A few tips to keep you laptop in top working order
Here are 9 tips to keep your laptop in peak condition and up to speed.
1. Shut it down 🔐
Laptops have both sleep and hibernate functions, one of which (depending on your settings) will engage when you close the lid. This is useful when you want to be able to quickly access what you were previously working on or bypass the booting up process. However, it’s recommended that you shut down your laptop at regular intervals to benefit performance.
Don’t put your laptop to sleep too frequently. When it wakes up the performance can be hampered. Sleep mode also consumes more power.
2. Be careful of hidden free software add-ons 😷
When downloading and installing new software, take the time to go through each step carefully and avoid accidentally installing irritating software that could conflict with other programs on your laptop.
3. Close idle programs 💻
Imagine you had multiple refrigerators in your home. Now imagine you left each fridge door open after grabbing something from inside. Not only will in waste electricity, but your fridges also won’t perform optimally and won’t last very long. It’s the same with the programs you’re running on your laptop. Closing down programs you’re not using will speed up your system and boost performance.
4. Keep your desktop tidy 👷
Tidy desktop, tidy mind. Or so it’s been said. The truth is that reducing clutter on your laptop’s desktop can enhance the running speedy of your machine. Similarly, don’t go click-happy installing too many widgets, toolbars and sidebars. They all require resources from your laptop that could make other more important programs and features slow down, especially if it is looking for shortcuts that no longer exist.
5. Plug in to power 🔌
It’s advisable to keep your laptop connected to a mains power source when possible. Not only do you never know when you’ll need to rely on a fully-charged battery, but running on battery-only power reduces the performance of your system.
Batteries lose their ability to hold a charge over time so using direct power as much as possible will prolong the lifespan of your battery. Doing this has no detrimental effects – as soon as the charge level reaches 100% the battery stops charging energy and this energy is bypassed directly to the power supply system of your laptop.
6. Unplug idle devices ⌨️
Anything plugged into your laptop is requiring something from your machine, even if it’s only to recognize the device. Unplug memory drives and USB devices such as drawing pads and number pads when you’re not using them to boost performance.
7. Keep it clean 🔧
It is recommended that laptop users run regular PC cleanups to remove temporary files, browser history and cache, to optimize the performance of their laptops. You can also delete shortcuts to files and folders that no longer exist.
8. Remove old printer drivers 🖨️
PC cleanup software often doesn’t remove old printer drivers which can slow down your laptop. To speed up your system make sure you uninstall printers you no longer use and delete the drivers associated with them.
9. Eat elsewhere 🍰
We’re all guilty of working through our lunchbreak and eating a sandwich over our laptop keyboard and you may relate to how annoying it can be to have a rogue crumb stuck beneath one of the keys. That is the least of the problems that can be caused by food falling into the inner workings of your laptop. In particular, spilled liquids can damage your laptop’s internal microelectronic components or cause electrical damage. Short circuits can corrupt data or even permanently destroy parts of your machine.