Perhaps you’re asking yourself this question after making a new laptop purchase. Let me remind you that in the previous article, we discussed how to choose the right laptop for your needs. Of course, everyone knows that nothing lasts forever. Computer specialists in the area of data storage say there are no hard drives that last forever; instead, there are hard drives that break sooner or later. So, let’s examine how we can extend the life of your portable helper.
First First of all, let’s list the three main enemies of any computer: moisture, dust, and vibrations. Moisture is a bane of nearly all electronics, except of course special instruments designed for use in the sea. In our case it helps a bit if you chose a laptop with a special moisture-preventing keyboard, going with my recommendation in the previous article. Of course, if you spill something on your laptop, it’s still necessary to shut it down, take out the batteries and clean off the spill and bring to a service shop as soon as possible! Time is against you in this case – in literally 2-3 hours the electro-chemical reactions inside your laptop can be unrepairable “kill” it. The time it takes for this to happen depends on the acidity of the liquid.
Next is dust a less aggressive enemy, but still quite a killer. I have many cases where dust and hair piled up inside the heat-sinks created a “pillow” that completely stopped circulation of the cooling air. As a result of this, the laptop overheated and broke down. That’s why I strongly recommend to periodically vacuum the air circulation holes of outside your laptop and PC. However, do not use any other methods to clean the circulation such as compressed air! You can easily break your CD- DVD-devices. Also try to not use the laptop on soft surfaces – such as in the bed or near pets. Remember that a working laptop is sort of a mini-vacuum cleaner device.
Vibrations and shaking are no less dangerous than the previous “enemies”. This must be kept in mind by mobile users, especially by car drivers. The bigger and heavier the laptop is, the heavier its parts are and thus they shake out of their holdings faster. When going on the road, take inexpensive laptops with you, or even better special GPS-equipped multimedia devices.
Another recommendation, to go along with the above, is if something stopped working, don’t try to fix it yourself – bring it into repairs! For example, if wires are having bad contact, then the voltage going through the poor connection will increase dramatically and will lead to a warming up or even fire/melting of the motherboard in which case the repairs are considerably more expensive.
In conclusion, some general tips and suggestions. It’s best to wipe the screen with a moist tissue, soaked in special LCD-cleaning solution. The keyboard should be periodically cleaned by turning the laptop upside down and shaking slightly. You must check, periodically, for loose hinges and tighten the swing bolts or replace them in the computer shop; otherwise you can break the case of laptop.
If you use the Internet – then you must install anti-virus or anti-spyware and keep the programs updated to protect your computer.
Best of luck in your work,
