Court Reporters – Take Care Of Your Livelihood!

By Quinn Copeland – Computer Expert

Disk Cleanup

                During the lifetime of a computer, files will be downloaded, programs will be installed, web pages will be browsed and things will be deleted.  These temporary files can take up quite a bit of hard drive space if not managed properly.  Disk cleanup is a centralized tool that will allow you to delete multiple unnecessary files with one easy step. 

                Go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and click on Disk Cleanup.  On this box, you have the ability to check the boxes of the folders you want to clean up as well as compress old files.

Hard Cleaning:

Fans

                PCs generate lots of heat for something so small.  As the system becomes taxed with more and more, the system has to run harder to keep up.  As it runs harder, it also produces more heat.  It is possible that it can overheat, although most systems have a safety trigger to shut down before this happens.  Fans are built into the case to keep your system from overheating and shutting down.

                When fans are being blocked, proper air flow through the case is hindered.  If this happens, other fans will have to compensate if they can.  If not, your system could shut down while in the middle of something.  Keep a good few inches of space around the case of the computer to aid the fans in doing their job.

                As the fans pull air through the case, they carry anything in the air with them.  Dust, hair, debris – anything light enough to get sucked through the grate will cover the inside of your computer.  All the large items will get trapped on the outside of the fan.  This blockage makes keeping your PC cool a challenge.  Cleaning off the outside of the fan vents is very easy to do.

                While your system is off (so nothing gets caught in the fan blades), use a brush to sweep away any material building up on the outside of the case.  Canned air can work, but you risk spraying moisture inside of the computer and that may burn out your motherboard.  If your case is fairly dirty, it may not be a bad idea to contact the Help Desk to check on the inside of the unit.

                For those with laptops, many models have fans on the bottom of the unit.  If this is blocked, they are more susceptible to overheating.  A flat surface that does not conduct heat is ideal for laptops (unfortunately your lap is not included in this list).  Also, there may be vents on the outside of the laptop to allow hot air to escape.  Blocking these vents prevent this from happening – keep these clear.

Extreme Circumstances

Following these steps will help your system to run at peak performance during the PCs lifetime, but eventually you will notice system slowdowns.  If you experience severe system lag, I.T. can do a full system restore for you.  During this procedure, we will backup your data and do a full reinstallation of software for you.  Sometimes this is the only way to get your PC running as smooth as day one.

                Just know that this is a lengthy procedure and may take a full work day to complete.  Depending on many factors (data backup time, special software installation and data restore) we could have a turnaround of less than a few hours.

Court Reporters And Their Computers – Error Checking

By Quinn Compeland, Computer Expert

                When data is being added to and deleted from a hard drive, eventually areas of the drive may become unstable and possibly unreadable.  When this happens, your system may experience more lag than usual – and it could take a long time to boot as well.

                Error Checking scans the hard drive for bad “sectors” and attempts to fix the sector or move the files off of the bad sector.  If the sector has been flagged as unreadable, the computer will  avoid putting files into that sector.  There are other things that can be done to recover the sector, but they are called low level formatting and destroy all data on the drive.

                When you want to run an Error Checking (also known as CheckDisk), right click the hard drive and choose Properties.  Go to the Tools tab and click on the button Check Now.  Check both of the boxes and click on Start.  Note – this process will not run on the Windows partition until the computer has been restarted – it should prompt you to schedule it after the next restart if that is the case.

                During the next boot, you should see a blue screen appear with a status of the current scan.  The less errors you have, the faster this scan will be.  This scan can easily take one hour to run.

Court Reporters And Their Computers….

By Quinn Copeland – Computer Expert – Part 1

Good day to you!

Computers are a machine, and much like other machines they need fine tuning to maintain their smooth running status.  Unlike your car, PCs do not need lubrication – but they do require cleaning every now and again. 

Here you will find basic PC maintenance tips to keep your system running as best it can!

Soft Cleaning:

Disk Defragmentation

                Computers write files to your hard drive in a way that somewhat resembles an old record being played.  It is linear (at first) and writes in one clean direction.  As time goes on, files get deleted and gaps become present in what used to be a smooth path.  Your computer recognizes these gaps as free space and will fill data into the gaps before continuing the new path.  This causes file fragmentation. 

                Now, imagine a record player’s needle playing a song where the needle had to skip around on the LP/vinyl – first it would sound awful.  Second, it would take you five minutes to listen to a four minute song.  Same concept applies to your hard drive when it tries to read/open a file.

                Luckily there is an easy fix for this – Disk Defragmentation.  Defragmenting your drive is easy to do and can be completed without you being there (preferred).  Right click the drive you want to defragment in My Computer, click on Properties and click on the tools tab.  Finally click on Defragment Now… to bring up the process. 

When you defragment, the red bars show fragmented files; defragmenting attempts to move the files into that linear path for better access/read times.  For best performance, your PC should be left idle.