Nowadays, many people are using laptops for their school work,
business or leisure. However, laptops can lose their efficiency if not
well-maintained. The following are some tips which will help enhance
your laptop usage.
1. Watch out for dust
To ensure your laptop remains effective for a long time, you need to protect it
from dust. An accumulation of dust in your laptop could block the
ventilation areas and result in overheating. It is therefore very
important to keep your laptop from being exposed to dust.
2. Keep it cool
Besides dust, it is also very important to protect your laptop from
excessive heat. A laptop used in a cool, dry area will work more
effectively and faster than if it was exposed to heat. To protect your
laptop from overheating, avoid using it on your lap, bed or cushion
since this will block the vents underneath which help in cooling. The
best solution for this is to use a lap tray as a base for your laptop.
Alternatively, you can invest in any of the laptop coolers which are sold in most computer stores.
3. Install a firewall and antivirus software
If you don’t use any antivirus, your laptop remains vulnerable to being infected by a virus. Make sure you use proper antivirus software to protect your laptop and keep it effective for longer. You should also install
a firewall so as to restrict access to your laptop. A firewall will
alert you anytime an external entity tries to access your laptop. You
will then have the option of either blocking or allowing access. In
addition, you need to be cautious about using external hard disks and
flash disks with your laptop.
4. Eliminate unused programs
At times, you might have some programs in your laptop that you don’t
really need. It is advisable to uninstall them so as to create more
space in your hard drive. This will enable you to install other
important applications and programs. Eliminating unused programs will
also improve your laptop’s performance and make it easier to locate
important files.
5. Defragment hard drives
When you have many programs in your laptop, it will take time to locate your important files. It is therefore very vital to defragment your drives frequently. Defragmenting will arrange your files in a way which makes them much easier to access.
6. Clean your registry
Once in a while, registry files might get corrupted thus resulting in
a drastic and sudden change in your laptop’s performance. Make sure you
run your registry cleaners frequently to find out if there are any
corrupt files or errors.
7. Minimize programs to run during startup
Whenever you start your laptop, it will load all the system files, as
well as the programs which have been selected to run during startup.
The more programs you run, the longer it takes to startup. You should
therefore minimize the number of programs that will run during the
booting process.
8. Delete temporary internet files
Slow browsing speeds are often as a result of poor internet connection. However, in some cases, it might be due to too many temporary internet files saved in your laptop. You should therefore take time to delete such files from your laptop.
9. Empty the recycle bin
When files are deleted from your laptop, they end up in the recycle
bin. This means that they are not actually deleted from the laptop; they
have just been transferred to a different location. Thus, they still
take up space in your hard drive. It is therefore important to empty
your recycle bin as often as possible.
10. Power surge protection
Power surge protection is as important for laptops as it is for desktop computers. Replacing a laptop power supply is very costly compared to investing in a power surge protection device. Make sure you get one so as to protect the laptop itself, as well as your laptop power supply.
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