Computer monitoring and maintenance is just as important as keeping your car maintained. In fact, it can even save you money in the long run! Regular computer checkups should be an essential part of your business and home computer use. Scheduling regular check-ups will not only prolong the life of your computers, but it can also better protect your data as well.

People don't even think about these things, but monitoring your computer is really simple. A few things you or your IT support should be looking at on a daily basis is crashes, how much CPU is being utilized, how much free hard drive space there is, and when the last time the antivirus was updated. We look at all those things on a regular basis so that we can prevent all manner of system failures.

Another important aspect of computer maintenance are your backups. Many people don't know this, but a lot of backups do not complete properly. Unless you're looking at it on a regular basis, you're going to have no idea. Then when you go to try to restore something, it's not going to be there. And then your whole backup service is tanked because no one's looking at it. It happens a lot.

As far as the physical hardware goes, I can't tell you how many offices I go into, and when I open the computer and all the vents are clogged with this thick dust. I mean, really thick. So one of the things that we typically do is twice a year, we'll go in and we'll clean all the dust out of the computers and make sure that fans are spinning smoothly and not catching or just running slow.

For most people, computer systems tend to get used very frequently. This is good because it means that they get plenty of use out of them, thus getting their money's worth, but when it comes to maintenance, this could be a problem. The more your system is used the faster its components will break down over time and you'll need to replace them. Hence, if you're going to keep your systems in good working condition, you should invest the time in scheduling regular maintenance.

So, if you want to protect your data, save money on system repairs and maintenance AND to be safer online, then set a reminder to check your system’s hardware and software every month.

And if you don't want to spend the time checking, hire Eugene IT Services. Even if you're not in Eugene, Oregon, we can work remotely to keep your technology systems running smoothly.