register and get a license key. Avast has all the features that you can look for in a professional antivirus such as automatic updating of program and virus definition files, boot time scan etc.

b) BitDefender:

Price: $24.95

BitDefender comes with a variety of features. Also you have protection for p2p downloads which is not yet supported by any of the other antivirus programs

Though most of the antivirus programs offer a spyware and adware scanning it is recommended to get a spyware remover such as spybot search & destroy

2. Run disk check periodically:

Scanning the hard disk periodically ensures that it is free of bad sectors and other errors. Options being:

a) Scandisk:

Price: free with windows

Windows provides a scan disk utility which can be started from the run prompt by typing sf/scannow.

b) Flobo Hard disk repair:

Price: $39

It provides a variety of features such as bad sector repair, surface test, media stability etc. It also has a prediction ability which predicts when the hard disk is going to fail. Over all a lot better than the windows scan disk.

3. Clean-up!!!!!

Like everything in this world cleanliness is the best policy. Keep your machine clear and clean of all the system clutter that is generated. So what is system clutter? It's the junk that is generated when you do anything on the machine . . . you surf the Internet you generate system clutter, you play games you generate system clutter, you install a program you generate system clutter. Windows provides a basic cleaning program called "Disk clean-up" under Programs->Accessories->system tools. But there are better options available.

a) CC Cleaner:

Price: Free

It cleans up all the system clutter including the registry. It also helps in cleaning out unwanted programs. Check out the amount of space generated my cleaning your drive.

b) System Cleaner:

Price: $34. 95

Has a variety of features apart from cleaning up the hard drive. Also fixes system errors and optimizes registry.

4. Defrag:

When you continuously download and delete something from your pc the data is stored as and where there is space applicable. This leads to non contiguous areas of data storage. So if I have to access a piece of data then reading it in bits and pieces from different locations on the hard disk takes considerable time. Hence defragment. Defragmentation is the process of placing similar data adjacently. The options being:

a) Windows disk defragmenter:

Price: Free with windows.

You can access the windows defragmenter from programs->accessories->system tools->disk defragmenter.

Analyze the system first so you know whether the drive really needs to be defragmented.

And then you can defragment the drive. NTFS drives are faster to defragment than FAT drives.

b) Diskeeper:

Price: $29.95 for home edition and 49.95 for professional edition

Check out diskeeper's invisTasking where you can work on the PC when defragmentation happens in the background. You can also schedule defragmentation to occur at a particular time. The interface is easy to handle and is pretty "set it forget it" kind.

5. Check system health periodically:

Do keep checking your PC for health problems periodically. Take care of a few basic s like uninstalling unwanted programs and doing all of the above. If you don't feel up to it then go buy yourself System Mechanic:

a) System Mechanic:

Price: $69. 95

System Mechanic has a lot of features such as cleaning up, disk defrag etc. It's like a one stop maintenance stop for your PC. You just have to set it and it will take care of your PC. But then again time to time intervention is recommended. At the end of the day it's you PC and it pays to pay attention to what is yours.

So there you go. Keep that PC running in the pink of health for a long time. It will give you a better performance for a longer period of time.