1. BTEC National Unit 2 Computer Systems

2. Maintenance of hardware A PC will run better of it is kept in clean and dry conditions.  Regular cleaning of the surfaces around a PC will reduce the amount of dust that collects.  Use of anti-static wipes for screens can reduce the amount of dust attracted to the screen.  ‘Air duster’ products can be used to blow dust  Special brushes can be used to clean keyboards  Special discs can be used to clean floppy disc driver head.  Products are available to clean the print heads on inkjet printers.

3. Maintenance of memory and storage 1 Memory requires no physical maintenance as such. To gain maximum performance of a PC, it is advisable to limit the number of programs running at any one time. At start-up, several programs will be activated, such as virus protection software, and these run in the background while you are processing documents, etc. this makes sense for virus protection software, but there may be other programs which, when installed, include themselves in the start-up process, and some of these4 may not be essential for you.

4. Maintenance of memory and storage 2 You will have set up a directory system with separate folders for different area of your work. The number of files on your PC will increase daily until, eventually, you could run of of storage space on your hard disc. Therefore, you must maintain these directories by deleting files that are no longer used, thus freeing up space. This is especially important in communications software.

5. Maintenance of memory and storage 3 You may also have many temporary files on your PC without even realising it. Internet Explorer is the biggest creator of temporary files, but Words also generates them. For various reasons, these temporary files are not deleted, and they take up valuable storage space on your PC. Your software should include a program that will allow you to clean off these unwanted files, plus any created by other applications such as Internet Explorer.

6. Maintenance of software Most software can be maintained by accessing the software provider’s website on the Internet. The windows operating system can be kept up to date by regularly accessing the ‘Windows Update’ option, checking what updates are available and downloading the ones that are needed. If you have installed virus protection software, you will most probably have subscribed to a virus protection service.

7. Troubleshooting See handouts