Diagnostics. DO THEM!

Simple little things that keep your machine operating properly. Disc clean up. Defrag, etc. My machine was running slowly. Even scrolled slowly and thought, "When did I last clean up my machine?" Over 2 months. Did those and I'm much happier. These tasks can be scheduled to take place while you sleep but I prefer manual. Only problem? Don't forget to do them. These are the basics. Any diagnostics I am missing would be appreciated. Aside from a virus scan. That goes without saying.

reply to post by intrepid


Other than the ones you have mentioned already specific maintenance tasks are different from system to system so its a bit difficult to know what to suggest without knowing what type of PC you are running and what operating system you have. So ill add some general suggestions for a windows pc of OS XP onwards.

- Im sure many people would want to suggest Ccleaner.

- I like to use the 'clean up system files' part of disk clean up.

- Personally i like to run hijackthis every now and then to check for if needs be remove unwanted browser objects. but i don't recommend this is you don't know what you are doing.

- Registry cleaners can be dodgy so always back up the registry before you run them. CCleaner has a pretty decent registry cleaner in it as well. I also like to remove unwanted stuff from the registry by hand , you will probably be surprised just how much stuff is left in there even after a program has been uninstalled. But i dont recommend this unless you know what you are doing or at least back up the registry, set a restore point and have a recovery disk at hand.

- I use always use IOBitUninstaller to remove programs because it does a good job of removing registry entire as well.

- if you're feeling adventurous you could try using msconfig.exe to check what programs are being loaded up when windows starts. you might want to disable anything unwanted there.

- you could check services.msc to see if there is anything you want to disable or set to delayed startup. Setting certain services to delayed startup can help speed up your boot time.

reply to post by intrepid
I clear my cache many times per day and run CCleaner usually twice per day. Also I always run ant-virus followed by cleaning tools every time something updates on my machine (Windows, HP, etc.) I defrag about once per month. My machine runs as fast as greased lightning!

reply to post by PhoenixOD


ccleaner is good.. but two times it make my win7 spunk up after running a full clean on everything.. its very aggressive..

Instead of a cleaner prog, you could simple make a full format of your c:\ and install a fresh windows

CCleaner
comodo firewall
avira antivirus
hijackthis
windows firewall
microsoft security essentials
Popup blocker chrome addon
google chrome

me safe :d

Crazy you post a thread like this! I am looking at programs for my Mac to clean it up right now. I have had it a little over a year and I haven't done anything like it yet. I had a Powerbook before this and it was a little different so I am not sure what I need for this one. I have a Macbook Pro and I use Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

If anyone has any suggestions that would be nice. I did try one many suggested a while back but it made my computer really slow and it was a pain to get it off. It was called MacKeeper. I have since deleted it.

I want to get rid of things i don't need but I don't know what I don't need. I don't really download alot of things other than PDF files, books and that is it. I don't download music and I rarely download programs or Apps. I just want to clean it up and get all the "junk" off.

Thanks

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by intrepid

 

Other than the ones you have mentioned already specific maintenance tasks are different from system to system so its a bit difficult to know what to suggest without knowing what type of PC you are running and what operating system you have. So ill add some general suggestions for a windows pc of OS XP onwards.

- Im sure many people would want to suggest Ccleaner.

- I like to use the 'clean up system files' part of disk clean up.

- Personally i like to run hijackthis every now and then to check for if needs be remove unwanted browser objects. but i don't recommend this is you don't know what you are doing.

- Registry cleaners can be dodgy so always back up the registry before you run them. CCleaner has a pretty decent registry cleaner in it as well. I also like to remove unwanted stuff from the registry by hand , you will probably be surprised just how much stuff is left in there even after a program has been uninstalled. But i dont recommend this unless you know what you are doing or at least back up the registry, set a restore point and have a recovery disk at hand.

- I use always use IOBitUninstaller to remove programs because it does a good job of removing registry entire as well.

- if you're feeling adventurous you could try using msconfig.exe to check what programs are being loaded up when windows starts. you might want to disable anything unwanted there.

- you could check services.msc to see if there is anything you want to disable or set to delayed startup. Setting certain services to delayed startup can help speed up your boot time.

edit on 12-1-2013 by PhoenixOD because: (no reason given)

You should never use a registry cleaner they can actually make your computer slower until a fresh install of windows but all the other features in CClean are grate.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
Crazy you post a thread like this! I am looking at programs for my Mac to clean it up right now. I have had it a little over a year and I haven't done anything like it yet. I had a Powerbook before this and it was a little different so I am not sure what I need for this one. I have a Macbook Pro and I use Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard.

If anyone has any suggestions that would be nice. I did try one many suggested a while back but it made my computer really slow and it was a pain to get it off. It was called MacKeeper. I have since deleted it.

I want to get rid of things i don't need but I don't know what I don't need. I don't really download alot of things other than PDF files, books and that is it. I don't download music and I rarely download programs or Apps. I just want to clean it up and get all the "junk" off.

Thanks

If you dont really do much then you should not have junk on your computer. You keep up with your downloads right? You should defrag your hard drive, it will make things a bit smoother, just google how to defrag mac

reply to post by intrepid


Not really a diagnostic, but you could do a physical cleaning of the hardware itself.

A clogged-up air flow can make the computer hotter (electronics don't like heat) and make the fans work more than they could. That is mostly necessary on laptops, as all components are much closer to each other than on a desktop computer.

If you can use another disk, I suggest that, for doing a defrag, you first copy most of the big files or folders to the other disk, then do the defrag. After that move the files and folders back and defrag again. From what I have seen this makes it faster to defrag, specially on disks that are almost full.

PS: a diagnostic could be keeping a look on CPU and motherboard temperatures and fan speeds, those will show if you need to clean your computer or not.

reply to post by ArMaP

If you can use another disk, I suggest that, for doing a defrag, you first copy most of the big files or folders to the other disk, then do the defrag. After that move the files and folders back and defrag again. From what I have seen this makes it faster to defrag, specially on disks that are almost full.

Thats a very interesting idea, not one ive heard of before