15 Top Must Do’s to Keep Your PC Up and Working Tips 2013

Since defragging the disk is considered a good way to maintain a system’s performance. But it’s not alone to improve PC performance. Below listed ways are some of the basic and must-do’s for every computer owner to enhance the life and functionality of the PC, that too without costing you a penny:



1.) To decrease a system's boot time and increase system performance, use the built-in Windows defragmenter. Equip the computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache buffer.



2.) Use Higher Ram, probably more than equal to 1 GB. If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can dramatically improve system performance.




3.) The Windows should be utilizing the NTFS file system.



How to check and enable NTFS file system:

• First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties.
• Next, observe the File System type; if it says FAT32, then back-up any important data.
• Next, click Start; click Run, type CMD, and then click OK.
• At the prompt, type CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS and press the Enter key.

The file system used by the bootable drive is either FAT or NTFS. NTFS is highly recommended for its superior security, efficiency, and reliability, with larger disk drives.

4.) File indexing should be disabled. The indexing service extracts information from documents and other files on the hard drive and creates a searchable keyword index, which can be quite demanding  on any system.

How to disable File Indexing:

• Double-click the My Computer icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties.
• Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching."
• Next, apply changes to "C: subfolders and files," and click OK.
• If a warning or error message appears (such as "Access is denied"), click the Ignore All button.

5.) Always configure the BIOS properly and keep your PC drivers like drivers for: Motherboard Chipset, Audio and Video, LAN, USB.

6.) Regularly empty the Windows Prefetch folder. Windows "prefetches" parts of data and

applications that are used often. With time, the prefetch folder may become burdened withportions

of so many applications and files, some of which are no longer in use. It makes slowing system

performance, by pre-loading them. The entire contents of prefetch folder should be deleted.

7.) Once every month, run disk cleanup.

Here's how:

• Double-click the My Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties.
• Click the Disk Cleanup button and delete all temporary files.

8.) In your Device Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and ensure DMA

is enabled for each drive you have associated to the Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by

• Double-clicking on Primary IDE Channel.
• Then click the Advanced Settings tab.
• Ensure the Transfer Mode is set to "DMA if available" for both Device 0 and Device 1.
• Then repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

9.) Always remove all spyware from the computer. Use programs such as AdAware, Quick Heal,Avast, Norton etc. Once these programs are installed, check for and download any updates before starting your examination. Any malfunctioning program can be safely removed. Make sure to have only one anti-virus installed. Having more than one anti-virus software spells disaster for performance and reliability.

10.) Remove any unnecessary programs and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility:

• First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK.
• Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don't want to start when Windows starts.

11.) Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

12.) Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active desktop. In fact, for optimal

performance, turn off all animations.

How to do it:

• First click on the System icon in the Control Panel.
• Click on the Advanced tab.
• Select the Settings button located under Performance.
• Play around with the options offered here, as nothing you can change will change the
• dependability of the computer, but its responsiveness.

13.) Make sure to have less than 500 type fonts installed on computer. The more fonts you have,the slower the system will become. While newer versions of Windows handle fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows, too many fonts will noticeably tax the system.

14.) Do not partition the hard drive. Windows NTFS file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is no harmless on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system. Also, the free space won't be limited by the size of the partition; instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This allows you to not have to re-size any partitions, ever.

15.) If you're tired of a single Windows Explorer window crashing and then compelling the rest of your OS down with it, then follow these steps:

• Open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options.
• Click on the View tab. Scroll down to "Launch folder windows in a separate process," and enable this option.
• Reboot your machine for this to take effect.

Make it a point to always follow these guidelines, and you can make your PC’s life and functionality last longer than before, with effectiveness in working.