How to Take Care of a Laptop So It Lasts Longer

To make a laptop last longer, keep it cool, clean and protected from power surges, carry it in a padded bag, and keep its software updated and backed up. Most laptops die early from heat, dust, spills, drops and bad power, not old age, so a few habits add years.

Use this checklist to take care of a laptop, new or old.

Daily habits

• Use it on a hard, flat surface. Beds, pillows and laps block the air vents underneath, and heat is a laptop’s biggest enemy. Signs of trouble are in laptop overheating fixes.
• Keep drinks away from the keyboard. One spilt cup of chai can end a laptop’s life. If it happens, switch off, unplug and turn it upside down straight away.
• Wash and dry your hands before long typing sessions; grease and food crumbs end up in the keys.
• Close the lid gently and never with a pen or earphones on the keyboard, which can crack the screen.
• Shut down or restart every few days rather than only closing the lid.

Weekly clean-up

• Wipe the screen with a dry microfibre cloth. No tissue, no window cleaner.
• Shake out and brush the keyboard, especially if you live near murram roads where dust gets everywhere. Steps in cleaning a laptop keyboard.
• Check the vents on the sides and bottom for fluff, and clear it with a soft brush.
• Install pending updates for Windows or macOS and your antivirus.

Power and charging

• Plug the charger into a surge protector or a UPS, not straight into the wall. KPLC outages and the surge when power returns can damage chargers and motherboards.
• Unplug during storms if you don’t have surge protection.
• Use the original charger or a good-quality replacement with the right wattage; cheap chargers run hot and can fail badly.
• Don’t keep the battery at 0% or 100% all the time. Many laptops have a battery-saver or charge-limit setting. More in making your laptop battery last longer.
• Don’t pull the charger out by the cable; hold the plug.

Carrying and storage

• Use a padded sleeve or backpack with a laptop compartment, especially on matatus and boda bodas where bags get squeezed and dropped.
• Never carry it with the lid open or while it’s still running and hot inside a bag.
• Keep it out of hot cars and direct sun.
• Storing it for weeks? Charge it to about half, switch it off and keep it somewhere dry.

Yearly service

• Have the inside dusted by a trusted fundi or service centre once a year, more often in dusty areas. A clogged fan is the main cause of a loud, hot laptop.
• Check battery health and replace a swollen or worn battery early; a swollen battery can push up the touchpad or keyboard.
• Clear out storage: uninstall unused programs and keep at least some free space on the drive.
• Back up everything to an external drive or the cloud; see how to back up your computer.

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