Five Steps to Extend Your Computer’s Life

by John Avellanet
Managing Director of Cerulean Associates LLC

The first part of this article is adapted from John Avellanet’s position paper, “Simple Computer Maintenance for Small Businesses and Nonprofits,” which can be found on Cerulean Associates Resource Library.

Early this year, a quiet turn of the calendar marked Year Six for $1.8 million worth of desktop and server computers at a cutting-edge product-development company where I was chief information officer. The strategy used to ensure that the computers reached this landmark birthday was simple: We based their maintenance schedule on that of our cars.

The average automobile, if you follow its maintenance schedule, protect it from rust and drive reasonably, should last you 6 to 10 years. The maintenance schedule is based on your use of the car as a complex tool to get you from Point A to Point B. Your computer is also a complex tool and your usage will determine its maintenance and protection needs. How you follow through with those needs will determine how long you’ll get to use your computer – and when you'll need to shift monies away from your mission toward your computer.

This 5-part routine to extend the life of your computer is based on my experience since the early days of personal and mobile (Kaypro II) computers in the 1980s. It is equally applicable to both Windows® and Macintosh®-based computers, although I use Windows® XP as an example throughout this article simply because of its ubiquity. By computer, I also mean an office-based computer. If your computers are located in a dusty warehouse or a building under heavy renovation, step up the physical annual maintenance routine to be performed quarterly.

1. Verify Your Physical Setup

Just as it’s hard to keep a car in top condition out in a pasture, it’s difficult to keep a computer functioning well if it’s in a poor environment. There are three factors to consider:

Temperature
Air quality
Electricity

For most computers, room temperature should be between 60 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 to 29.5 degrees Celsius) with a humidity level between 50 and 75 percent (to minimize any static build-up). While most offices are kept at this level during the day, check with your landlord to ensure when you leave at night that the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system does not rise above or fall below these levels.

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Air quality is important because computers require air circulation to prevent overheating. There are 2 rules of thumb:

The vents on the monitor, case and printer need a good three to four inches of space (roughly the width of your hand from thumb to pinkie) to get good air flow. Move them away from cables or cubicle walls blocking them.
If you use air filters or ionizers, keep them at least two feet from the computer or any dirt or dust particles heading for the filter will be drawn into the computer.

Electricity is a key factor in determining the longevity of your computer. It’s akin to the oil, fuel and coolant in your car’s engine. Whereas poor or dirty engine liquids will take their toll on your car and shorten its life, so-called dirty electricity (brownouts, surges, sags, spikes and so on) will damage your computer, and your files, far more effectively than any virus.

There are 4 steps you can take to create good electrical conditions for your computer:

Ask your local power company to provide you a power profile or graph with the range of electrical sags and spikes entering your building during a typical billing period (if you lease, you may need to ask your landlord to obtain this information). This will show you your problem areas and times.
1. I recommend you obtain this report once per season or quarter. We discovered a spike in power that occurred at 8:32 a.m. every morning when the neighboring manufacturing plant started its production lines.
Get good surge protection with battery backup. The typical computer needs one that is rated at the 650-VA (390-watt) level. What’s key is the amount of surge it can handle and whether the manufacturer offers a monetary protection guarantee. Plug only your computer case and your monitor into the battery-backup portion, along with your docking station if you have a laptop. Everything else (including your printer) simply receives surge protection.
1. This five to 10 minutes of backup serves three purposes. It provides with enough time to save your work. It allows you to assess whether you're experiencing a momentary flicker or a longer outage; and, if you are experiencing an outage, it gives you time to turn off your computer.
After an outage, wait five minutes before turning back on your computer. If the power grid has problems, these will usually appear within three to four minutes after power is first restored.
Power sag problems can be discovered when your local printer suddenly outputs comic-book characters ("@#!l%^", and so on) in the midst of printing. If a stand-alone battery back-up for your printer doesn’t resolve this “brown-out” issue, contact the power company or a company like American Power Conversion Corporation (APC) to work with you on solution options.

2. Verify Your Electronic Setup

Automation is the name of the game when it comes to preventive computer maintenance for the busy nonprofit (this is one area where automobiles are playing catch-up). There are 3 items that you must automate: virus protection, critical software updates and computer firewalls that are either part of the operating systems (such as Windows® XP's firewall) or part of your antivirus software.

I recommend getting virus protection software that combines virus and spyware protection at a minimum. Add the firewall option if you do not use an operating system with a built-in firewall. Critical updates are just that - software patches rated critical by the vendor. All other patches, enhancements and updates can wait for the end of the year.

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