How I maintain my PCs Part 1

  Hardware is pretty solid.  Usually not much can go wrong with it.  Most every component I've installed in my builds has been previously used; whether it was scavenged or purchased second-hand.   Usually what gums up a system is the software.  Dust build-up is also a problem.  All of the old PCs I have taken apart have had dust caked into the heat-sinks, around the RAM slots, in and around the CPU socket and all over the various cooling fan blades. Refreshing the thermal compound can work wonders too.

 The problem with dust is that when it cakes onto things it hinders performance by holding heat in.  Heat is hardware's enemy.  It also taxes fans by adding weight and bulk to their blades so they don't spin as fast nor do they move as much air.  Dust is an easy thing to remedy.  I don't have access to compressed air, unless I take my hardware to a friend's place or buy a "can of air".  I generally take apart the system, and use q-tips, a vacuum and even my own breath to clear out dust. Hot water helps wash out heat-sinks.  (Remove all electronics from the heat-sinks first!)  If you're not comfortable with that I recommend some compressed air, take the side cover off and blow out as much dust as you can.  You can also use a vacuum, just be careful of static.


 I have become a fan of Arctic Silver thermal compound.  I use it on all chips that have board-mounted heat-sinks.  It's not a paste so if the heat-sink doesn't attach in some way don't use this.  I bought the kit that comes with the compound, the cleaner, and the conditioner.  The cleaner is awesome at removing old dried up compound and thermal pads.  The conditioner just finishes off prepping the chips surface to receive the compound.  My second tube of compound is already almost gone; I use it so much.  It maximizes the heat transfer between the chip and the heat-sink.  There are countless studies you can find online of the temperature drops you gain just by re-pasting with Arctic Silver.  A cool system is a stable, smooth, and fast system.  Applying thermal compound isn't something I'd recommend to a beginner, but you've got to start somewhere.  I started on old computers that I wasn't afraid of losing.  Don't take that to mean that if you mess up applying thermal compound your PC is toast.  But overheating your PCs can ruin it's components!  Many motherboard have auto-shut off features when parts become too hot.  There are plenty of YouTube videos on best methods for this.  If you're interested I'd suggest looking them up (search "applying thermal compound on a CPU") and watching a few different ones before you give it a go. 

     *Something to keep in mind about all of this software that shows temps!  These programs access your hardware's built in temp sensors and are not always completely accurate.  From my research online, the best way people have tracked system temps is by physically probing each spot they want to read and using some sort of display screen or fan controller display to read and monitor their system's temperatures.  However, that does not mean that using just this software wont help you maintain your PC's temp!*

 This is SpeedFan.  Great for showing your current system status and hardware usages.  It has other features too, but I haven't delved too deeply into it yet.

 Here is temp data in a graph on SpeedFan.  Good for finding your hotspots and seeing how quickly it heats up and cools down under load.

 CPU-Z is great for getting specific system data.  Here it is pulling everything you'd ever need to know about my CPU.  As you can see, you can get the same kind of detailed info on most of the hardware installed.  This helps you get the proper drivers if something isn't running quite right.

 You may have seen this one on a previous post.  This is OpenHardwareMonitor.  I like it because of how simply it displays so much information.  It's like SpeedFan and CPU-Z had a baby.  You get hardware models, temps, voltages, processing speeds, and even life of SSD's.  The "Value" column shows real-time readings and the "Max" column shows where the system has maxed since opening the software.

 

 -I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my PC's so I use the above software and methods to optimize my PC cooling.  The Little Mule's HDD was getting way too hot and I detected it with SpeedFan and was able to do some case modding that allowed my to actively cool it.  When I was done it was to coolest component in the case.  I noted how hot my GeForce 9800 GT was getting in the MKIV with OpenHardwareMonitor and took the appropriate action to remedy the problem.  I've been able to find all the drivers I have ever needed by using CPUZ and OpenHardwareMonitor to find the exact part model numbers and names.-

Another good way to check on your system is Windows 7's own system rating screen.  It isn't the best because you can run it twice with zero hardware changes and get slightly different results but it gives you a good idea of what is bottle-necking your system.  We can see here that my Dual-Core CPU is bottle-necking mine.  I would very much like to upgrade my CPU to a Core 2 Quad in the future.  It runs the rankings on a scale of 1.0 to 7.9.  Why 7.9?  Beats me.

 Here is a screen-shot of my PC running Warframe in windowed mode.  Full screen taxes the GPU a little harder but it's nothing the GeForce 9800 GT can't handle, and you can see how good it looks even for running at lowest resolution.  Warframe has been around since 2012, but its a good test of my system because I originally estimated it to be good for PC games up to 2011.  Also notice how my windows and start-bar look like they came from Windows 95.  You can optimize Windows 7 for best performance by tweaking a couple settings.  One of them turns off all the unnecessary animations and windowed effects that come active as default on Win7 and it makes a difference on how smooth a system like mine runs.  This is old-school hardware (in the PC world) running here so optimization makes big differences.  Part 2 will contain some speed-enhancing optimizations you can do as well as furthering your system maintenance.