[SOLVED] Tips for new PC user?

[christina9977]

Completely new, moving to PC next week sometime, after only having consoles or laptops. Any tips to look after my PC really well, and how often should I clean it?

 

[Colif]

Completely new, moving to PC next week sometime, after only having consoles or laptops. Any tips to look after my PC really well, and how often should I clean it?

Cleaning sort of depends on the case you get. and how its designed. Some cases are designed to have so many intake fans they expel all dust from case and you may not need to clean them often.

I would try to get a case with filters on intake fans as that will reduce amount of dust that gets into PC and will mean you only need to clean the filters instead of entire case. I only clean my filters out every 6 months, and I try to clean case itself at least once a year.

If your case doesn't have filters on intake fans, you might need to use compressed air or even a paint brush to clean out the fans and the heatsinks on CPU and GPU, every few months to keep it clean.

 

[vMax]

Agree with Colif and as he has said it is case dependant though I tend to do a 3 month clean out by blowing the dust out of the system and keeping all the filters clean.

This should also help though it does go into a few areas that might be helpful for later on.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...should-be-doing-to-maintain-your-computer-39/

 

[Colif]

Looks at link.

7 - Clean up windows - If you have win 10 this is not really essential as you get a new version every 6 months which is essentially a brand new install. That cleans out all the temp files for you.

8 - Updates - Windows will auto update itself once a month, you can't stop it. I don't really both updating driver software IF the PC is working fine. Updating drivers can cause problems you didn't have before... but on a new PC it can help fix bugs so there are times new drivers are good.
9 - Defrag - not needed if you have an ssd

rest are reasonable

 

[dorsai]

Buy yourself some cans of compress air or even better a DataVac duster and use it every 3 - 6 months depending on the dust build up visible on the interior of the case. Cleaning any case filters when you dust is also a good idea.

Personally I also remove the plastic shroud off of my GPU's and clean the heatsink fins and fans out with a small brush once a year but that might be beyond your comfort zone. If you do this take care to prevent static electricity issues...a good wrist strap is a solid idea

As far as software maintenance Win10 requires updates so the only thing you'll really need to focus on is GPU driver updates and making sure auto defrag for HHD's or TRIM is active on SSD's. If you use something besides Windows Defender for anti-virus it's a good idea to also keep the virus definitions up to date on whatever software you use.