Best Practices for maintaining your pc hardware?

[Zkage]

Hello all. Just started off at this forum. For the past 3 years, I have not kept a system at home; been working with a office laptop.
The major reasons were saving up for a hi spec system and not finding enough time for the system with work+studies,thus the expenditure not being practical.

Finally close to ending my masters so i have been checking up on available hardware etc as well. One major concern for me is the durability of the hardware. All the previous systems that I have owned, from the age of the nvidia 6800gt and other legacy cards, have blown up, lost motherboards, fried Ram and scrambled graphics cards.

The frequency of lost motherboards etc has been a constant thorn. What I would like to request from all of you nice, uptodate ppl the best way to maintain your system?
in terms of power surges, grounding and how to check up on the health.
are there some best practices which could be floated around?

for example:
Dusting off your pc each week;
Putting some device to check surges? grounding? ( when you are bare feet and touch the metal part of the casing to feel a slight shock)
Major reasons for hardware failure ?

The point being: i do not wish to spend a lot of money building up a brand new rig, complete with ups,stabilizer etc and then having to see it blow up/fry in a year.

[SyNcViEw]

You should grease it every month, keep the water level full in the casing.
Keep the blinkers nice and clean.
Keep the ATF level in check.
Your u-joints should be in good condition and checked every month. Or every week if you abuse your pc alot.

Major reasons for hardware failure are from the points I stated above. Like, water seeps in the casing somehow and you get one or two eggs fried back.
Touching the casing bare feet is another reason for hardware failure. (yes it happens RARELY but not impossible)
Point about the money you spend, do it the right way. Post up a thread, stating your demands from the system and budget (and these two things should go along or else...)
Also, after you're done with buying a new PC, get a good stabilizer and above all, get a GOOD PSU! you won't get fried eggs that way. (do set the PSU to 220v before plugging it in or you'd get a boiled egg that'd cost you around 500 rupees to get repaired)
Your PC being the spectator, stabilizer and UPS would be the beauties at the Italian beach.
Buy a good 200W blower and give a blowjob to your PC every 2 weeks or a month The last time i cleaned my casing, was about 7 to 8 months ago. (Couldn't find the blower when I made my mind up)
Good luck!

[nazareth]

I'm not even gonna comment on that crap.

Without experience, just go buy a good system. Trying to explain the nuances of CPU and RAM cooling, nVidia vs. ATI, how big a PSU do you need, etc.... would just confuse you.

Find a good NEW system, one that fits your budget, install anti-virus software and a surge protector and have fun.

Like SyNcViEw above.

[Dr.Farhan]

Syncveiw:

Your PC being the spectator, stabilizer and UPS would be the beauties at the Italian beach.

Buy a good 200W blower and give a blowjob to your PC every 2 weeks or a month

2 of the best advices EVAAaaarrrrR!!!!!>.

[Zkage]

Thanks for the answers, due to my current location as well, i have to face a Lot of power outages or power fluctuations.
So if i had to note the points down:

1)PSU
2)UPS
3)Cooling
4)Dusting

I am trying to note these points because the last time around, i had a heavy stabilizer and going to a UPS and then to the system- with a decent a4tech 400watt psu and i had gone on a business project for a couple of months, came back, turned the system on and it fried right there.

[SubZero]

I lost my previous CPU because of the power outages.

I'm gonna be blunt here and say that no amount of cleaning and dusting guarantees that will not happen to your computer as well.

But if you invest in a laptop instead you will NOT have to worry about this problem at all. Possibly ever again. Think about it long and hard before you spend your time and money on this... In my personal opinion though... You might want to move the ' Fry in a Year ' Mark to 6 months to have complete peace of mind.

Good luck.

[d3v]

Originally Posted by Zkage

Hello all. Just started off at this forum. For the past 3 years, I have not kept a system at home; been working with a office laptop.
The major reasons were saving up for a hi spec system and not finding enough time for the system with work+studies,thus the expenditure not being practical.

Finally close to ending my masters so i have been checking up on available hardware etc as well. One major concern for me is the durability of the hardware. All the previous systems that I have owned, from the age of the nvidia 6800gt and other legacy cards, have blown up, lost motherboards, fried Ram and scrambled graphics cards.

The frequency of lost motherboards etc has been a constant thorn. What I would like to request from all of you nice, uptodate ppl the best way to maintain your system?
in terms of power surges, grounding and how to check up on the health.
are there some best practices which could be floated around?

for example:
Dusting off your pc each week;
Putting some device to check surges? grounding? ( when you are bare feet and touch the metal part of the casing to feel a slight shock)
Major reasons for hardware failure ?

The point being: i do not wish to spend a lot of money building up a brand new rig, complete with ups,stabilizer etc and then having to see it blow up/fry in a year.

You sure have had some bad luck. Personally I think you should just buy an intel motherboard because its very stable. Don't clean your PC every week. That is a sign of OCD. Instead clean once a year at most.

I don't know how you can protect yourself from power surges. You could try getting a stabilizer, ups and surge protector and still end up with problems because most of these are of low quality in Pakistan. Anyway our problems are quite unique here. How can any device protect you when the problem is in the power grid itself?

Don't keep your computer running all the time. Turn it off when not in use. Also learn to power it on and off using the switch on the wall outlet or extension cord not just the switch on the casing. You can set it up in the bios so that it powers on whenever you switch on mains power.

Lastly don't spend all your money. Don't spend any money that you can't afford to loose because computer parts do fail.

[SyNcViEw]

Originally Posted by Dr.Farhan

2 of the best advices EVAAaaarrrrR!!!!!>.

[swhitton]

Dust filters on all intakes are important.

[nazareth]

If you can feel a shock when you touch the casing, you are damaging the MB. You need a GOOD ups if you are having frequent power problems. A good one will insulate you from voltage spikes.

I clean the dust off the internal components once a month, but then again, i do have ocd

i agree, dust filters are important

good luck

[M.Farooq]

A good UPS is the major key regardless of what kind of desktop you are purchasing , a Sine Wave one like the one's made by APC are highly recommended if cost is not an issue. Secondly a good PSU is also very very important. 2 things that I highly recommend you should have as a must on any new desktop you will purchase!

[nazareth]

i agree with M.Farooq 100%. without a good power supply (PSU) on the computer, surge protecter and especially an uninterruptable power source, you will wipe out a good system mighty fast. Especially in a country that doesn't have a steady grid.

[M.Farooq]

Whenever I have bought a new PC I have always made it sure that I invest most of my money in a good decent UPS and secondly a good PSU. Cleaning and general maintenance are very important in every way no doubt but the basic 2 components mentioned above are the key to maintaining good system health! Obviously a UPS or a good PSU will never ensure 100% protection there could be times when hardware components CAN fail but with these two items you can significantly reduce the failure rate to quite a low figure or negligible one.