PC Maintenance-What Do You Do?
 

It's been almost 2 years since we built my sons' rigs. They are all running fine but seems to me I should be doing some sort of tune up or clean out. Should I?

What do you do for periodic maintenance and well-care for your PC?

Windows 10 has built in maintenance routines for the most part. The only thing I run manually on my Windows machines is the built in Disk Cleanup tool.

Virus scan
Malware scan
Defrag
Plenty of PC cleanup utilities out there.

No longer necessary with the most recent OSes. If the machine isn't showing serious signs of performance issues, then just leave it alone.

I highly recommend not using any 3rd party PC Cleaner/Registry Fixer/Speed Booster/etc. They are all shit.

FYP

open it up and clean it out with canned air

Most of them will actually make things WORSE in the long run.

Probably the biggest, best tip there is honestly.

Thanks for the replies. I didn't realize Win10 performed maintenance.
We do virus scans and compressed air clean out (it's dusty her in AZ) fairly regularly so maybe a defrag and leave it at that.

What say you on organizing your hard drive, any tips?
SSD, what do you keep on it? Theirs are all 250 GB so there isn't room for much.

FYI... never try and defrag an SSD drive. It's 100% unnecessary due to the very different way it stores data. It will also drastically reduce the life span of the drive if you try it.

Defrag got a very undeserved reputation as being a fix all maintenance procedure back in the early Windows days. But it's the equivalent of blowing on the NES cartridge to make it work. 95% of the time it was unnecessary and did nothing to improve actual performance.

All of this. Completely unnecessary to defrag modern filesystems and will actually shorten the life of an SSD.

I don't do shit.

But don't stick your hands in there when you spray. If you sneeze you'll pull all of the wiring loose. And then you'll end up paying someone to plug all of that shit back in.

I unplug mine, take both side panels off, and use a leaf blower on it. Canned air takes too much damn time and doesn't do a good enough job, imo.

thats actually not a terrible idea. I just blow mine out every 2-3 weeks so it doesnt get build up on it.

Thank you boys, this I did not know.

endust wipes for electronics is a pretty good product for cleaning monitor screens, touch screens and the backside of the PC. it has the same solution that is used for cleaning eye glasses.

This is a random but much appreciated tale of caution.

And this is an awesome Cousin Eddy visual.

And made in the USA I see. $7 for a 70 count? I'm in. Gracias.

I use my air compressor. :)

Just make sure you’ve drained the water.

a good powerwash now and again.

Back in the day when I did tech support on dialup and Pentium 3's, I had a customer actually submerge their keyboard and mouse in soapy water to "clean" it.

It's not as uncommon as you think. I got the idea from a youtuber that I watch named Carey Holzman, he's a computer tech.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gcUSl9K2bZs?start=106" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You can get a cheap ass electric leaf blower for like $30 and never have to continuously buy $5 cans of compressed air.

'puter's full

ROFL

ROFL

Yeah that does make a lot of sense. I hate canned air getting so cold it loses pressure and starts shooting out liquid.

This thing looks like it might do the job.


https://www.amazon.com/XPOWER-Airrow...ct_top?ie=UTF8

Shop Vac works good by reversing the hose it becomes a blower. Its a little less powerful than a leaf blower less chance to damage anything. I have done this with a lot of electronics like tv, receivers, guitar amps etc.

This! Unless your running Windows 95.

Sauuuuuuul!!!!! Where have you been, dog?

Not as stupid as it seems. I’ve done this with sticky keyboards I couldn’t get clean. The key is to make sure it is 100% dry before plugging it back in.

I have a laptop keyboard that needs a pint of beer cleaned out of it, Saved the laptop but may give it a bath in windshield solution and dry it out and see what happens. Cause $15 counts

I use a program called Hitman Pro and have been happy as it's portable and does what it advertises. YMMV

Most keyboards nowadays, you can crack the case and all the mechanisms are fairly waterproof anyway. Unless you have a clicky keyboard, it's a pressure sheet wedged between the keys and the base, and all the electronics are on a little chip up by the power cord or IR transmitter, depending on your type [heh] of keyboard.

I've thrown the individual keys along with the clamshell of the board into the dishwasher before, then just wiped down the pressure sheet and reassembled.

Not even going to ask how you keep getting keyboards that sticky but might a suggest a throw rag?

Seriously... wash your disgusting hands, you filthy animals....

ROFL

This is awesome. I'm gonna try doing it today.

I have also decided to finally install my M.2 drive and do a fresh Windows install. It's been a while since I've done anything with my PC.

Or buy an air compressor and save some money in the long run. :)

Keep an eye on your WinSxS directory inside of windows, it can kill 90% of your C drive space over time. It just grows and grows and never deflates.

OH snap just saw this posted, this works best. Nothing like free canned air which is what 7 bucks plus a pop?

That was 20+ years ago. Keyboards are a little different in this day and age. ;)

Irony was when people used to download Virus and Malware scanners from KaZaA

A little bit of WD-40 lithium spray on the fans after a good cleaning doesn't hurt either. Just be careful what you hit and make sure not you're packing more dust in the moving parts.