General PC Maintenance and

Troubleshooting
By: Cain Fairbanks

Top Five PC Problems

1. E-Mail (Sending/Receiving)
2. Network Connectivity (User Logons)
3. Issues With the Green Screen
4. Printer Issues
5. The Blue Screen of Death

Characteristics of Virus and

Spyware Infection

Extremely Slow Processing

Inability to open programs
Internet Homepage gets changed
Constant redirection to unscrupulous
websites
Phishing/Scamming emails sent to your
inbox

Ways to keep your PC running

smoothly

Reboot at least once a week

Run a virus scan and update once a week
Defragment your PC once a month
Run disk clean up once a month
Run spybot once at least once a week

How to Defrag your PC

Left click on Start

Choose Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, and Disk Defragmenter
Choose Analyze (it will tell you if you
have anything to defrag. or not)
If you do, choose Defragment

How to use disk Clean Up

Left click on Start

Choose Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, and Disk Cleanup
Choose the drive you want to clean (C
drive)
Let it scan
Check all the boxes
Click OK

How to use Spybot

Left click on Start

Choose Programs, Spybot: Search and Destroy
Search for Updates (found on left side)
Check boxes and download all updates
Choose Safer-networking #1 (it is fast)
Choose Search and Destroy and Check for Problems
(found on left side)
Infections will appear in red
If you have infections, mark them (with a checkmark)
and choose Fix Selected Problems

Websites of Interest

Anti-Virus
www.grisoft.com
Spybot Search and Destroy
www.safer-networking.org
Adaware SE
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Free Online Virus Scan
Housecall.trendmicro.com