2. Working with Your PC’s Hardware and Software Dr. Steve Broskoske Misericordia University

3. How Much Do You Know About Your PC? How large is your hard drive? How much free space is left on your stick? How much RAM (memory) do you have? How fast is your microprocessor?

4. Learning About Your Hard Drive  My computer – right-click the drive C (hard drive) icon. Select properties from the pop- up menu. Here you can determine the following: –Amount of total disk space on the drive. –Amount of used space. –Amount of unused space.

5. Learning About Your PC Hardware  Control panel – system icon. Here you can learn the following: –Version of Windows you are using. –Microprocessor (e.g., Pentium 4). –Speed of the microprocessor (e.g., 2.20 GHz). –Amount of memory (RAM) installed the PC (e.g., 496Mb of RAM).

6. What is one of the greatest killers of PC’s and computer equipment?

7. How to Protect Against Electrical Damage Add a surge protector. Use an antistatic screen cloth. Use antistatic spray. Never store any magnetic media (storage media) on the PC tower or near the monitor.

8. How to Speed Up Your PC Add additional memory. Clean the system tray. Perform a disk cleanup. Defragment your hard drive. Check for and eliminate spyware. Advice from Microsoft

9. Establishing a Restore Point  Start menu – accessories – system tools – system restore. Create a restore point. –Makes a copy of your hard drive as it is today. Restore to an earlier time. –Return hard drive to a time when it worked properly. Before making major changes to your PC, you might want to establish a restore point.

10. Clean Your System Tray Start -- Run  Type: msconfig Go to the “startup” tab. –List of programs that load every time you boot the PC is displayed. –Block programs as desired. Many of the icons in your system tray are interfering with your PC’s processing! Advice from CNet

11. Disk Cleanup  Start – accessories – system tools ( Also available from properties in My Computer.) Removes: –Temporary files generated by programs. –Files remaining from improper shut-down. Frees up space on hard drive.

12. Disk Defragmenter  Start – accessories – system tools ( Also available from properties in My Computer.)