Protecting my new laptop

A few weeks before I began my freshman year of college I realized that my four year old, half dead, Asus laptop was hardly up to the task of starting up, let alone browsing the internet or writing papers. So I did some really fast, admittedly half assed research on good computers for college students and every result came back telling me a chromebook was the way to go. One year later and I am less than thrilled with my purchase. So I'm trying this again. I have my sights set on a HP touchscreen laptop, intel core i3, 6 gb memory, 750GB hard drive, running windows 8.1. I'll admit I know very little about computers in general, so I did months of research this time. Comparing various brands, sizes, and specs. Even with this laptop I've read and watched countless reviews. I'm getting a wireless mouse to compensate for the iffy track pad, a backpack with padding all around the laptop pocket, cleaner, and the best anivirus I could find. I still am unsure though. I want this laptop to last me for as long as possible, hopefully even the next five years of school. Any tips or things I may have left out that could aid in this process would be fantastically appreciated.

tl;dnr: How the can I keep my brand new laptop in the best condition possible for as long as possible.

 

The good news is that laptops hardware require little maintenance.
They do require the vents to be free from fluff or they can overheat.

A laptop over five years old will require the internal cmos battery to be changed.

The main thing to consider is to backup your software,a hard drive failure can happen at any time
some last for years, and years, some just fail without notice losing all your data.

Antivirus, and antimalware software is a must.

Here's a list of some programs that may help, best of all there free.

This will write a hidden recovery partition on your hard drive.

http://www.backup-utility.com/onekey-recovery.html

This will allow you to backup your whole system to a separate drive incase
you suffer a hard drive failure.

http://www.backup-utility.com/free-backup-software.html

Ccleaner can be downloaded here, THE FREE ONE WILL DO.

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

Malabytes can be downloaded from here, THE FREE ONE WILL DO.


https://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

First things first.

If you want to keep your machine running nicely, uninstall all the applications that you don't need or use. So if you don't use twitter, uninstall the app. If you don't want the news blasted out at you constantly, uninstall that app, same for everything....

Next don't install each and every app you come across that takes your fancy. The less you install the better. Only install it if you actually need it and have a reason to install it, rather than the 'I wonder what it is' approach or the 'it was recommended by a friend'... yeh, so what. what does it do, why do you want it. etc.

Next I would get a second partition up and running, so that all of that 750Gb is not the C drive. (You will need to open disk management, run a shrink on the C drive which will free up space to create a new partition, then format that new partition).
Once you have a D drive (or E/F/G) I would move my data to that drive. There is an easy way to do with and the system will move your date for you.... Open your name so you can see the contacts, desktop, downloads... Now right click contacts and select properties, change to the location tab and manually edit that C:\Users\NAME\Contacts to D:\Users\NAME\Contacts (this is by far the easiest option... literally just change the letter C to the letter D or E or F or whatever letter you selected.) then click the OK button and follow the rest of the prompts about it moving your data as well. You will need to repeat this for each and every entry in there! You don't need to do it this way, but it is by far the easiest in the long run.

The reasoning behind this is that if windows 8 corrupts or you get a virus or simply get locked out of the system for any reason... you can format the C drive and rebuild the software on C to get windows up and running, knowing that your data is on D. If you don't and you leave your data on C...

Finally, make sure you don't download and install dodgy stuff from the internet... don't click on dodgy ads that tell you your system is running slowly or that there is a woman called felicity 5 miles away who would like to talk to you... and you should be safe.

 

These are great advices above, and I agree with them. I also believe that do your routine maintenance weekly is best too, such as taking out the garbage, run your defragment disk, and those basic check for update with your anti virus software or whatever you are using to protect your computer.

 

First of all you will need a good Anti-virus, for me I'm using AVG, it's good enough or you can even use Kaspersky, but the Anti-virus isn't everything, you need to update it always and also to be careful about what you do, don't download softwares from anywhere, it will be better if you download them from the official website, and be sure you scan everything you download, or enter to your laptop through usb or disks, also you need to keep your laptop clean from temp files and unnecessary files, you can use CCleaner for that, also uninstall every software you don't need, don't keep them on your laptop because it may become slower.

that's some small tips I do frequently, and I'm having my HP 625 from 4 years and it still good !

 

Laptops are pretty durable, if you want to protect it the best you can do is a laptop bag which has a separate area for wires and one for the laptop that will protect it. Screen protectors as it's touch screen and regular dusting and cleaning will make it run better, stop thermal throttling and prevent overheating which could damage the laptop. Doing all that should prevent any harm from happening to the laptop and should extend the lifespan of it.

 

What I get from most articles is keep it as dust free as possible cleaning it with a cotton ball dabbed in alcohol. I found a free anti virus and anti spy ware by Microsoft called security essentials. I'd watch for sales in your area too for the kind of laptop and mouse you'd like to buy. Good luck on your new laptop and mouse purchase!

 

My laptop is an HP which is the official issue from our company. It has been with me for more than 2 years although people thought it is brand new. I always store it in the case when not in use and I never use it when I am eating. Technicians would always advise us not to eat while working on the computer and I am an obedient employee. Caring for the computer is not difficult when you get used to it.