Question How can I tell for sure if there's permanent damage to one of my components?

[Faibra]

I initially started to clean my PC because I noticed KOF XV did not look as smooth as I remembered and it looked like it was constantly stuttering even if it was technically running at 60 FPS. Around last week I cleaned my PC using a compressed air can and a q-tip with 91% isopropyl alcohol on it to clean the top of my GPU. After I was done cleaning the issues I had with my PC got worse. I now face frame drops in the game I did not face previously and I faced these issues also in other games like Samurai Shodown and Street Fighter V. I have done everything I could to try and alleviate the situation. I fresh installed Windows using a USB drive, I uninstalled the drivers using DDU and reinstalled them. I went back to a previous version of the drivers as well. I took out my GPU and even my RAM and put them back in and that didn't work either. I checked to see if the fans were running smoothly and the fans were running just fine. When I check the CPU and GPU temperatures in MSI afterburner they looked normal. They both hover around verage 40-50° C when I was running KOF XV. I seriously don't know what I could have done to decrease performance this much. The only comfort I could possibly have is maybe the compressed air cleaner damaged this part. To keep in mind I didn't tilt the air cleaner too much when I was cleaning or put it upside down. I checked to see if any water was shooting out before I sprayed it and it looked like no water was going out, although I do feel a slight moisture when it hits my skin which I thought was just the way it is because I kept it upright when I tried this. What other attempts should I make because at this point I might have to purchase a new GPU if that's the issue and that might require me having to buy all new parts because if I'm going to buy a new GPU I might as well upgrade everything else. Should I just try taking every single component apart and rebuild it again to see if that helps? I was just satisfied with the way maticia was running I wasn't really playing any major games that required huge FPS so it's really frustrating to see games I used to run fall asleep now struggle.

 

[Misgar]

Cleaning a computer with a can of compressed air is not something I'd ever attempt. It's unlikely to improve anything, unless you have thick mat of fluff blocking the metal vanes of a CPU heatsink or radiator. Even then the only thing I'd use is a small paint brush with soft bristles. I have seen photos of computers clogged up with huge quantities of muck, but a light coating of dust is nothing to worry about.

If you did spray an invisible cloud of tiny water droplets on to a PCB and didn't allow sufficient time for the condensation to evaporate before switching on, you might have created a conductive layer that caused permanent damage to the GPU.

Since we have no idea what components are fitted inside your PC, it's not possible to diagnose your original stuttering problems. They might simply be down to the fact that your (old?) hardware cannot cope with the latest games.

Can you run a few stress tests and benchmarks on the computer which don't involve games? Prime 95, AIDA 64 stress test, CineBench, Furmark, etc. Check to see if the computer stable during these tests.

If you have access to any compatible GPU card, pop that into the computer and run the stress tests again. It might help to determine if your main GPU card needs replacing.

If the computer crashes during stress testing with your normal GPU, but doesn't crash with another GPU (no matter how old or slow), then you've found the culprit.

There's no point spending hundreds of dollars on a new GPU, just to find out if the existing card is faulty (unless you really want an upgrade).

 

[BFG-9000]

Canned duster sprays do not contain any water, and do not even contain any air. They are usually contain a volatile hydrocarbon or refrigerant, both of which are environmental pollutants but should not damage a PC unless you overspeed a fan or something (contrary to popular belief that shouldn't damage the fan bearings, but a motor backwards is just a generator, which could potentially generate enough voltage to damage something like the fan controller).

91% isopropyl alcohol contains, you guessed it, 9% water.

I routinely use air from an air compressor to blow out neglected PCs that are full of dust, without much of an air dryer (just one of those drain cup things, which are certainly insufficient for painting or plasma cutting) and can actually feel the air is damp, but I figure it's distilled anyway so probably not much of a problem. Haven't had any issues, but I do take care to prevent fans from spinning and to not blow components off the boards.

 

[Misgar]

That's useful to know. Perhaps I was being unusually cautious in avoiding the use of cans of compressed air when cleaning computers. Good advice about not running the fans backwards. Cheers.