The Five Most Costly Misconceptions About Computer Maintenance and Repair

#1: If your computer is working fine right now, it does not need any maintenance.

This is probably one of the biggest and most deadly misconceptions that most computer users fall victim to. Computers are just like cars. If you don’t change the oil, change the filter, rotate the tires, flush the transmission, and perform other regular maintenance on your car, it will eventually break down and cost you FAR MORE to repair than the cost of the basic maintenance.

There are certain maintenance checks that need to be done: virus updates and spam filtering, system back ups, checking for and installing security patches and updates, disk defrag, spyware detection and removal, and the integrity of the hard drive, and so on. Your computer repair technician should be adamant that you have regular maintenance done on your machine and should offer to set up automatic virus definition updates, spam filtering (to avoid viruses), and automatic system backups OFF SITE.

If your technician does not press you to let him or her do this for you, then RUN – don’t walk – out of their office. Lack of system maintenance is the NUMBER ONE reason most people end up losing valuable files and incurring heavy computer repair bills. If your technician isn’t offering you these services, you need to find someone else to support your computer or network for two reasons:

1Either he doesn’t know enough to make this recommendation, which is a sure sign he or she is horribly inexperienced

OR

2They recognize that they are profiting from your computer problems and don’t want to recommend steps towards preventing you from needing their help on an on-going basis.

Either reason is a good one to get as far away from that person as possible!