By rule of thumb, it has been said that laptops last three to five years. Others will say that it can last longer depending on how well you take care of the laptop. In some sense, you can think of it is like a car.

The more you maintain and take care of the car, the longer the lifespan will be. How the computer is used will also play a factor in how long the laptop will last, and the kind of
hardware the laptop has will also play a factor.

In this article, we are going to touch on a few things that can be done to increase the lifespan of
your laptop.

The most obvious thing that we want to do is keep the physical damage to a minimum. Try to keep food and drinks away from your laptop. If you carry your laptop with you, be sure to keep it in a case just in case you do drop it. This will help prevent physical damage to the hard drive, and it will, of course, help prevent cosmetic damage as well.

Backing up your data is crucial. There are instances that we may experience a loss of data or the inability to access it with normal procedures, so, we want to be sure that we are backing up our data on a regular basis. The important items that you want to include in your backup are going to be:

• Photos and videos
• Documents
• Emails
• Address books
• Financials

Usually, the general backup options that are available to you are going to include:

• USB
• External Drives
• Cloud backup

Upgrade your laptop’s operating system. Upgrading your laptop is going to be a benefit to several different things on your laptop that help increase the laptop’s lifespan. It can help the speed in which your computer is running.

It will also help the security of your computer and keep you from being vulnerable to data breaches and hacks. Keeping your operating system up to date helps keep all of your key features and applications up to date preventing glitches, system
errors, and application errors.

As mentioned earlier, your laptop can be pretty similar to a car when needing to keep it maintained and tuned up. It can help if you schedule regular maintenance Run virus and malware scans to ensure that your computer is free of viruses. http://www.malwarebytes.com is a great website to check for malware on the laptop to ensure that you don’t have any trouble browsing or loading websites.

You can run disk defragment and disk cleanup on your laptop. Disk cleanup helps maximize the
drive’s memory, speed performance, storage, and overall functionality.

The defragment will help consolidate the fragmented files on the laptop into one space. The
laptop will be able to access files faster and keep newer files from being fragmented. It is best
to run the disk cleanup first because it will remove the junk files and will reassess the free space
that is on the laptop.

If the tasks you do include things like gaming, graphics, video design, and other media-related tasks, it will eventually be best to consider upgrading things like RAM, the graphics card, and even the storage. The RAM will help a variety of different things. It will help multiple programs be able to run imultaneously. Ram will help speed up the start-up time of a laptop.

Increasing the ram will also help your internet browsing become more efficient. You will be able to have
multiple tabs open for multiple things more comfortable without it affecting the performance of
the browser. Increasing the RAM can also speed up printing jobs as well as the network sharing
if the laptop has a LAN or WAN connection.

You can even increase the lifespan of your laptop by monitoring the charging connection. You
don’t want your laptop to stress out when it is charging.

You want to ensure that you try to unplug your charger when it has reached its maximum
charging capacity. The lifespan of your laptop can be reduced if you don’t monitor the charging
process.

Some say that it doesn’t affect the battery life if you don’t unplug the charger when it has reached charging capacity, and some will say it does affect it. To be on the safe side, I would recommend doing your best to unplug the charger when it has completed the charging process. It will ultimately be the laptop’s age and hardware that is going to determine if that is in fact true. It is better to be safe than sorry.

Keep your laptop as cool as possible. A laptop overheating can have a negative effect on the lifespan of the laptop. You may want to consider investing in a cooling pad. Like most devices, you want to give the laptop as much breathing room as possible. Your lap and soft, uneven surfaces can cause the laptop to overheat. You’ll want to do your best to avoid these scenarios to increase the lifespan of your laptop.

Of course, you’ll want to ensure that you keep your laptop clean. A compressed air can is a great way to remove some of the dirt and grime in between the keys and surface of your laptop. Having too much dirt and grime can also contribute to your laptop overheating.

A microfiber cloth is definitely recommended to prevent any unwanted scratches and cosmetic damage to the laptop. You can turn it upside down and lightly tap it to get the dirt from in between the keys
and cracks of the laptop as well.

If your laptop happens to open, you can clean on the inside, however, be careful so that you don’t void your warranty if you have one. If the laptop battery is able to be removed, you then will just unscrew the back panel. It is not common to find things other than dirt or crumbs, but if you do happen to find any stains just be sure to clean it with alcohol.

So, in essence, how long a laptop lasts has quite a bit to do with how it is treated and maintained. With the information included in this article, I am certain that the lifespan of your laptop can be longer than what the typical lifespan mentioned currently is.