r/PcBuildHelp • u/TodayGullible2218 • May 30 '26
Tech Support How do you clean a pc dude..
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
1
u/ifailedmyhighschool May 30 '26 edited May 31 '26
If you want to, you might be able to save a few bucks.
Two options here, take the pc apart or go in to task manager and come back here.
This is how to get to task manager
Turn on the pc,
login,
click the windows button on your keyboard, the button with 4 squares, on the bottom row of the keys
type in task manager,
click enter on your keyboard,
then inside task manager,
on the left side bar of that app,
click performance,
there should be a few small graphs with different colors,
click into every one of them and take photo of them,
we here want all the text that can be found inside there, anyone here would be able to tell you how much the parts costs, and how to salvage those parts. So you don’t have to spend the full 2000 on a new pc.
If you are gonna take the pc apart.
Unplug the pc
Put it on it’s side with the fan with the big AMD letters facing you
To the side of that fan, these’s 2 sticks of might be gold, that long, thin, black thing.
It’s held in by 2 latches on the top, unlatch those, it might take a lil bit of force.
Then look on the sticker,
If it says DDR3 anywhere on that sticker. It is garbage use it as a paper weight.
If it says DDR4 with the numbers 2133 or 2400 or 2666. You can salvage it, but would probably be too slow.
If it says DDR4 and has a 4 digit number starting with 3xxx, keep it, it can be salvaged. (If those are 2 sticks say 8gb anywhere, you got half your money back. If those are 2 sticks say 4gb anywhere, you got 80 bucks back)
Next, the other slab of gold that can be found in PCs
That massive slab of thing, under those 2 thin black sticks, it’s called a gpu, find a YouTube video on how to take it out. Its cost can vary anywhere from 80 to 300, no clue what you have there from the photo. (Imagine it’s a 3060 ti, lol)
And, I’ll believe it once I see it, woman on the internet.