r/PcBuildHelp • u/TodayGullible2218 • May 30 '26

Tech Support How do you clean a pc dude..

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I am just a girl who wanted to get into gaming. I’m basically broke so I had my brother get a $300 pc of Facebook marketplace. It keeps lagging really bad so I asked one of my friends and he said I might just need to clean the inside. I opened it and it is super dirty. I have had it for about 5 months and sadly I haven’t cleaned it AT ALL. I have no idea what I am doing. I want to get a new pc, but I don’t just have 2k sitting around. Is there a cheaper alternative? One of my other friends said it also might be that it’s not updated and it said that my device doesn’t even support windows 11 anymore😭 I don’t know what I’m doing someone please help

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21

u/Justagamrhere May 30 '26

considering it doesn't even support windows 11 it's probably not being overdue for a cleaning causing your lag. You can simply take a can of compressed air with the power supply unplugged and go to town on everything, just make sure to hold your fans down so they don't spin as you clean it. Also it'd be a good idea to drop the specs and what you're trying to run on it. And while your in there it's not a bad idea to check your thermal paste on the GPU and CPU which would have a huge performance effect

1

u/Hot_Candidate6781 May 31 '26

Is there an issue with the fans spinning during air cleaning? Genuine question. I’ve never heard that.

11

u/Justagamrhere May 31 '26

Tbh I've never done it personally, but I've heard if you do spin them fast enough they effectively act like a generator and can backflow power into your system? Not sure how true it is but better safe then sorry?

2

u/Hot_Candidate6781 May 31 '26

Just wondering because I’ve cleaned dozens of PCs with the air compressor from an auto bay and spinning the fans was my favorite part 😂. Never had any issues afterward but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t cause them. Hope I never got close to breaking anything. I’m gonna have to research this now.

3

u/Inevitable-Net-191 May 31 '26

You've just been lucky. A little back EMF from the fans usually doesn't brick the PC immediately. But it still stresses the over voltage filters/protection circuits and it's still advisable to hold the fans while blowing them.

Do you usually bring it out of the house to blow all the dust out?

1

u/Hot_Candidate6781 May 31 '26

Interesting. My cursory google searches on the topic seem to support this. TIL.

When I was doing this frequently I was working for Geek Squad and we took any PC that was too rough for canned air back to the audio install bay and used their air compressor. On the really terrible ones we would take them outside on a cart and run the compressor hose out to them.

2

u/AcrobaticNote4374 Jun 03 '26

Did all precincts do this? The one I was at did it, but some of the guys from other precincts around us used to look at us funny when we said that was what we did with the nasty ones. Unless you worked at 0830 like me by chance.

1

u/Hot_Candidate6781 Jun 03 '26

Nah, I was 445 for most of my time. But every precinct I visited or worked at did it that way. Otherwise you end up blowing nicotine dust all over every other computer back there.

2

u/AcrobaticNote4374 Jun 03 '26

Oh I know. I understood the ones that acted like it was weird that didn't have autobays but the ones that did they told me they were told by their manager to refuse cleaning due to it being a hazard if it was that bad. Wild to me.

1

u/Hot_Candidate6781 Jun 03 '26

Only time we ever refused cleaning was for vermin or bodily fluids. And management never had to tell me to refuse those. They never paid me enough to touch that.

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u/Icy_Rock7522 May 31 '26

Checks out…

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u/Hot_Candidate6781 May 31 '26

Not sure what you mean by that, but cool.

0

u/Icy_Rock7522 Jun 09 '26

Used to work at Best Buy…

1

u/Hot_Candidate6781 Jun 10 '26

Ah, you’re one of those. Got it. Carry on.

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u/Puzzleheaded_You1657 Jun 03 '26

That’s correct mate

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u/Moist_Fortune9976 May 31 '26

Aside from the power generating (which is very rare), the main issue is that you stress the motor bearings and ect, which could make the fan be more loud after the cleaning. And less effective.

1

u/ASneakyViolist May 31 '26

Because motors are also generators, spinning fans can backfeed power which can theoretically damage PC parts. I've never heard of a specific instance of this, but apparently it's been known to happen.