How to take care of your laptop

Devices have fundamentally become extensions of ourselves and there’s nothing quite as catastrophic as the moment your laptop gives up on you. It unavoidably will, however there are a few things you can do to extend your device’s lifespan by a few years and save yourself some money in the process.

Below are eight few simple care guides brought to you by QStore;

1. Keep it up to date

Keeping your software up to date is very important. Software updates help protect your laptop from certain security risks and can download patches to fix bugs and other small problems.

2. Keep it cool

Just like keeping your laptop cool is important for the battery, it’s equally, if not more important to the rest of the computer components. Make sure the airflow is unobstructed. This means keeping the air vents open. Keeping it at a consistent temperature when the weather gets extreme will also keep it at optimal performance.

3. Keep the antivirus updated

Keeping your antivirus updated is an important part of maintaining your laptop. Even if you know what you download and trust its source, it may contain a virus that can lead to an issue with your system hardware, slowness in the software and loss of data.

4. Keep liquids away from devise

Accidents happen all too easily no matter how careful you are. Make sure you keep drinks away from your laptop. Spilled liquids may damage the internal components or cause electrical injury to the laptop. This can corrupt data or even permanently destroy parts.

5. Turn it off occasionally

It’s a good idea to fully shut down your computer at least once a week. Operating systems like Windows work better with the occasional reboot and there’s also the added benefit of giving all the hard-working components in your computer a break for a little bit, making it run quieter and potentially last longer.

6. Back up data

Data is the most important aspect of your laptop. It is always best practice to have a data backup strategy in place and to perform system backups on a regular basis. Laptop hardware can fail, data can be corrupted,

computers can be lost, stolen, or destroyed. Data backup software can help you protect and restore your data when something goes wrong.

7. Unplug the power cable

Have you noticed when charging your laptop that there’s an excess of heat coming off of the bottom? This is a normal by-product of charging, but if the temperature gets too high or remains elevated for too long, serious damage can occur. The ideal charge for a battery is around 80 percent before you should unplug and let it drain to 40 percent. Doing this can prolong your battery life by as much as four times.

8. Clean your laptop regularly

Laptops get pretty dirty and need to be cleaned regularly. There are five general parts of the laptop you should keep clean which are the case, the screen, the laptop keyboard (and touchpad), the ports, and the cooling vents. You can also open up your laptop to expose and clean its cooling system (the fan and heatsink), but only attempt that if you’re comfortable opening up your laptop.