Can you wear out your PC?

Stump the PC Club is a free tech-advice column written by members of the North Orange County Computer Club, which has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org.

QUESTION: A friend of mine said that he was going to replace his 2 year old PC. He gets an error message on a blue screen when it boots up and he says that his machine is worn out since he uses it so much. Does he know what he is talking about?

PC CLUB:  In a word no! The only thing that can wear out physically is a moving part such as a fan or a hard drive and that is very unlikely for a two year old PC. Occasionally, an electronic part will fail but that is rare these days. What can happen to a PC from extensive use, especially Web surfing and E-mailing, is that the operating system can be corrupted by malware including viruses, spyware, infected e-mail attachments and other threats. This is more of a direct result of careless use rather than over use. A well secured and protected PC coupled with good Internet habits is usually not prone to such threats but it only takes one careless act to clobber your PC. In other words, using a PC with reckless abandon can get you in trouble quickly.

If you get an error messages when you start up your PC there are several remedies depending on the nature of the message. If you see a blue screen with white text this is a bad sign. This is known as the Blue Screen of Death or BSOD. Less serious errors can be easily resolved by a knowledgeable user or technician. Even with a BSOD there’s no need to discard the PC. This can be remedied by re-installing Windows followed by some hard work to get the PC back to the state that is was in before it crashed.

If this should happen to you there are several options. Read the articles at http://bit.ly/retrievefiles and http://bit.ly/recoveryourfiles before proceeding.

· Call the PC manufacturer to determine how to recover your PC and use the method they suggest.

· Hire a PC repair technician.

· Take the PC where you purchased it, they may be able to help.

If you need an excuse to buy a new PC, a BSOD may be just the thing.

Ed Schwartz is a member of the North Orange County Computer Club. To send in a question, go to edwardns.com and click the Contact Me menu. Archives of previous columns are also on the website.