I find myself replacing hard drives more often than any other computer component. So don’t think of your hard drive as a permanent storage solution. Why do they fail? They fail because they have moving parts that create friction and heat and are overworked. They fail because they are over or under powered. They fail because of vibrations that cause their read/write heads to crash into their metal platters. The platters contain all the magnetically created data. Data is Windows and everything associated with it including applications, drivers and user created files.

The next causality is the power supply. They fail because hard drives, CD drives, fans and the motherboard all use the 12V line of your power supply. If this line doesn’t have a high enough amp rating, the computer will have an unstable running environment, the hard drive and motherboard could be damaged. Always make sure the power supply 12 volt line has at least an 18 amp rating for light systems with just the back case fan, one hard drive and one or two optical drives.

Always turn off your computer when you expect not to use it any more that day. Only the monitor stays on in sleep mode. This conserves energy and doubles the life span of your PC. All-in-one computers and flat screen monitors should always be turned off.

Many of the low end power supplies sold today are built on the old design where the 5 volt line was the primary source of power, Pentium three and below. Once Pentium four was introduced, the 12 volt line became the primary source of power.

Remember, computers use DC power (direct current) not AC (alternating current). The computer power supply converts your house 115v AC to DC. If your AC is not 115v, not properly grounded or has the wrong polarity, your power supply will be damaged over time causing damage to itself your motherboard, ram or hard drive. Buy a $5.00 outlet tester or a $100.00 Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to check and protect your computer from house power problems.

The third most replaced computer part is the motherboard and this is primarily caused by faulty power or failed or loose chipset fans. The chipset is a set of silicon micro devices that among other things controls communications between the processor (CPU) (another silicon device) and external devices.