How To Prolong The Life of Your Computer

Nothing lasts forever—especially tech—but your computer can last you quite a few years if you treat it well. If your laptop tends to break down earlier than you feel it should, there's a chance you're helping it along with some especially bad habits. Here are some of the worst things you can do to a PC without even realizing you're doing anything wrong. 

Here are steps not to do to damage your computer 

Leaving Your Laptop on a Soft Surface (and other overheating Problems) 

Heat is your computer's mortal enemy. If your computer gets too hot, the computer may slow down, reducing itself to keep temperatures reasonable, or even shutting down completely. Running at high temperatures for extended periods can reduce the lifespan of your computer, fans, and battery as well—not to mention make your computer loud and sizzling to touch. 

For desktop computers, the solution is pretty simple: make sure your case has reasonable airflow, with enough vents and fans to keep cool air moving through the components. That means keeping it out of tight cabinets and other spaces that trap heat. 

Laptop, on the other hand, require a bit more care. Their portability leads to a lot of bad habits, like putting it on a blanket or other plush surface. This blocks airflow under the laptop, and potentially through the Laptop. 

When possible, use your laptop on a flat surface (where the rubber feet usually raise it up off a desk), or at least make sure your laptop is free of blankets and other things that can block airflow. Special pads are a good way to ensure things stay cool.  

other than that, the same rules apply to laptops as desktops: Don't leave it in hot places (like a car on a sunny day) and blow out the dust once in a while. 

Letting Dirt, Dust, and Liquids Run Wild 

 

All computers accumulate some dust over time, heating up the components and making those fans work harder. While cleaning once every while can help, you also want to prevent stuff from getting into your computer in the first place. 

For example, cigarette smoke and pet fur will make those problems worse, and putting your desktop PC on the floor will ensure more of that dust, hair, and debris will get sucked into the intake. And if you have carpet on your floor, you’re probably blocking the power supply’s intake fan. Keep your computer on a desk or other riser, if at all possible, and make sure there are filters on your intake fans. 

Secondly, don’t eat or drink near your PC, or at least take some care when you do. Getting crumbs in your keyboard is not only disgusting, but it can damage the keys. And I’m sure you’ve heard enough horror stories about people spilling coffee on their laptop, which can straight up destroy the machine.  

Even well-intentioned moves, like cleaning your screen with Windex, can introduce liquid where it shouldn’t be (also, Windex is too harsh for your monitor). Spray your gentle screen cleaner on a microfiber cloth, not on the screen, and don’t go crazy—a little goes a long way. 

Handling Your Laptop Carelessly 

 

Again, while desktops have the luxury of sitting comfortably in your office, laptops are subject to all sorts of damage. I've seen people pick up the laptop by its display, open the hinge from one side with way too much force, and toss the laptop onto the couch from the other side of the room.  

Laptops are meant to be portable, and some can be pretty durable, but the more you injure it, the more likely you are to damage something. At best, you'll just have to deal with a worn-out laptop hinge or a crack in the casing. But if your laptop has a traditional spinning hard drive instead of an Solid State Disc tossing or shaking the computer—especially if the drive is active at the time—can even cause its head to dislocate or touch the surface of the disk. It isn't common, but if that happens, you're going to have a bad day, especially if you haven't copied or saved your data. Your laptop is an expensive piece of property. 

Mismanaging Your old Battery 

Just because your laptop's battery starts with "eight hours of battery life" doesn't mean it'll stay that way forever. Batteries decrease after time—you may get eight hours on a full charge when you first buy it, but after a few years, that may degrade to six or seven hours. There's no escaping this decline, but you may be decrease it faster than necessary if you always run your laptop down to 0 percent.  

You should, however, stress out if your battery is swollen. If your battery is bulging so much that it’s pushing against the case of your laptop, creating a gap between the panels, you need to stop using your computer now and (safely) replace the battery, lest you encounter an explosive failure.  

When you replace the battery, don’t buy a cheap ripoff from eBay—buy it from the manufacturer or a respected company. Low-quality batteries will, at best, not hold a charge very well, and at worst, can be dangerous. The same goes for third-party chargers—just stick to the manufacturer’s official offering or, in the case of laptops that charge over USB 

Stressing the Cables and Ports 

 

While damaging a USB port or cable isn’t as dangerous as mishandling the power adapter, it can still cause avoidable damage to your computer. This may seem obvious, but don’t force cables into ports if they aren’t sliding in properly  

Similarly, if you leave something plugged in, take care not to bend it—if you have a flash drive in your laptop’s USB port, using your laptop cross-legged may bend the flash drive, damaging either the drive, the port, or both. And with USB ports at such a premium on today’s laptops, you definitely don’t want to ruin one of them. 

The same goes for your cables. If you constantly make sharp bends back and forth, you’re more likely to break the connection inside, which can render the cable finicky or useless. Keep them away from hungry children and pets who might chew through the plastic, and when you coil them up, avoid wrapping them too tightly. Thankfully, a damaged cable is cheap to replace compared to your PC, but why waste money when you don’t have to? 

Wasting Time on Unnecessary Maintenance 

 

Back in the days of Windows XP, when hardware was limited and computers were slow, PC maintenance may have made a difference. But these days, deleting unused and temporary files is unlikely to give you a noticeable speed boost. Many "PC Cleaning" utilities are scams meant to scare you into buying their product—and the free, less cheap ones are still unnecessary most of the time. 

Furthermore, certain types of "maintenance" may actually be harmful. Registry cleaners provide almost no benefit, but if they delete a registry entry you actually need, they can actually cause problems. Similarly, these new "privacy" apps that claim to stop Windows 10 from "spying" on you can break certain features without you knowing why. 

If you want to clean your computer, use Windows' built-in Disk Clean-up utility and delete any movies, music, and other files you aren't using. And if your computer is running unbearably slow, try removing start-up programs or resetting your PC—if that doesn't work, it's probably time to upgrade your hardware. 

Browsing the Web Unprotected 

 

Contrary to popular belief, "common sense," while very valuable, should not be your only malware protection. Even legitimate sites can become infected with malware, passing those problems on to you, and browsing carefully won't save you. You need to use antivirus on your computer. 

Thankfully, Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender feature has gotten quite good, after a few years of sub-par ratings. Just leave it on and let it do its job instead of buying a fancy new one that takes your information for free. 

 

Picking the Computer By the Screen 

This is by far one of the worst things to do to your computer, your screen is supposed to sit on hinges, these hinges aren't meant to support the weight of the entire computer, including the keyboard. Slowly slowly the hinges will weaken and become loose, then suddenly before you know it, SNAP the hinges aren't working properly and when you next open the computer it may just simply fall off.  

Also if you do the before and it hasn’t broken yet, don’t just assume your computer is able to handle the pressure, it could have broken the circuits in the screen and you would have to completely replace the screen, this takes a lot of effort and costs more than you think, plus you would lose any information that you had previously had.