Advice on looking after your PC Created 16 years ago2007-09-22 11:46:44 UTC by Habboi

As some of you know I'm getting a new PC soon. Well actually ordering tommorow now and I want this one to last even longer than the one I'm using now. Basically I know the basics now on how to look after a PC such as scanning weekly and defragging etc and just keeping things tidy.

But Madcow gave me a small list of things to do every week such as:

System Mechanic, Free Ram, Reg cleaner, Advanced Windows Care and the typical Ad-Aware and Spybot etc...

I just wondering what other things I should do to make my PC last longer. Because after 3 years with this one I have some issues with flash, removing SP2 didn't help it either and just the odd glitches that only a reformat could fix now. But I've only ever had 2 PC's so I still don't fully know how to look after it...Advice?

removing SP2

facepalm, habboi. facepalm.

Hey don't blame me! It was that stupid MS Automatic Update crap that seriously did some damage to my SP2...Anyway I learnt now never to use Automatic ever again.

In my professional opinion, the things Madcow recommended to you are entirely useless.

I admit they have some merit for novice users. But they are certainly not the path to PC nirvana.

And my opinion here is actually a professional one.

It's not just software.

Give the case some room, arrange the guts so air can flow well, don't get a PCI modem if you don't use dial-up (extra power usage and heat), etc. Be sure to dust the case often, and make sure heatsinks are clamped down securely.

Dave's advice above is sound.

Although -- hardware is fickle. I've seen PC's which are filthier inside than you can probably even imagine (ever worked on a PC which has been on a landfill site for 5 years?) last beyond any reasonable expectation. And I've seen PC's in clean rooms with state-of-the-art everything fail after 20 minutes.

Alright so we have hardware down but then if the stuff Madcow suggested is useless then what do you suggest isn't? Because I think scanning for ad-ware is pretty important. Don't you agree?

Use a lightweight anti-virus.

I saw this laptop with 512MB of RAM, Celeron M, Vista Home Basic, Norton Internet Security, and OEM adware. The perfect storm for a slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww computer.

Yeah I can imagine. I'm going to have to use Vista anyway (which I hear is demanding atm)...

So besides anti-virus. Can you suggest something else? I was thinking of the stuff that keeps your PC up to speed etc.

Disable the indexing service. Although it's nice to have a speedy search, indexing constantly uses the hard drive and slows down the system.

Disable un-needed Windows services. Wi-fi managers and other crap should be disabled. Don't follow anyone's guide word for word, though, experiment yourself.

Enable advanced hard drive speed options. Unless your power cuts out all the time, I suggest you do this: http://lonesysadmin.net/2007/01/29/windows-vista-performance-tip-enable-write-caching/

Use CCleaner, empty browser caches, defrag, use Quicktime alternative, etc

I'm going to have to use Vista anyway

I am using Vista at work.

It's horrible.

if the stuff Madcow suggested is useless then what do you suggest isn't

A firm understanding of exactly how the system works.

If you can't get that, then by all means get the software you were recommended and it will be better than if you didn't have it.

Except Free Ram. Christ. What a waste of CPU cycles.

Could you explain the whole understanding the system? I can imagine what you mean but you can't avoid the horrible bugs that latch onto you as you swim through the interweb so surely the odd scanner here and there is good for it. What I do know is things like regedit can sometimes move or delete files that are vitally important so I may steer clear of those sorts.

I find programs like CodeStuff Starter and Process Explorer, when used in conjunction with sites like Process Library are handy tools to have around for when certain bad files get too deep, when you need to understand exactly what processes are doing what, or when a program needs to be forcefully closed (taskmanager can be terribly ineffective).

Diskeeper is a great defrag utility, it has more options than the typical windows tools, but i'm not sure if it has Vista support yet. It's also good for optimising your paging file size to minimise file fragmentation as much as possible. And lastly, TuneUp Utilities is a good all purpose system cleaner, it can do basic registry clean-ups, memory optimisation and integrity checks, again though, i'm not sure if it's Vista compatible yet.

I'm sure you're more than aware of the various virus scanners and such, so I won't go into those.

Disable the indexing service.

I should do that.

Also, avoid stuff like Registry Cleaners or Registry Defraggers, I did it once and It messed up a few things and almost knocked out my HL install... which is ok now I got a new disc... and it still didn't fix my 3ds max problem.

But check the performance and maintainence tab in control panels. Disable everything you don't need visually. I know in XP, if you disable all but the last 3 things, you keep all of the fanciness without the subtle details that eat ram and you won't miss.

What what?!
Playbus, those useless things made my computer 3 times faster, literally.

Sure you didn't just close the cow pr0n at the same time? ;D

Anyway is there such a thing as going 'over' the top with cleaners and scanners and such? I only want the important ones. Thanks for the suggestions anyway. Especially the PM from Madcow

Registry cleaners are useless and actually cause damage. Anything advertised in a pop-up is likely a trojan. Freeram isn't needed, just launch a program that acquires and releases lots of memory (Opera, not iTunes).

Basically:

• A fast, effective antivirus (Avast or NOD32)
• A fast, effective firewall (I use Sygate, but there's no Vista version :o)
• CCleaner. It deletes un-used cache files and is a legit registry cleaner
• Speedfan. This allows you to control the speed of your fans.
• Spybot S&D + Ad-aware. There's no need to pay for anti-spyware. Spybot protects IE6/7 without slowing down browsing at all.

Registry cleaners are useless and actually cause damage. Anything advertised in a pop-up is likely a trojan.

True, if you use them wrong.
Registry cleaners does speed up the computer by removing useless entrys which you will get plenty of.

And, as you said David, don't just download ANY registry cleaner.
Download safe ones from trustable sites.
I can't remember the name of it, but there is a site which tests and reviews all these freeware programs, they make sure there are no spyware or viruses in them

"OMFGWTFBBQ 100% Spywaer/ Advwart fr33!"

I don't trust those notices.

http://www.snapfiles.com/ I believe.
It is safe.
They are not the creators of the programs, so why would they lie about the security of them?

madcow-
Registry cleaners does speed up the computer by removing useless entrys which you will get plenty of.

madcow-
Download safe ones from trustable sites.

You don't know what you're talking about.

madcow-
Playbus, those useless things made my computer 3 times faster, literally.

No, they didn't. Not unless your computer was the equivalent of a terminally ill person to begin with. And even then, you're exaggerating.

habboi-
Could you explain the whole understanding the system?

Just like a car engine. If you know exactly how and why it works, it's much easier to see when something is wrong with it.

So, what you're saying is..
*Loads of useless registry entrys does not affect the computer.
*Spyware is harmless.
*Clutter does not actually fill any space.
*Low RAM does not affect the speed of the computer.
*Loads of programs starting up at once on launch does not affect the speed of the launch

Explain yourself.

And no, I am not exaggerating
Using these programs I removed all unnecessary startup programs which had been added by default (it IS a laptop) making the startup many times faster
This pushed up the ram from 300 to 600.
Computer was still slow, I ran a registry check, found.. can't remember how many crap entrys, removed them, and BANG!
Everything is faster.

I gotta admit Playbus he has a point. I mean clearing your PC of useless files surely speeds it up since it doesn't have to go through all those files to do what it was told to do.

ANYWAY changed my mind. Ordered PC right now and got a confirmation. If it interests you the specs are:

Intel? Core? 2 Quad-Core QX6700 Extreme Processor (2.66GHz,1066MHz,8MB cache)

4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]

750GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst? cache

SINGLE 768MB nVidia? GeForce? 8800 GTX graphics card

So lets get this straight. So far we have:

Disable the indexing service, Disable un-needed Windows services, Enable advanced hard drive speed options, We have the programs Strider suggested but you need knowledge of your processes (something Task Manager can't tell us), Diskeeper, Tuneup Untilities, avoid stuff like Registry Cleaners or Registry Defraggers, Avast Scanner, Sygate, CCleaner, Spybot / Ad-Aware.

Ok so I'll get all those and do it every week But seriously you don't need all of those so I'm going to think wisely about which to use.

CCleaner is amazing. Running it every night, I routinely clear out about 50MB in temporary files alone.

Damn Habboi, that's pretty high end. And your total?

Quad core processors = total waste of money amirite? Oh well, at least it'll eat games up for the next couple years.

What do you mean Srry?
I mean, they work fine, and are fast.

I thought they were generally considered to be not very cost effective, sort of like SLI. I suppose if you're decoding a DVD, listening to music, playing Bioshock and running a virus scan at the same time it'll be nice though.

vista tells you information about your processes

As does XP, but may I ask what you're trying to say?

EDIT:

We have the programs Strider suggested but you need knowledge of your processes (something Task Manager can't tell us)

Oh, right.

There is one big advantage to a quad-core CPU: compiling Source maps.

Defrag a lot.
Clear temporary files at startup. (Could be done easily using a batch file.)
Disable all useless services.
Remove background processes as much as possible.
Remove most visual crap.

That's performance in a nutshell, and also good reasons NOT to run Vista.

I don't know, removing GUI prettiness so Vista looks like 2000 is going too far for me. If you stare at the contents of a screen, they should be as visually pleasing as possible.

Saw: Breathes in Roughly ?2400...

And I decided to get Quad because even though they aren't being used yet I wont get a new PC for say 6 years now and I wanted it to last that long so I went high end. Besides I'm sure in 2 years time Quad will be used a lot ;O At least I can use all 4 cores for booting the PC

oops. get two 320GB HDDs instead of one. better cost-to-gigabyte ratio as well as the option to RAID.

You'll need at least 50 GB per game installation in two years time.

You just edited it from 20GB.

You just pointed out something that is entirely pointless.

You may also want to get a copy of Norton Ghost. What this does is make a virtual copy of a hard drive and you can then save the new ghost file to an external hard-drive or to a dvd. For example. After installing HL2 and Steam I made a Ghost and saved it to my external harddrive and then burned it to 4 dvds (ghost files are large but they get split up for easier copying). If something ever happens to my C drive I reformat, reinstall XP and Ghost then get Ghost to restore my C drive to the way it was before. Also, CCleaner is quite good but you can get a smaller version called Eraser. This little program will erase all unused hard-drive space. What does that do you might ask? Well, you may know that when you delete a file, it is removed but there is always a trace left behind. Now hackers have access to new programs that can recover all data on a computer even deleted files can be restored and opened and view private information. So, run CCleaer or it's smaller counterpart Eraser and it will delete these traces. Performing a deletion up to seven times to ensure deletion. I did this on my computer and restored over 700mb of harddrive space! As for virus software, use AVG, don't bother much with high priced software like Norton that requires updates every week. Also, you can't beat simple processes like a defrag and scandisk. You should also do a scandisk after using CCleaner or Eraser because these do frag up your machine but only because they make extra space in beween frags that were full. Which is why there is a debate as to wether this is worth it but it is. As for general system maintanaince, get a program similar to Nuts and Bolts. I'm sure there are newer versions or similar programs but a program like that is useful.

Explain yourself.

Nah. Don't need to. I fix more comptures each day than you eat portions of food. Probably double that. And I get paid for it. So I'll just let you wade in your ignorance.

Y'know, that actually sounds like a round-about way of saying "I can't".

Perhaps you should explain yourself, to clear the matter up?

It's more like "I can't be bothered - when I just got out of bed on Sunday morning"

Sigh.

*Loads of useless registry entrys does not affect the computer.

Didn't say that.

*Spyware is harmless.

Didn't say that either.

*Clutter does not actually fill any space.

Didn't say that.

*Low RAM does not affect the speed of the computer.

Go on. Quote me.

*Loads of programs starting up at once on launch does not affect the speed of the launch

I didn't say any of these things -- you inferred them yourself, in a very childish way.

Answer me this. What IS the registry? I'll give you a clue. The answer is two words. (Well three, if you count "A" in front of them)

Now, I believe habboi was the person asking for help here.

So Habboi, pm me if you want to talk.

That is not explaining yourself playbus.
Explain, why does these programs not work?
I mean, obviously you agree with me on the points I stated.
Now, if these programs repair these problems, then how can they not work?

*Low RAM does not affect the speed of the computer.

Go on. Quote me.

In my professional opinion, the things Madcow recommended to you are entirely useless.

FreeRAM is useless, it's an app that can be replaced with these actions:

• Using Vista (all your RAM are belong to us)
• In XP, running and then closing Opera.

Either of these options will suck up all RAM held up by programs that don't let go, and then make it avaliable.

I use Free Ram mainly for the launch.
For some reason, after the launch I usually have like 300 mb of RAM.
But I've set Free Ram to Auto Free directly after all the startup programs have been started.
This makes up to 500 MB free.

You just edited it from 20GB.

This point is as untrue as it is irrelevant.

Now, if these programs repair these problems, then how can they not work?

They don't work nearly as well as knowing how to do these things yourself. Automated tools often miss things, and leave their own clutter behind too. You have even less clutter when you do things yourself.

I'm in no mood for an ultimately pointless argument. I retract the phrase "entirely useless" and replace it with "shit for beginners".

Playbus, you should really not post at all unless you can at least give some constructive advice. The only thing you've said so far as far as advice goes is "a firm understanding of exactly how the system works" - but no means of how to acquire it or what that understanding consists of. To be honest, you'd have been better off just not answering. You're very quick to point out that you're better than everyone else though, I'll give you that.

As far as keeping your system alright, though, I dunno. I'm not exactly an expert in the field. Use good spyware protection, keep windows' services clean, don't download dodgy software.

This means no more meatspin habboi.