Need advice on laptop maintenance

[Foxxy2012]

Hello, guys!

So I finally managed to gather some money and get me a much-desired laptop, for college, gaming, etc. I got an amazing deal and bought myself an Asus x550jx-xx129d, I'm super proud of it! The reason for this thread is that I want to know as much as possible about various parts of my laptop so that I can prevent any sort of damage that may come its way. I really want to treasure it. Its specs are as follows(stating specs is mandatory around here, I assume)
1TB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD
4GB OnBoard RAM(1 open slot for DDR3, which can be topped with at most 8GB of extra memory)
Intel Core i5-4200H
nVidia GeForce GTX 950M dedicated & Intel HD 4600 integrated

Once I got it, I first installed all the software I needed on it(LOTS of them) and ran MyDefrag for defragmentation. As a result, its startup is very short, as compared to pre-defragmentation. No surprises there. I installed MSI Afterburner for temp and FPS monitoring(If, at some point it gets too hot, I'll have to replace its thermal paste)
I have the following things I need to know.

1. How often do I defrag? What else can I do to make sure my HDD's life is as long as it can be? How do I monitor HDD health and what are best practices?

2. What are your advices on maximizing battery life during use? I usually set it on battery saver and configure games at lowest graphics but the battery still feels like it can only hang in there for 2 hours(when I'm not gaming). Goes without saying, if I game at high performance on battery with max graphics, the battery dies in 30-45 mins. (Note that I didn't run any 100% to 10% tests so I can actually measure how long it holds on various settings... I just roughly estimated)

3. I read online that gaming with battery inside damages the battery due to heat generated by the internal components. With all that, I tried feeling the battery after a long gaming session and its surface wasn't that hot at all! The laptop itself seems to keep really cool on the surface during gaming sessions, and temps on CPU never go past 80. GPU stays below 70 at all times.
Also, I assume that removing the battery when the laptop is turned on and plugged in is dangerous?
4. This happened like an hour ago. When I was at the user selection screen upon boot, I couldn't enter the password and then I got what they call a "Windows 10 bluescreen" with errorcode Page_fault_in_nonpaged_area... I let it do its thing 'till it hit 100% but it stood like that at 100% for 20 minutes. I was forced to hold the power button in order to emergency shut it down. After it rebooted and I started playing, the game froze and I couldn't do anything. Laptop wasn't accepting any input for a while so I did the hold power button again. In regards to this, I have two questions:
a)The holding power button thing is dangerous for the laptop right? I heard it can damage the HDD and not only. In what circumstances is doing this acceptable? Is there any way to reset the laptop when it freezes like that without risk of damaging it?
b)Any ideas as to what happened with those two consecutive freezes and some measures I can take to avoid them in the future?

5.From my MSI monitoring I noticed that, when not in use, the Dedicated GPU behaves weirdly. It's like it is getting power for a couple seconds, then it turns off and repeats the process. Is this normal? My friend told me that, when not in use, the dedicated gpu should show no input. Here's a picture:
http/postimg.org/image/5f8qk6n7l/
Sorry for posting it like this. When I embed the image tag, the image just doesn't show...
GPU1 Temperature is the chart that shows the behavior. I tried monitoring the GPU on CPU-Z and GPU-Z as well and the result is the same. What's going on?

6. Any further tips you might have? I'm open to anything so please teach me!

Sorry for the ultra-long post. If you don't feel like giving a full answer to a question, please link me to an article or something. I'll be happy to know I at least read the right things.
Thanks in advance!

 

[thejackal85]

Only someone that truly cares about their rig would write such a lengthy post. Kudos to you!

1. Best practices is to defrag once a month to keep your file structure in top shape. You can schedule this within the program if you want.

2. Maximizing battery life during usage is tricky, but let's start with the basics. The less it has to do, the less power it will use. So, open Task Manager and click the "Startup" tab. Disable all the options that do not need to be in there; if you are unsure about something, leave it. From there, open services.msc and set to manual all the services that don't need to be in startup (i.e. Adobe crap). Lastly, the brightness will be a big factor. If you can live with a lower amount of brightness, turn it down. Also, power saving is good, but if you're not using it, shut it off.

3. Gaming will heat up the laptop, yes, but not enough where it will effect the battery. Just be sure when you game to keep your laptop on a hard surface and not on anything that will absorb heat. If you do that, then you will have issues.

4. That error comes along when Windows has issues saving temporary memory to your RAM module(s). Since your laptop is new, this may be a one time thing or something in it may be defective.
a) Holding the power button down is dangerous for your HDD/data. It's really only acceptable to hold it down when its needed.
b) Call whomever you bought the laptop from, tell them about the blue screen and let them decide. If your laptop is still under warranty and they recognize the issue as being severe enough, they will take the appropriate action.

5. The GPU has many functions and since your laptop is new, it could still be adjusting to all the updates, etc. So for right now, let's call that behavior normal.

6. The thing about certain items of technology is they will last as long as they are taken care of. My first computer was a Compaq Presario that lasted me 12 years because I did maintenance on it and took care of it. There are many tips here that people can give you, but everyone uses their equipment differently.

 

[Foxxy2012]

Only someone that truly cares about their rig would write such a lengthy post. Kudos to you!

1. Best practices is to defrag once a month to keep your file structure in top shape. You can schedule this within the program if you want.

2. Maximizing battery life during usage is tricky, but let's start with the basics. The less it has to do, the less power it will use. So, open Task Manager and click the "Startup" tab. Disable all the options that do not need to be in there; if you are unsure about something, leave it. From there, open services.msc and set to manual all the services that don't need to be in startup (i.e. Adobe crap). Lastly, the brightness will be a big factor. If you can live with a lower amount of brightness, turn it down. Also, power saving is good, but if you're not using it, shut it off.

3. Gaming will heat up the laptop, yes, but not enough where it will effect the battery. Just be sure when you game to keep your laptop on a hard surface and not on anything that will absorb heat. If you do that, then you will have issues.

4. That error comes along when Windows has issues saving temporary memory to your RAM module(s). Since your laptop is new, this may be a one time thing or something in it may be defective.
a) Holding the power button down is dangerous for your HDD/data. It's really only acceptable to hold it down when its needed.
b) Call whomever you bought the laptop from, tell them about the blue screen and let them decide. If your laptop is still under warranty and they recognize the issue as being severe enough, they will take the appropriate action.

5. The GPU has many functions and since your laptop is new, it could still be adjusting to all the updates, etc. So for right now, let's call that behavior normal.

6. The thing about certain items of technology is they will last as long as they are taken care of. My first computer was a Compaq Presario that lasted me 12 years because I did maintenance on it and took care of it. There are many tips here that people can give you, but everyone uses their equipment differently.

Thanks for answering all my questions!
1. I'll keep defragging often in order to maintain top HDD performance.
2. Already taken care of startup in order to make it fast. Removed all useless crap from startup. I keep brightness to lowest just as I do with my mobile phone to maximize battery life. Didn't use the services feature too much, thanks for letting me know!
3. Always gaming on my desk. Whenever I'm not keeping my laptop on my desk, I make sure not to cover the exhaust.
4. I really hope nothing's defective... I had another crash on the same game and I had to hold power button again. Once more it happened when I had it restart and it got stuck on the restart screen... It's getting me a bit anxious.
5. I googled about this issue but couldn't find anything convincing. Laptop's not NEW... it has about 2 weeks since unboxing.

Oh and one more thing, this is barely noticeable, but on bright background i can notice a bright spot on my screen. It's really small but it's nagging at me now that I know it's there. Is it bad?
I have no means of sending it to warranty and I haven't noticed anything faulty yet. The laptop has no warranty, that was the con of buying it at a great deal(about 50% off original price). I had my circumstances and bought it knowing all the risks involved.

Any further answers on the OP questions and this one above are welcome.

 

[thejackal85]

Not sure I understand what you mean about a bright spot on your screen. Can you include a picture of it?

If I can help with anything else, please let me know!

 

[1shado1]

If memory serves, ever since Windows 7, the HDD is automatically defragged once a week (the default setting).

 

[Foxxy2012]

Not sure I understand what you mean about a bright spot on your screen. Can you include a picture of it?

If I can help with anything else, please let me know!

I can't take a screenshot since it's barely visible. You can only JUST notice it if the spot is on white background and you turn brightness at a certain percent(about 60% or so).
Here's a link to what bright spots look like, though
http/forum.notebookreview.com/threads/diy-easily-fix-white-pressure-marks-blotches-clouds-mura-bright-spots-on-your-lcd-led-panel-screen.764051/
Apparently, they are caused by pressure applied on the screen(either the back lid or front lid of it). Thing is, I never even touched the screen as it is glossy and I'm afraid it'd leave marks. Whenever I turn off my laptop and close the lid I leave a protection cloth(that came with the laptop) on top of the keyboard so the keyboard won't leave any marks. Also, whenever I carry my laptop around I keep it protected. There shouldn't have been any pressure ever applied in that area. It really is just BARELY visible and only if I'm highly aware of it does it enter my line of sight but I just wanted to make sure it's nothing that might elevate into worse.
More answers are always welcome!

 

[thejackal85]

Well, the link you sent me to looks like its the laptop keys making the bright spots, but it could be something else with yours. I honestly would have to look at it to make a good determination on what the issue is.

 

[Foxxy2012]

Well, the link you sent me to looks like its the laptop keys making the bright spots, but it could be something else with yours. I honestly would have to look at it to make a good determination on what the issue is.

You should look at the pictures a bit below those. The actual bright spots are encircled in red.

More important than that is that I'm uneasy about the GPU behavior(Mentioned at point number 5 in original post). Looking forward to any help I can get on that.