Chapter 6. Preventing Problems; General Tips For Preventing Problems - Lenovo ThinkPad 11e 3rd Gen User Manual

Chapter 6. Preventing problems

An important part of owning a ThinkPad notebook computer is maintenance. With proper care, you
can avoid common problems. This chapter provides information that can help you keep your computer
running smoothly.
This chapter contains the following topics:
• "General tips for preventing problems" on page 73
• "Making sure device drivers are up-to-date" on page 74
• "Taking care of your computer" on page 75

General tips for preventing problems

This topic provides the following tips to help you prevent computing problems:
• Check the capacity of your internal storage drive from time to time. If the internal storage drive gets too
full, the Windows operating system will slow down and might produce errors.
To check the internal storage drive capacity, do the following:
– Windows 7: Click Start ➙ Computer.
– Windows 10: Open the File Explorer and click This PC.
• Empty your recycle bin on a regular basis.
• Use disk defragment tool regularly on your internal storage drive to improve data seek and read times.
• To free up disk space, uninstall unused application programs.
Note: You also might want to look for program duplication or overlapping versions.
• Clean out your Inbox, Sent, and Trash folders from your e-mail client program.
• Back up your data at least once a week. If critical data is present, it is a good idea to perform a daily
backup operation. Lenovo has many backup options available for your computer. Rewritable optical
drives are available for most machines and are easily installed.
• Schedule system restore operations to take a system snapshot periodically. For more information about
system restore, see Chapter 8 "Recovery overview" on page 95.
• Update device drivers and the UEFI BIOS when needed.
• Keep up to date for device drivers on other non-Lenovo hardware. You might want to read the device
driver information release notes prior to updating for compatibility or known issues.
• Keep a log book. Entries might include major hardware or software changes, driver updates, minor issues
you have experienced, and how you resolved the minor issues.
• If you ever need to run a recovery on your computer to return the preinstalled contents onto the machine,
the following tips might help along the way:
– Remove all external devices such as the printer, keyboard, and so on.
– Make sure that your battery is charged and your computer has the ac power connected.
– Access ThinkPad Setup and load the default settings.
– Restart the computer and start the recovery operation."
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