If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It. . . Right? Wrong!

A lot of people think they should just wait till they are having problems before repairing their computers. Other people are just forgetful or complacent. What you can't see, won't hurt you, right? Wrong. If we took the same attitude and applied it to our automobiles (and some folks do), we'd be buried in massive, major repair bills for want of crucial, yet simple, inexpensive, regular oil changes, filter changes, tune-ups, Winter-izing, Summeri-zing, etc.

Think of your Macintosh as somewhat like your car, in that certain aspects become worn and tattered over time, and "changing its oil and filters" will keep that frightening and infuriating experience of crashing, freezing, and lost data from happening. And even better, these simple operations will rarely cost you anything but a few minutes per 20-40 hours of use, as opposed to hours and hours of major repairs, reinstallation of software, and recreation of your documents if you don't.

We'll break this section up into explanations of each suggested operation, and include detailed instructions and images, including recommendations for proven third-party utilities to do the best job possible.

Preventative Schedule

Physical Media Integrity
- Frequency:
- On installation of each new disk (including removable media)
- Once per 250 hours of use of each disk
- After repeated crashes and freezes, lost files issues, damaged or corrupted read-writes, power outages, or SCSI conflicts are discovered
- Methods and Tools
Disk Driver Integrity
- Frequency:
- On installation of each new disk (including removable media)
- After each driver manufacturer update
- After repeated crashes and freezes, lost files issues, damaged or corrupted read-writes, power outages, or SCSI conflicts are discovered
- Methods and Tools
Directory and Volume Structure Integrity
- Frequency:
- Once per 20-40 hours of use
- Immediately prior to Rebuilding the Desktop
- After repeated crashes and freezes, lost files issues, damaged or corrupted read-writes, power outages, or SCSI conflicts are discovered
- Methods and Tools (New! 12 January '00)
Desktop DB and DF Files Rebuilding
- Frequency:
- Once per 20-40 hours of use
- Prior to or after installing or removing new software
- Custom or regular icons are missing or appear as generic
- Sluggish System behavior is experienced
- Applications fail to open documents
- Documents fail to open applications
- Crashes occur when moving, opening, saving, or renaming files in Finder
- Crashes, freezes, hangs occur when using 'Open', 'Save', 'Save As', 'Insert' commands in applications
- Inexplicable System, Finder or application crashes, freezes or hangs
- After repeated crashes and freezes, lost files issues, damaged or corrupted read-writes, power outages, or SCSI conflicts are discovered
- Methods and Tools
Optimising and Defragmentation
- Frequency:
- Prior to or after installing or removing new software
- Once per 40-160 hours, or as needed
- Sluggish System, Finder and Application behavior is experienced
- Startup time is increased
- Slow behavior when saving and opening files and applications
- Slow behavior and errors occur when using graphics, audio or video applications
- Methods and Tools
PRAM Rebuilding (Zapping the PRAM)
- Frequency:
- As needed or prescribed by a service technician
- Inexplicable crashes or freezes
- Startup disk selection problems
- Monitor resolution or color depth limitations, errors
- After installing new RAM or a new processor
- Methods and Tools
PRAM Battery Test
- Frequency:
- Every 3-6 months after the first two years of use
- Date and Time keeps falling behind, ahead, or resetting to 1956
- Monitor resolution keeps changing on each restart
- Flashing '?' on startup
- Startup Disk selection keeps changing
- Methods and Tools
System, Application and Documents Backups
- Frequency:
- Critical, irreplaceable documents: Every Session!
- Daily-changed work files: Every day!
- System Folder: Every Week or as needed (40-160 hours)
- Applications: after initial installation, after updates, as needed
- Clipart, fonts, templates: Once as configured in System, after changes
- Methods and Tools (coming soon!)
Volume and Files Organization and Deletion
- Frequency:
- Once a week or month as needed
- Web Browser is crashing or freezing
- Applications using temporary files crash or freeze
- Video and audio capture is choppy or applications freeze, hang
- Finder or applications return "Disk too full..." errors
- When your volume has less than 10% free disk space
- Methods and Tools (coming soon!)
Hardware
- Be sure to clean your removable media drives, fan housings, air intakes, inspect your cables, SCSI terminators, etc.
- Frequency:
- Occasionally as needed according to the dust and smoke quantity in your environment
- after your equipment is moved or disturbed by your child, cat or dog
- After repeated crashes and freezes, lost files issues, damaged or corrupted read-writes, power outages, or SCSI conflicts are discovered
- Methods and Tools (coming soon!)

Questions, Comments or Suggestions?

Document last Revised: 15 August 1999
Author: Frederico
Editor: WebClub '99

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