Increase Your PC’s Shelf-Life

If you’re like me, you worry about protecting your computer, since I’d be hard pressed to purchase a new one outright. Here are some suggestions for increasing the shelf life of your PC.

Anti-Virus Protection
One of the major contributors to PC burn-out are harmful spyware or adware applications or viruses that make their way onto your machine while you’re online. At best, these applications can lead to reduced performance and fragmented hard drives, at worst they can cause complete and total hardware failure. You need a solid antivirus package, one that updates as new bugs are discovered so you stay protected as internet bugs get smarter. BeatTheRecession.com recommends Panda Antivirus – and we’re offering a promotional deal to help keep your hardware safe and sound.
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Dust Protection
If you have a desktop computer, you should be eliminating dust and corrosion by cleaning the interior of your machine about once per year. Shut down the computer and unplug it from the power source. Remove the cover and use canned air to get all the dust and particles out of the nooks and crannies. Pay special attention to any media drives – dust tends to collect in those as well.

Monitor Burn-In & Computer Power Usage
We all leave our computers on more than we should – and to help save money on your power bill and keep your computer in shape, you should be turning it off when it’s not in use and restarting regularly. This resets your Active Memory and clears your chache files, which helps preserve the life of your hard drive. You’re also helping your screen by preventing image burn-in, which happens when the same image is left on-screen for extended periods of time.

Close Those Windows
You should change your computing habits so that you are never running more than a few applications at any one time. You should minimize the number of windows that are open simultaneously as well, regardless of how many applications are running. This will keep the processing speed of your computer consistent, so you’re not dealing with excessive slowness as your computer ages.

Buy Online
Don’t forget to check out clearance items on Amazon.com, their discount section has a variety of PC tools that will increase your PC’s life as well. See below for some of the deepest discounts available.
Happy Computing!

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