Some tips to avoid problems in hardware

Computers can develop problems for various reasons, and can sometimes be difficult to identify the cause.  The problems are of two general types: hardware and software.  Hardware refers to a physical part of your computer, including keyboard, hard drive and motherboard.  Software refers to programs and documents stored on your computer, including operating system (like Windows or Mac OS), Microsoft Word documents, images, etc. The software problems have been caused by several things, including a hard drive fails, the power fluctuations that occur when  files are stored, viruses, or not to shut down the computer properly.

Hardware problems are not caused by software, but tends to happen over time, or because of something that voltage fluctuations and heat or humidity.  It is important to protect your computer with a surge protector, or better yet, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

A surge protector protects your computer and peripherals to a surge of electricity, sometimes caused by lightning or fluctuations in voltage.  These surges can come either through the points of power or telephone, so if your computer is connected to the telephone line (if you use dial-up Internet connection for example), every wave that user must protect both the power and telephone lines.  There is also a surge protector that protects the cable line instead of the telephone line, for those who have access to the Internet using the cable that promotion of Time Warner.

If you live in an area like me, you know what it means to live a large number of brown outs and even complete failures are common in many areas.  If a surge protector is a must-have, no matter where you live, it is preferable to use a UPS (which stands for uninterruptible power supply, and has nothing to do with the transport company) to protect your computer if you live in an area with unstable  power that we have here.

A UPS includes a surge protector and battery backup immediately takes over if the lower power.  This protects your computer from damage caused by voltage drops and the computer can run for a maximum of 20 minutes if the power goes out completely, so you can save your work and close the safe.  This 20 minutes can mean the difference between spending hours, days or months of work (if the computer is turned off while working on a project, not only that we are working now to lose, but everything in the file.)

If you live near the coast or in very damp, rust and corrosion is a major problem, to maintain equipment in a room with air conditioning to help you.

No matter where you live and whether or not a surge protector or UPS, you must perform regular backups of important files on your hard disk is not damaged by moisture, such as CDs and DVDs.  Floppy disks and Zip disks, but are made of materials such as videos, all of which can be destroyed by mold.  If you have any important files on floppy or zip, you should consider transferring files to a CD or DVD.  For now, keep the disks in a sealed Tupperware container with desiccant packets (the same as in bottles of vitamins) to help them work longer.

Symptoms of the disease by a computer may vary from time to time the operation is blocked or slowed, a computer will not start.  What is happening is a hardware problem can start out very carefully, but can worsen over time.  A common mistake is to ignore or overlook the problems before they become too big to fix - in case of a bad hard drive, this may mean that you can lose all your files.  That is why it is so important to save your files regularly.

Do not make the mistake many people make a habit to regularly back up your important files before they lost.  So many people learn the hard way, I do not tell people that all their many hours of work is completely lost.

I know how it is to lose files, too - I'm just kind of computer, I am also a writer.  Most of my early writings were lost forever because I did not save my first computer several years ago (hey, everyone was a beginner once!).  Do not let this happen to your precious photos, music, letters, e-mail, school records, customers, or whatever irreplaceable files on your computer.

Worth Godwin is a computer trainer with experience of over 15 years helping computer users of all levels, and also worked many years in the trenches "as a hardware and software technology, solving teams real problems. Interest has also been studied in the human spirit  and how people learn, from early 1990. Taking all this experience, as well as titles in English and write, teach people in a unique way with explanations that really make sense.