Information Technology

Preventive Maintenance for Your Computer System

Your computer equipment will last a long time and give you good service if you take care of it and follow these simple guidelines to prevent problems from happening.

  1. Do not smoke, eat or drink near any of your computer equipment.

  2. Once a week, back up your personal computer files using a back up program or by simply copying the files to a diskette or other media. Keep the copies in a safe place away from your computer, preferably in another room or another building.

    If you back up your entire local (C:) hard drive or a major portion of it, you might want to keep as many as three generations of backups - a son, a father and a grandfather.

  3. Once a month, or any time you do a significant amount of additions or deletions of files, you should defragment your local (C:) hard drive to reorganize the files for better performance. On Windows computers there is a program called System Defragmenter which can be run from the Start -- Programs -- Accessories -- System Tools area.

  4. Clean your computer screen every month with a clean, moist nasal tissue to remove the film of dirt that builds up.

  5. Be careful to apply labels to your diskettes so that the label adheres to the diskette and will not come loose when you insert the diskette into your computer.

  6. Use a mouse pad or an otherwise clean surface to keep your computer's mouse from getting excessively dirty.

  7. When your mouse works erratically or not at all, check and clean the ball and wheels inside the mouse. The mouse ball picks up dirt which is transferred to and builds up on the wheels.

  8. When you replace the ribbon or toner cartridge in your computer printer, make sure you follow the recommended cleaning and replacement procedure supplied with your new ribbon or cartridge.

  9. Use a surge protector to protect your computer equipment from electrical power surges and dips.  Do not plug other items (such as lights, radios, heaters and other appliances) into the same surge protector (or outlet).  If your surge protector is switched on, but the light is out or flashing, consider replacing the surge protector.

If problems do arise, please call the IT Help Desk (310-506-4357) to report the trouble you are experiencing with your computer equipment.

 

Get more help from the IT Help Desk at 1-310-506-HELP (4357).