Preventive Maintenance

Importance:

Developing a preventive maintenance plan for your PC will reduce incidents of repairing or replacing parts.

• Preventive maintenance saves money.

• Preventive maintenance saves time.

• Preventive maintenance helps safeguard your data.

• Preventive maintenance improves performance.
   

Cleaning

Mouse

Why: A mouse is especially vulnerable to dust and debris which are carried from the mouse pad into the mouse ball and rollers. When enough dust has accumulated, the mouse cursor hesitates or refuses to move completely.

How:

Mechanical: Has a rubber or metal ball on its underside this is what makes it move via the sensors inside. Do not use harsh solvents inside the mouse or on the ball. Chemicals can easily melt the plastic and result in permanent damage to the mouse.

1. Remove the mouse ball: remove retaining ring cover (on bottom of mouse) that holds the mouse ball in place

2. Clean the mouse ball: wash mouse ball in warm, soapy water; then dry it thoroughly with a clean lint-free towel

3. Blow out the dust: use can of compressed air to blow out any dust or debris that has accumulated inside mouse

4. Clean the rollers: (3 rollers) use a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol to clean off any layers of "gunk" that might have accumulated on rollers Be sure to scrape the plastic shafts to remove the caked on body oil mixed with dust. This must be removed.

5. Reassemble and Test: allow everything to dry completely; replace the ball and retaining ring. Test to see if mouse is performing properly

Optical: Uses a laser to detect the mouse's movement. Optical mice have no mechanical moving parts. They respond more quickly and precisely than mechanical and optomechanical mice, but they are also more expensive. There is no need to clean an optical/laser mouse because there are no moving parts to collect debris. You may want to wipe the four corners of the bottom of the mouse.

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Keyboard

Why: Keyboards are open to the environment so dust and debris readily settle between the keys. Over time, these accumulations can jam keys or cause repeated keystrokes.

How:

• Attach the long, thin nozzle to a can of compressed air and use the air to blow through the horizontal gaps between key rows.

• Use a clean cloth dampened with alcohol to remove dirt or stains from the keys and keyboard housing
   

Monitor

Why: Monitors rely on vent openings for proper cooling. Vent openings can be blocked by paper or other objects. This will restrict ventilation and force the monitor to run hot.

How:

• Use a air compressor at 120lbs of pressure (canned air is not strong enough) aim air nozzle on one side of the air vents to blow to remove any accumulations of dust and debris from the vents underneath the case as well as those on top of the case.

• Use a clean cloth, lightly dampened with alcohol or a cleaning solution designed for computers to clean the monitor's plastic case.

• Use clean water with mild soap to clean the CRT face.

• Do not use ammonia or any chemicals to clean flat screen monitors. They are often treated with anti-glare and other coatings and even mild chemicals can react with some coatings.

Floppy Drive

Why: Read/write heads of the floppy drive touch the floppy disk. This contact transfers some of the magnetic oxides from the floppy disk to the drive's heads. Eventually enough oxides can accumulate on the heads to cause reading or writing problems with the floppy drive. The floppy drive should periodically be cleaned to remove any excess oxides.

How:
Floppy drives can be cleaned either by using a pre-packaged cleaning kit or by using a swab with isopropyl alcohol to clean the read/write heads.

• Using a cleaning kit, dampen a mildly abrasive cleaning diskette with cleaning solution. Run the cleaning diskette in the drive for 15-30 seconds. You can often get 10-20 cleanings from a cleaning diskette before discarding it.
   

CD-ROM Drive

Why: When ejecting and closing the tray, the motion should be smooth without any hesitation or grinding. Accumulations of dust, pet hair, or other debris in the tray may interfere with a CD.

How:
While the tray is open, check for any accumulation of debris. Clean the tray with a cloth lightly dampened with water only. Be sure that the tray is completely dry before closing it again.

 

Preventive Maintenance Schedule
Some types of preventive maintenance need to be performed more often than others. The frequency of preventative maintenance depends on the nature of the activity.

In order for preventive maintenance to be useful, you have to remember to do it. Something that can help is to create a preventive maintenance schedule. Or you can give Gal Tec Incorporated a call and we can put you on a schedule for a quarterly maintenance and cleaning.