Tuesday, August 30, 2011

General Advice on Computers: If You Need Me, Care For Me, Baby

A regular care of your PC is required so that it serves you for long without fail. The most important things while buying a new PC that come to my mind are listed below. I am also listing some points for maintenance which is needed after you buy your PC. 


If any one finds any other important factor that should be included in this, can m2m me or post comment(s) on this review. Right Selection of Hardware: - Branded or assembled, call is yours but if you choose right vendor you can get very good assembled PC too. With Branded (cost difference is not much now a days) you get licensed Operating System, Antivirus and other goodies in the form of printer, CDs etc.- Before you decide to buy a particular configuration of PC, be sure to note down your requirements. 


What you want it to do for you. It is like appointing a candidate in a company. A candidature is posted only after finalizing job needs and job profile. - Always go for a new computer so that it lives its full life for you. Atleast select the latest family (P4) and you can compromise with the configuration. You can buy one or two steps lower configuration than the latest one as it will give you a good cost benefit. And go for Centrino if you are going for a laptop. 


As the hardware costs have come to ground level prices there is no point in going for a second hand PC or laptop or a new P3 PC. - If you are crazy about new games that need high resources in your PC, select high RAM (atleast 512MB or 1GB), go for a separate display Card (64MB or higher) as in most of the cases display memory is used as shared memory from the total lot. - Buy 15” or above monitor as 14” is almost out of use now. -  Select a right vendor who is a long term player in the market so that he is able to take your call in need. Maintenance: - Keep your PC away from water cooler or doors and windows as dust and moisture are the two biggest enemies of the chips lying inside your PC. - Get your system checked at a regular frequency (preventive maintenance) may be once a quarter so that the dust accumulated inside get cleared. Moisture / dust of RAM get cleaned. 


This can be done with the help of a light duty vacuum cleaner and wiping the RAMs with a soft clean cloth. Also don’t forget to check any loose cards in the slots and nuts properly screwed. - Use dust covers when your PC is not in use. - Listen to your PC: Any non-familiar, non regular beeps / sounds/ messages should be noticed when your system is booting up or running. An additional sound in your CD-ROM may need cleaning of dust.

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