Cleaning a computer

1. Viruses, spyware, and trojan programs are not only destructive they can send your data to a criminal. Identity theft is one of the largest threats to your well being to day.



2. Another threat is the common dust particle. Left alone over a period of time this little innoxious piece of material can build up and cause heat damage to the components of your computer.



3. The last threat to your computer are the files that are created when you use programs like email, a word processor, a spread sheet, or your browser, these are temporary files.

So how do you clean these things out of your computer?

Cleaning a computer with a Virus/Spyware/Trojan

Lets start with the Virus/Spyware/Trojan problem. If you have reputable programs installed and you keep them up to date then this should not be a problem unless you download one that is not in the current data file for the anti-virus, anti-spyware, or anti-trojan program.

So how do you go about cleaning a computer if it becomes infected? Assuming you have the anti-virus/spyware/trojan programs installed or will get them installed before starting this procedure. Also this procedure is for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7 / 8 only.

Symptoms:

• Sometimes there aren't any warning signs that your computer is infected then sometimes these things happen:


• Your computer restarts with out warning


• You open your browser and all the sudden you have browser windows popping open all over the place and you can't stop them.


• Your system all the sudden is extremely slow, yesterday it was fine today it takes a long time to open a program and when you use the program it drags.

How to do cleaning a computer with infections:

Cleaning a computer instructions:

How to deal with dust and dirt?

When you turn on your computer one or more fans start to operate. One is in the power supply (if you put your hand behind the computer you can feel the warm air coming out of the power supply). Another fan will be on the top of your processor.

There may be more fans, one on your video card, one in the front of your computer case, sometimes there are extra fans for the hard drive.

Three fans that are of the most importance are the power supply, the processor, and the one in the front of the computer case.

The power supply fan is an exhaust fan, that it extracts the hot air out of the computer.

The fan in the front of the computer is an intake fan, it brings in fresh cool air (and dust) into the computer.

All other fans are circulation fans, that is they move the heated air away from the component that the fan is close to or mounted on.

Symptoms:

• Your computer shuts down with out notice.


• You computer speaker (not your stereo speakers) emits a series of beeps every so often.


• If you have a temperature monitoring program installed it tells you that the temperature is at or above the maximum threshold.

Cleaning a computer, it may need a dusting...

• So how do you clean out the dust and dirt? You have to open the computer to do this task, be sure to have a grounding strap connected to you and the computer or ESD may damage a component.
  
• You can use these items to clean out the computer: canned air, a vacuum, and a stiff bristle paint brush (the small 1/2 inch artist brush works very well, it is small enough to get into the crooks and crannies inside the computer).

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• Using the canned air with the extension nozzle attached blow the air into the power supply (be aware that a large cloud of dust will emerge from the power supply).


• Blow the air on the fan from outside the power supply, clean off the dust that has accumulated over time. Then blow the air from the inside the computer through the cooling holes in the power supply, do it from different positions on the power supply, normally when no more dust comes out of the fan you have cleaned if fairly well.


• Next take the paint brush and starting at the top most part of the computer gently dust down all the components you can reach. If there are some places you can not reach with the paint brush use the canned air to blow out the dust (like the fan on the processor and video card).


• Once you have 'dusted' down all the components you can vacuum up the dust. Be aware that the suction of the vacuum can damage components so keep it away from the surface of them. You can use the paint brush to get any stubborn dust loose.


• Now you have cleaned out the computer it will run cooler and last longer. I try to (it is hard to remember to do it!) clean out my computers every six months.

Do  the cleaning a computer by cleaning out the temp files!

• Temporary files are created by programs as a 'holding place' for changes. You open a document with your word processor, as you read/modify the document the changes are save in a file called <name of file>.tmp or <name of file>.temp such as this document as I type it: cleaning-a-computer.tmp. Now some programs are very well behaved and clean up when they are closed, that is they delete any temporary files the used while you were using the program. Others are brats. They create temporary files and do not delete them when they are done, not only that they don't put the files in the normal place where you would expect to find the temporary files, such as in the temp directory (or folder).


• So how do you find the errant files cluttering up your hard drive and wasting precious space? Search for them! Sure, use a tool that is made for this type of task. Go to Start/Search, type in the search box *.tmp. When the search is complete in the right hand window select all the files you found and press the delete key, answer 'Yes' and then empty your recycle bin. Repeat using *.temp, and using ~*.*. This will get rid of all those pesky temporary files. One thing you should be aware of is when you do this you should close out all your programs, other wise the delete will cause an error on the first open file, then you have to start all over with the delete.


• Last thing you need to do on a regular basis when cleaning a computer is to defragment your hard drive  .

Down load this Free Computer Repair Eight Part Checklist save it to your hard drive, print it out when you do your repair. Send your friends here for their copy!

Another thing that will speed up a computer that has been used for some time is to clean out the registry. This is a program I use and highly recommended if you have completed all the above steps and you computer is still slow - Registry Fix!