Useful programs that you use?

[darkly]

Which programs do you use to help keep your computer healthy or just generally find very useful?

Generally I have very few problems with my computer. But I'm currently extremely dependent on having a working computer since I do all my studies from home. Lengthy downtimes would be very unfortunate right now so keeping my computer healthy has never been more important. Unfortunately due to the recent windows update (possibly) I've had several blue screens of death the past couple of weeks. I've been working on to try and stabilize my computer again.

Anyway the reason for this thread is to get some recommendations from you on what programs you use, what do you do to keep your computer healthy? I've used an antivirus protection for years but I've been thinking about adding a second layer of protection such as Malewarebytes. Unfortunately from what I can tell, the recent version of Malewarebytes, 2.0 is not that great and users are not recommending it at this point. Any thoughts on this?

But I could also use other useful programs so any thoughts on stuff that you use would be great.

[darkly]

Oh how I love those BSOD! They are so much fun!
So basically I started getting some random BSODs around the time when those BSOD causing windows updates came out, so naturally this is where I began my BSOD problem searching. Found and deleted those updates. Got an BSOD while playing Elder scrolls online, and then another and another... updated the graphic drivers since this can cause BSOD as well. Got Raptr with the driver update package, which was unfortunate as it too causes BSODs. So naturally I continued to get BSODs. Uninstalled Raptr. Got more BSOD but not as often and very randomly. For some reason I could play ESO perfectly fine on Fridays and Saturdays, every Sunday was full of BSODs. So now I'm going to perform a roll back to 13 on my AMD graphic driver as 14 seems a bit unstable, at least according to the interwebs. I got one BSOD outside of ESO otherwise I've would have assumed it was strictly game related. I think I'm going to try and use DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to make sure I've got a clean driver install. BSODs are a pain but from what I can tell they are often driver related.

On the useful programs note, I'm scouting the internet for PC health maintenance and generally useful programs. So far I'm thinking about something like this:

*Display Driver uninstaller, Slimdriver (or any other driver cleaning tools) to help me sort out drivers a little better. Suggestions are very welcome!

*Avast, Malewarebytes, Spybot or any other secondary anti-malware and antivirus stuff. Something that I can use to check if my primary antivirus missed out on something should I experience any problems.

[Agent Of Fortune]

I don't really have any recommendations on these things you're talking about, unfortunately. I haven't played PC games in so long. My PC was pretty nice when I bought it in 2012, but it's probably kind of out of date now. One thing I'll say is that it doesn't seem normal for that many BSODs to appear. (obviously) I have used Microsoft Security Essentials as my virus scan. It seems to be the least intrusive scanner. However, I know some people recommend others more, and say MSE doesn't find enough things.

[Brotherman]

Two programs that I rely on for my computer science assignments are MobaXterm and Sublime. MobaXterm allows me to do most of my work from my apartment and use an text editor of my choice. And Sublime is an epic text editor for coding, period. Both of these programs have improved my college life tremendously.

[Agent Of Fortune]

I've heard of MobaXTerm but I'm not sure what it is. What is it? (apparently me doing a search is out of the question )

Sublime Text is great. My favorite text editor though is Notepad++. I use it for everything.

[Brotherman]

I've heard of MobaXTerm but I'm not sure what it is. What is it? (apparently me doing a search is out of the question )

Sublime Text is great. My favorite text editor though is Notepad++. I use it for everything.

Yeah, MobaXterm basically is a fancy SSH client which lets me access into my school's Linux computer system to code and test my assignments from the comforts of my home. Before using MobaXterm, I was using SSH shell. While very stable and reliable, it limited me to Vim terminal editor. I also have Notepad++, but I'm in the minority that prefer Sublime.

[darkly]

I don't know why I didn't think about MSE before. I should try and see if it finds anything. I have Notepad++ too, it's great.
Even though this topic wasn't suppose to be about my computer problems I feel the need to complain again. At some point in between the BSODs I started getting the "no signal to monitor" problem. That one is really annoying
It may or may not be related to the AMD 14 drivers, or possibly I just need to clean my memories. I saw some funny youtube videos when they did that to fix the no signal problem. I might give it a try later. If you know the magic solution to that problem I'd appreciate the help. I don't think it is hardware related as it happens very random, but I guess eventually I will have to consider that too if nothing else helps.



Edit: Two weeks and no problems , what I did was remove catalyst control center (which comes with the AMD driver) and one other program. Not sure which one was giving me problems, but guessing catalyst control center was not working as intended. I keep wondering if Nvidia has had these kinds of problems with their drivers lately?