General maintenance/diagnostic routines for laptops?
I have a gaming laptop that I mostly used as a desktop (bought used, was a good price) with external screen and devices attached. This past Sunday, I was wiping the dust off it and noticed that the trackpad felt oddly curved, then I also noticed that entire device body was slightly bloated as... which led to the discovery that the battery is swollen and that it needs to be replaced.
But I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise if I hadn't been cleaning my desk that day. It's placed on the far side of my desk on a laptop stand (although well ventilated) so I rarely pay attention to it, if at all. It might have gone on for much longer and eventually led to a disaster before I even caught on to the problem.
So, my question is: how does one track these potential hardware problems without having to manually inspect different parts of the device every now and then?
(While my device is a laptop with W10 OS, the question isn't limited to just that. Inputs for Mac and other related products are also welcomed.)
You can't, not really. Consumer level hardware usually has no way of telling its current state; after all, how is the battery itself supposed to know it's bulging? Furthermore, many components like LEDs for example, don't have a gradual shift so you can tell they're dying. Instead, they tend to work just fine, right up until the moment when they don't, and provide little warning. (although fortunately LEDs tend to be quite hardy and will likely outlive everything else in your laptop).
With that being said, there are a few general things you can check in software. A big one is CPU temperature; the hotter a CPU gets, the shorter its lifespan is, and in gaming laptops especially this can be a big concern. For the best lifespan, you'll want to try to keep it under 70C if you can, but you shouldn't worry about occasionally going above that limit. Hard drives also come with a feature called S. M. A. R. T that can warn you of impending failure, you can check that every so often and see if it's still good. You can look at the rpm speed of a fan, and see if it rises overtime; if it's consistently faster then it used to be, that can be a sign it's getting clogged with dust. However, these are just general trends or potential indicators, the best way is to still check the hardware yourself once in a while.
I had a gut feeling that this would be the case. Oh well, at least I got some clear explanation for asking the question. Thanks!