8 Common PC Maintenance Mistakes Owners Make (And How to Avoid Them)

All gadgets have a limited lifespan and the same applies to your PC as well. You need to maintain your PC appropriately to get the most out of it. Your PC will remind you of its deteriorating life by getting noisier, slowing down quite often, and showing error messages from nowhere.

Most of these issues can be avoided with a little planning and appropriate usage. You need to take proper care of your PC by being aware of some factors that might cause harm to it. This way, you can make the most out of your PC and make it run smoother and also last longer.

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Be it a new PC or the one you are already using, taking good care of the device is highly important. It is never too late to start taking care of it. Check out the below mentioned maintenance mistakes that will harm the hardware of your PC and stop doing these from now.

Lack of proper ventilation

Heat is a major factor that can adversely affect your PC. It can make your computer operate slowly, damage the internet components, and shorten the battery life considerably (in the case of laptops).

There are fans and air vents in your PC and there are increased chances for the vents to be obstructed. It is common for you to place your PC tower under the desk and against the wall that will prevent the warm air from going out and cool air from entering the tower. In the case of a laptop, you might block the vents at the bottom by placing it on your lap or bed.

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Solution: Prevent using your laptop or PC too close to a heater or wherever there is too much exposure to the sun. Also, stop using your laptop on your bed covering the air vents.

Dust gets accumulated

The other reason for heat buildup is the accumulation of dust. If you place the PC tower on the floor, there are increased possibilities for it to suck up loads of sand, dust, and pet hair. Laptops are more susceptible to sucking up dust.

The dust accumulation will block the air vents and form an insulating layer on the parts that generate heat resulting in overheating. It might also obstruct moving parts such as fan making it sound louder.

Solution: Check the air vents time to time to make sure they are not blocked. It is worth opening the case rarely and cleaning the PC.

Loose cables

Checking for the loose cables is a simple way to resolve many common problems that you face on PCs. The external cables are prone to get loose easily, especially the power cable that is attached to the PC and the socket. The same can happen inside the tower too.

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Solution: Check if the internal and external cables are attached properly to the motherboard. Especially, check the important ones such as power and data cables, and hard drives.

Power Surges

Power surges can be due to lightning strikes or appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. They are quite dangerous as they can result in a great damage to the PC.

The damage might result in minor data loss or major issues that you may have to replace the power supply unit of the PC. Sometimes, the motherboard might get fried up due to the power surge.

Solution: Devices such as Belkin BE112230-08 12-Outlet Surge Protector can produce 3940 joules of protection and $300,000 Connected Equipment Warranty when the gear fails to survive.

Power cuts

Besides power surges, power cuts are also a trouble. In many cases, a sudden power outage will result in huge data loss and the hard drives and SSDs could suffer from irreparable hardware damage.

The hard drives are susceptible to head crashes in which the read and write head will scratch the disk. The SSDs do not have any moving parts and they not affected in such situations. However, they are prone to damage during power failure making them corrupted or damaged.

Solution: Make sure you use an uninterruptible power supply that is an external drive providing a few minutes of emergency backup power that will shut down the PC safely.

Battery Drain

These days, manufacturers are using sealed batteries making it important to care for your laptop's battery. This battery can be degraded by heat, so keep the laptop within the recommended operating temperatures meant for the battery.

The next is if your laptop is 100 percent charged and plugged in all the time, you are going to kill the battery. Don't discharge the battery's lifespan fully.

Solution: Make sure you charge your laptop and unplug the cable once it is 100 percent charged. Also, make sure it is not discharged fully in between charging cycles.

Physical damage is harmful

Of course, physical damage is bad. If you drop your laptop, the peripherals are removed before their work is done. The hard drives are prone to damage, so make sure you do not move the computer when it is turned on and a hard disk is inside. The hard knocks can damage the sensitive internal parts and cause connections and cables to come loose.

Solution: Be careful while handling the laptop or PC. Don't spill any liquid on it as the moisture can result in rust.

Software Updates

Software issues will not reduce the lifespan of the PC or laptop. But, it the same will make the device slower, show errors, and cause other issues.

Solution: Install the available OS updates and programs. Ensure that you use the updated web browsers, and remove insecure plug-ins such as Flash. Install the needed security tools as well.