Preventive Maintenance

Hardware

The most important process in relation to the maintenance of hardware is in keeping it clean and dry. Dust, smoke and moisture can cause serious damage to the working of any electronic equipment. The following devices need attention.

• Keyboard. Dust, water and other sticky substances cause the keyboard to function poorly. The spillage of these substances into the keyboard will prevent the keys form moving up and down. Keyboards also have very small switches under the keys that can eventually get clogged by dust and smoke and then stop functioning properly. The best rule to apply in preventive maintenance is to keep the keyboard covered when not in use and avoid having substances near the keyboard while it is being used.
• HDD. The Hard Disk Drive has to work in a very clean environment, but also needs to "breathe" to allow for atmospheric changes. The drive has a vent that is covered by a filter. Dirt and smoke can clog the filter and eventually cause the drive to fail. If dust or smoke were to get into the drive, the platter would become damaged as the head-to-platter distance is less then the diameter of a smoke particle.
• FDD. The Floppy disk drive heads are in contact with the disk surface. Small particles come off the disk and remain on the head. A special cleaning disk needs to be used to ensure the heads are kept clean. As well, dust and other particles can enter the drive through the front cover and clog up the mechanisms inside.
• CD-ROM Drive. The laser needs to be cleaned. This can be done with a special cleaning CD that has little brushed attached. The CD is placed in the drive and allowed to run through a sequence that cleans the laser.
• Printer. The type of printer determines the maintenance required. Laser printers usually require some cleaning when a new drum or toner cartridge is replaced. Instructions ususally accompany the replacement parts. Occasionally, toner gets spilt inside and then the printer need to be cleaned by a service technician. Ink Jet printers also need occasional maintenance as the ink jets become blocked. The printer usually has a cleaning cycle that will perform this task. Instructions are always in the manual.
• Mouse. A mouse is one of those devices that needs constant attention. Fluff and dirt sticks to the ball and then wraps around the little rollers inside that allow the tracking of movement. The ball neds to be removed and washed in warm soapy solution. The dirt on the roller needs to be removed - sometimes even scrapped off - and the rollers cleaned with Isopropyl Alcohol. (incidentally, that is what is used to clean a CD and the heads of Floppy drives and tapes). The new 3M mouse mats have a special surface that helps prevent the buildup of dirt in a mouse.
• Power Supply and Processor fan. If the fan in the computer stops, eventually the processor will get to hot and fail. These fans do tend to wear out, this being indicated by strange whirring noises from within the case, and need to be replaced when faulty.

Software

This information is specific to an MS-Dos and more specifically MS-Windows based computers but equally, the processes apply to all computers.

When software is installed, system files need to be modified to allow the Operating System to know the new program exists. These are usually what is known as initialization (.ini) or registration (registry) files. With the addition and removal of software, these files can become "out of date", damaged or contain redundant data. Thus, there is a need to regularly check these to ensure these system files are in good order. This is usually very technical so programmers develop special software to perform these processes. Software such as "First Aid" and Norton's Windoctor are two examples of this type of software. The software needs to be run on a regular basis to keep the computer "healthy".

More information can be obtained from http://www.symantec.com/

Disk drives wear out and files get damaged. The latest computers from IBM have special sensors that monitor the speed and other characteristics of the disk drive. If there are any problems like the drive going slower than normal, an alert is issued. For most systems, a regular checkup of the health of the disk drive should be carried out. This is done with special software such as Windows Scandisk and Semantic Disk Doctor. Software such as this will check the integrity of the data and files stored on the disk as well as the ability of the disk read data written to it without error.

As time goes by, the files stored on a disk drive becomes fragmented due to the allocation of space and the constant change of data content. Also, files are not always removed when software is uninstalled and some temporary files created for a "one off" job are not deleted. Other software tools such as Windows Defrag, Semantic Speed disk and Space Wizard needs to be run to "clean up any mess". These programs need to be run on a regular basis to ensure that the computer is running at peak performance.

Mike Leishman 1999