J’s Guide to Holiday PC Cleaning

Oh where to start.

Well should you be in the position of fixing other people’s “personal confusers” this holiday season or your

own “profound contraption” is acting up, here’s a quick and dirty guide to some thing you can do.

If it’s not acting weird:

1. Install better anti-virus/anti-bugwares software (no – using whatever you already have is not a good excuse to ignore additional software)

See the “if it’s acting weird section below for some links and titles.

2. Use a better browser. Firefox or Chrome. As to security, speed, customization, these are the only two names worth talking about.

If you’ve got an early Pentium 4 Windows XP machine, you may have to stick with IE or limited use of Chrome. Browsers eat a lot of RAM

these days, and old systems just don’t have enough. You can go back and forth about the pro’s and con’s of each, but either choice is better

than staying on IE, particularly if you’re using XP. For either FF or Chrome, you can install adblock plus and get rid of seeing 99% of ads crawling

across the net. http://adblockplus.org/en/

3. Change your software firewall. Windows firewall up until Win 7 (and still to some degree) is more like tissue paper instead of a “wall.”

It comes default with the system, crackers (not to be mislabled as hackers) already know this. You can do better, though it can be annoying potentially.

http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/index.htm

4. Update your drivers. You can lay money down that when you buy a hot off the shelf system, there will be driver updates available for you at home.

So with that in mind, when was the last time you thought about driver updates? For most folks, this is never. How about software updates?

Don’t just use Windows Update, as it’s often old and incomplete. Check your system maker, check the maker of components in the case, like

nVidia for graphics cards. There’s also freebie applications that can tell you if your drivers are out of date or not too.

http://cleansofts.org/view/update-notifier.html

5. Clean it out. If we’re not talking about a system under warranty, you can pop the hood and get into the guts of the computer. If it’s more than 4-6 months

old, I betcha you’ve got a lovely buildup of dust congregating around the proverbial fire of your CPU. Besides a fire hazard, the restriction of airflow builds the

heat inside your system and can damage or destroy the components. If you have cats or other pets, well your computer is probably matted in the vents with hair.

This is particularly bad on laptops. Notebooks often have only 1 system fan, and a couple of vents at best. Due to the compact enclosed design, heat builds up quick

and you get to hear your fan run all the time, while your system is baking itself to death.

So, your best bet is to find an air compressor, like the kind you’d inflate balls with or car tires. Blow out the vents, the radiator (usually a copper or silver block in some way

attached to the CPU and/or graphics chips), and fans on your system. On a laptop, you can blow back into the case but that’s generally a bad idea as it just blows the dust back farther inside. The proper thing to do is get some small screwdrivers (jewlers is the proper term) and take the main body apart. In most cases this is easier to do today because there are typically panels on the bottom you can screw off and get to the bottom of the system board where everything is, blow it out, etc. Your keyboard also picks up a lot of mess and is 99% of the time held in by small spring clips around the edge of the board.

Now a few things of note.

A. There are always illustrated disassembly guides for laptops, use them. Plastic is weak and can easily crack. If you have to completely take apart a laptop, then do it right by knowing how it’s built, or you’ll end up crying over having to order an expensive replacement part. Desktops are easy (for the most part) you just take a couple screws off the side door and you’ve got access to the guts and can blow away. Try not to go over say 35 PSI, you “can” but there’s various “potential” issues with safety and possibility you can blow something loose that shouldn’t be.

B. Be gentle. Screw drivers aren’t the only thing you can use, and you never want to use too much force. Better to take another route and maybe loosen other sections of a part and come back then keep trying to force it. A lot of little ribbon cables on laptops are thin and fragile, and you’re dead if they split or you snap the connector. Gentle gentle gentle. Also never use super glue on a motherboard connector, learned that firsthand.

C. Static electricity. Depending on who you ask, static charges are the natural enemy of PC components (I’d say heat myself), or it doesn’t matter a lot. In any case shuffling across the floor so you can reach into your computer and zap a $300 CPU dead doesn’t sound like a great holiday party. So you should try to dispel and buildup of charge on you often. If you plan on being arm deep in computer guts, try not to work on carpet – both you or the computer. Kitchen counter/table/etc is better. Touch the screws on the back of the computer that go into the power supply (usually a cube like thing where the power cord goes in and there’s an off switch) to keep you and the computer at the same electrical potential. If you really want to get hardcore, computer techs have antistatic mats and wrist bands that keep all things equal. Oh and UNLESS YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING, NEVER WORK INSIDE A SYSTEM THAT IS PLUGGED IN AND/OR RUNNING. It’s the equivalent of sticking your arm in a running engine compartment.

D. Don’t use compressed air cans on components. The freezing effect and condensation of the spray can damage a computer device.

I don’t say all that to strike terror into your heart, dusting a system does not normally take long nor is it normal to have to pull apart a whole system to do it. But you need to be aware of some things if it comes to that. Dusting is your responsibility as the computer user and it should be done every 3 months or so, depending on how messy the environment is around the system.

6. Install a surge protector (minimum) or better a automated power supply. An APC costs a lot more than a surge protector, but can allow you to shut down your system normally if you get a blackout and are working. That way you don’t have lost documents or wonderful “Windows failed to shut down properly, I’ll be happy to crash at startup from now on” messages. Some APCs also regulate the power which may be a factor for some folks with “dirty” power. Surge protector is a minimum, you can find em for $5 at a store. Get one with a light that tells you it’s still working. In any case, if you don’t think it’s worth it, compare a $5 surge protector to a $500 or $1200 computer. Ask me how I felt when I had to replace $500 in components at the worst possible time on no budget thanks to a power surge and other circumstances.

7. BACKUPS… ah yes the one thing everyone should do more. In some fashion, some way, you should have a backup plan for your computer. For the average user, a two pronged attack is best. Both a full backup, and a incremental backup. For a lot of folks the thing keeping them from backing up is a combination of either not knowing how, being lazy or forgetful, or the cost of additional storage. Well you have some options. Comodo Backup is a free utility that can make full or incremental backups for you, and

deposit the backup files where ever you want. A full backup is a complete copy of your working drive (typically C:/) and takes a long time to do. A incremental is a full copy the first time, then you frequently update it a little bit at a time afterwards, so it’s always current.

As to storage problems, while traditional drives are going back up in price right now due to a shortage (tsunami disaster related) generally that is the fastest and cheapest option for large amounts of storage. Slap one in your system and you’ve got another drive besides C:/ to use.

Alternatively, depending on how scary the internet and “the cloud” is to you, you could use online backup or online storage to take care of your needs. While I don’t know of any good dedicated free backup solutions online, you could use Dropbox and SugarSync to backup your important stuff. SugarSync gives you 5GB and maybe a little more, while Dropbox is 1 GB free. That’s 6 GB of free storage. If you really wanted to, ZIP and password your files before sending them up online for a layer of security. SugarSync has more security than Dropbox at this time. You could also burn files to DVD, several GB at a time, depending on how much space you need and how often you plan to backup it could be cost effective.

You may be asking, why not just use System Restore? Well while system restore does a few things and is relatively simple to use, it doesn’t cover all folders/files on a computer. You can still lose data by using it. I’ve seen Windows try to restore and fail on a regular basis, I’ve seen the computer run like cold tar after a restore… there’s just too many variables… it’s like playing slots or something by chance and hoping your system will be ok at the end. System restore also tends to restore viruses, or keep them in the restore files it saves. So it’s just not a reliable enough solution to trust it completely.

How often should you backup? Well the golden rule is backup as often as necessary that if your computer completely died, unrecoverable, that you wouldn’t be strongly impacted by it. If you just finished your taxes – back it up. Anything that will cause you undue stress to recreate or might be impossible to recreate, should be backed up.

So however long it is that you need to backup, depends on you.

Whether it’s you, your mom, grandpa, whomever… you need backups. Eventually disaster will strike and you will need them. It’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN.

So if your computer is running now… do a backup for when it isn’t running later.

If it is acting weird/has bugs:

Diagnosis of a sick PC comes down to three things really.

1. Scanning

2. Process of Elimination

3. Research

So what to scan with?

These are all free:

Advanced System Care – http://www.iobit.com/advancedsystemcareper.html

Sort of a multi prong general fix it all program.

Avast Antivirus

http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

Mircosoft Security Essentials

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials

Eset Online Virus Scanner

http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/

Useful if you’ve got a bug that’s hiding from local scanners.

Spybot Search & Destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Takes a long time to load, but blocks and checks many thousands of bugs. Been around forever.

Adaware

http://free.lavasoft.com/products.aspx

Spyware Blaster and Spyware Guard

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html

Both of these are resident programs that work to block things from getting in.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Malwarebytes-AntiMalware/1186760019/1

Avira AntiVir’s Bootable Rescue CD

http://www.avira.com/en/support-download-avira-antivir-rescue-system

Honorable mentions:

TCP Optimizer

http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Sets network settings to optimal values for your connection.

CCleaner

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/slim

Cleans out junk files from many places.

Windows XP (& others) EXE File Association Virus Fix –

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=24407

http://filext.com/faq/broken_exe_association.php

http://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=47156

Advanced Systems Care you should run a full scan 2x and fix everything it finds.

Avast is good as a regular use antivirus, Microsoft security essentials I’m not as fond of personally, but they go back and forth as to who

is the top dog in antivirus freeware.

Eset’s Online scanner is good if you suspect something is trying to get past you by hiding when you’re doing a self started scan.

Some viruses can give the scanner a “black eye” and try to move around if it is written to look for a scanner.

Spybot is just good to have on your system either way, I would shut off the Tea Timer feature from the Resident menu as it uses up a lot of memory

without any real noticeable benefit. Adaware has some similarities to Spybot, they’ve both been around a long time killing spyware.

Blaster and Guard, again, are blockers, they aid Spybot, Adblock Plus, Adaware, and ASC to keep stuff out of your box.

Malwarebytes is strictly a scanner, though a good one.

Avira’s Rescue CD is updated almost daily, and is useful if you can’t get your system to boot due to a virus (more on that below).

Comodo Firewall I mentioned way up above, but as a note, I don’t believe the Internet Security part of it is all that useful.

They started bundling it a while ago, but I’m in the process of searching for a better firewall app. Comodo’s been a leader for a very long

time, but it’s gotten to be too annoying to use for my purposes. So it’s good, but it needs some work.

No one program is ever good enough to say it offers you complete protection. It’s marketing, nothing more. There’s more than enough

protection other there to be had for free, than having to buy a paid suite.

You should run full scans and preventative protection (like Spybot’s Immunize) and see what you get in the way of results.

Do a reboot, see how the system feels and re-evaluate if the system needs work again.

Basically if all the above scanners don’t find what is causing problems, and it still doesn’t appear to be an issue with hardware, you’ve

updated drivers, etc. There’s one last place you can go for help.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cleanup

You must follow these guidelines to post there:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/13616

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20951576-READ-Just-a-Reminder-What-is-SCU

@$%@$^%@$%^@ It’s DEAD!! Save Me!

*insert much weeping here*

Ok ok calm down. Right now the situation is probably that you had something you needed to do hours ago, the computer won’t start or crashes so you can’t

get into Windows… you’ve got relatives or kids in the background wanting to burn you at the steak… etc etc.

First step – chill. In most cases it’s not as bad as it first looks. To figure out the problem you’ll need a cool head. It won’t get done any faster by getting angry.

Naggy “over the shoulder driver” folks that have no idea what they are doing, should be nicely told to go do something else.

So now that you have two whits of thinking space, let’s try some things.

1. You will most likely need another computer to fix a dead or injured computer. So grab one or at least have access to the net somehow.

You’ll want a USB thumb drive or ability to burn CDs, so try not to grab a Mac/iPad or something without a disc drive please.

2. Establish what if anything it “is” doing. Is it booting but not passing a certain point? Is it stone cold dead? Does it flicker on and off? Is it on

but nothing on the monitor? All things are clues. Write them down if need be. If it’s not normal, it’s a clue.

I’ll mostly be looking at this from the stand point it’s a dead computer, no lights or power activity to begin with, then later on from a random reboot before Windows

launches. Most issues can be fixed with the same advice.

3. Check the power, and all cables. No I’m not kidding. People trip, pets rip, cords fall out. Start with the power, make sure the outlet is functional. Plug something else

like a cheap lamp into it if you don’t have a tester around. If you don’t have power, check your breakers / fuse panel. (COUGH COUGH you got a surge protector right?)

or if the outlet is a GFI (outlet with some reset buttons) try resetting the buttons by pushing them and checking again.

If we’ve got power at the wall, we know that much is ok. On the computer end of things, take out all the cords except the monitor, power, mouse, and keyboard.

Try starting it again. If it fires up, then you may have a bad device or cable that was connected to the system. Continue trying to find out which one by adding them back one at a time and restarting till it’s located.

If it didn’t fire up then there’s more to check.

A. The power cord itself may be damaged. Possible but unlikely. It’d require a tester to check.

B. If the case has been opened recently, check that somewhere a wire isn’t pinched against the case or other components, creating a electrical short.

C. Do you smell anything odd around the computer, like cooked technology, a bad oder – if so unplug it all and take it somewhere it won’t catch the rest of the house

on fire. Could be several now cooked components, but likely a power supply.

D. Any loose or missing wires that might have fallen out of socket inside the system?

F. Remove and reseat major components stuck into the motherboard. For the sake of process of elimination, you can take out any “optional cards” like network or old phone modem, anything that doesn’t pertain to the basics of making the computer operate. Video card (for the monitor), RAM (memory sticks), the mobo, CPU, heatsinks on top of that, fans, most of that you can leave in there. You do NOT need a hard drive to boot a computer. It will boot as far as the BIOS and say there is no disk available if you remove the hard drive, but at least maybe you can boot at all then.

G. On the subject of RAM, if you have 2 sticks you can try to remove one and test start the system, then try it the other way. A system will not boot with no ram in it. Performance will also be degraded if you’re using 1 stick instead of 2 or more. But it might get it to start at least. Static electricity is very important here, so pay heed to what I said earlier.

Ultimately if the computer is just plain dead, it’s likely a hardware failure. If you can’t get it to try to boot at all, it means the failure is in a major component. Power supply, motherboard, RAM, CPU, maybe the graphics card. Unless you’ve got another system with similar parts or a geek friend with spare parts, there’s not much more you can do here on your own. One more thing though.

what you can do to try and at least get your files, is take the hard drive out of the system, laptop or desktop, and plug it into another computer, or get either a hard drive enclosure or hard drive dock. Plugging into another system should just show up as a 2nd drive when it boots. You may have to select which drive to boot from if that computer was running before you try this.

A HD dock or enclosure is a connector and case, typically much like a external HD, that you can stick your old drive in and connect to a computer over USB, eSATA, or other methods and get at your files, long as the drive itself is ok. You won’t be able to easily launch Windows like you had it, but you should be able to get at your files that you need. You can run backups like this too, sometimes cheaper than buying prebuilt external hard drives.

*** A Warning ***

Sending your computer in for repair most anywhere… they do not guarantee your files. In almost all cases, one of the first things on a typical el cheapo fix it shop (looking at you Best Buy Geek Squad) menu – is wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Dell and other repair facilities, same thing. Your files are not their problem. It’s in the fine print as well that they are not liable. So 1. keep backups. 2. try getting your files yourself first before resorting to such places if you absolutely must.

Ok so what if it’s not completely dead?

Well if you get beeps, those are not R2-D2 talking from hyperspace, that’s an error code. You may have to look it up on the net, or check the motherboard maker to find out what that specific number of beeps means. There’s many beep codes and they can change per board, so you’ll have to check.

It starts then shuts right off?

Power / electrical problem or component failure. Check for smashed wired in the case for a short. Component wise, you’ll need spare parts to determine much.

Calling the manufacturer may help if you can reach a Tier 2 or higher person that’s not just a heavily accented voice reading a screen prompt.

I get nothing on the screen?

Power or data cables to the monitors. Monitor cable maybe on the wrong PC connector. Monitor isn’t turned on or set to correct input. PC side settings are incorrect so it’s not producing what the monitor needs. In a rare case, you may have a motor or other source of magnetic fields causing interference, but the monitor should display “something”.

Try another monitor/computer combination if all else fails.

I got no inputs – mouse or keyboard?

Check connections & wires. If they are USB based devices, then sometimes Windows won’t load those drivers until later. Try to find a PS2 type old pin plug keyboard and mouse, and use that. If that fails, try to find another keyboard to test with, or check that the connectors aren’t damaged on the motherboard.

Windows dies before fully starting!

Oh how common this is. Million and one reasons it happens too. I’ll skip that explanation though.

You have some choices.

1. if the computer will stay up long enough, keep hitting F8 as the system loads and try to get to the Advanced Boot Options menu. From there

you can boot from a CD or enter Safe Mode. More on that later.

2. If she won’t stay up long enough, you’ll have to get a hold of a Windows Repair or Windows Install disc. There are repair discs downloadable from

the net for as far back as XP. Install discs… aren’t really given out with PCs anymore and the manufacturer’s put the disc data on a hidden portion of

your hard drive. So if you have or can get one, count yourself lucky.

Here you may need to get into the BIOS (again a key press, probably mentioned on a splash screen that throws up a logo or something, like press F2 to enter

BIOS) and change the boot order to the CD Drive, instead of the hard drive being first. That way the basic computer system will look for the disc first, instead

of loading the broken copy of Windows.

In either case you need to get to some tools.

Safe Mode you can use to change settings or try and fix thing if you know what the problem is, but it’s limited in what it can do since Safe Mode is a stripped down

version of Windows. It’s Windows Minimum sort of. You can try running System Restore from inside Safe Mode as well.

Repair or Install disc wise, gives you access to repairing windows, reinstalling windows, or using other tools.

Most of the time, you can do a Windows Repair (google it, it’s beyond the scope of me explaining how here) and it will only overwrite the Windows system files from copies on the disc in the drive. In most cases, this will work. It also leaves the vast majority of your own files alone.

Now some cautions:

A. A Repair, doesn’t always work, it’s more reliable than System Restore, but you shouldn’t be doing it regularly for any reason either. If it doesn’t work, look for a boot sector virus or other really hard to get rid of bug, or think about getting your files off and reinstalling Windows.

B. After a Repair is done it’ll act like it’s going through the Windows first time setup again, asking for various things. This is normal just try to put it back to what it was when it was working.

C. Not everything may work perfectly. You just stripped out all Windows guts and reloaded factory stuff. Some programs may need to be reactivated, others may need to be reinstalled, you’ll have lost any custom desktop wallpaper or other stuff. Do a Windows update and check for new drivers. But it’s better than some of your other options if you’re stuck.

D. Doing a Repair on Win XP is kinda secretly hidden behind the disc menu for reinstalling windows, so be careful and find a guide for it if you have to use it.

One other option is to download a bootable CD. Most likely this can be in the form of a Antivirus boot-CD made by a antivirus company. or you can find bootable CD’s of Linux. The first is probably the easier option and more up to date. You can shove that in the computer, try to get it to boot, and you’ll end up with a Windows-esque looking desktop where you can access files or run virus scans using the disc based tools. It’s very limited but it might help you out.