How to maintain and prolong the life of your computer

No doubt that computers and other forms of technology have a big impact on our lives the past 30 years.  Who amongst us does not use the computer? Who amongst us have never encountered a problem or a crash in his computer?      

Today I am going to talk about how to understand, maintain, and prolong the life of your personal computer. The purpose of my essay is to familiarize youself with your computer and to maintain your conputer, prolong the life of your computer. I have been studying it for the past three years, and I have read many books about maintaining, troubleshooting and using computers.

Computers keep track of bank transactions, credit card purchases, and more. They are the corner stones of airlines massive reservation systems. They perform billions of computations in a very short period of time. Computers are needed to send equipments to distant places like Mars, the Moon, and other planets, and to operate them once they are there. Computers direct productions in factories, and provide business executive with the up to date information they need to make decisions. Computers also allow us to access the internet which has made tremendous impact on the way we work and live. Embedded computer chips are found in watches, phones, fax machines, kitchen appliances, exercise equipment, and many other everyday devices.

Of course, your best source and guide is your manual or catalogue that comes with your computer. There are other sources for the public like the series of the Dummies, like Windows for the Dummies, Mac for the Dummies and so on. It is a series for the nonprofessional. It is written in an easy language that everyone can understand. If you have a computer and you would like to learn about it or about your operating system, look for that book in any bookstore, it is very cheap.

When you purchase your new computer the first thing you should do is read the manual, then put it on and record your setting, or the default settings. your computer is composed of two main parts; hardware and software, it is easy to distinguish between the two because while hardware is anything that you can touch, you can not see the software or another word is intangible.

First we will talk about your hardware; Most of the computers compose of;

Your monitor, we will leave that for now, and your tower, which has most of the work. Your tower is composed of;

·       Power supply,

·       Mother board, or system board

·       Hard drive,

·       Floppy drive,

·       Cd drive, or DVD drive

·       Zip drive.

We will start by the mother board or the system board.

The system board has many components; we will try to discuss the most important part. It is the largest and the most complex part of the computer, it has the CPU or the processor which is the brain of the computer; it is also called the main chip because there are other chips on the motherboard which we will explain later. The CPU holds the ALU or the arithmetic and logic unit. ALU is responsible for the arithmetic and mathematical operation and logical process in the computer. Bios or basic input and output chip is one of the most important chips in your computer; it controls the transfer of data between devices attached to the system board, when you turn on your computer, your bios chip automatically examines each device and ensure that each device work properly. Then comes the second most important chip on your motherboard which is CMOS or complementary metal oxide semiconductor, it saves the time and the settings of your computer bios. A battery provides power to the CMOS chip when ever your computer turned off. Another internal component is the internal Bus which is a net of wires that carries data between components on the system board or motherboard Such as memory chip and the CPU. The speed of the data transfer is measured in megahertz.

There are many other chips in the computer, some of them are memory chips, its function is to hold data permanently, and they set in a memory slots. These memory chips are responsible for the movement of data through the computer through data cables.

Expansion slots; they are sockets used to add expansion cards to upgrade or add a feature to your computer.

 Power supply changes the alternating current ac that comes from electrical outlet to direct current dc that a computer can use.

Data storage concept, just for your own information, eight bits form one byte, 1024 bytes form one kilobyte. 1024 kilobytes form one megabyte, 1024 megabytes form one gigabyte.

A floppy is 1.44 mega

Ck is 720 mega

Zip is either 100,250,750

Jaz cartridge is 1 gigabyte, and it is used for backing up the whole hard dirve.

Some precautions and steps to follow

                    If you want to prolong the life of your computer;

·       Keep your computer in a cool dust free environment to help prolong the life of your power supply; you can remove the dust accumulated in your computer using a computer vacuum cleaner.

·       Never shut off your computer from the power button, but from the start menu.

·       Do not download free software unless you know it is from a credible source and view the certification of authenticity.

·       Never use a disk floppy or a CD from unknown source, it could be the source of viruses that will infect your computer as soon as you try to view the files the floppy or CD has.

·       If you do not know how to do it, do not do it, refer to a professional.

·       Scan your computer for virus, check your hard drive for errors, and defragmenter your data periodically, and you can do that through your power management utility.

·       Never touch the interior of the computer with your hand unless using the ground strap and disconnect the power. In your body there is static electricity that could harm your chips or CPU.

·       Always back up your data, always keep two of the same disk.