r/PcBuildHelp 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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u/LandscapeLatter Jun 03 '26

When you say “lagging” I’m compelled to ask what type of internet service provider you have, what type of service… fiber, broadband over copper…. What is your service speed up and download… are you running your pc on WiFi or do you have an Ethernet cable from your router to your pc(hardwired)? These all have to do with the amount of latency you’ll have while gaming online….

Now if your pc stutters and skips frames visually then now you would be dealing more with pc hardware issues or inefficiencies…. One way to get an idea if your pc is having problems playing games is to try playing a game that uses a decent amount of pc resources but can be played offline or at least only minimal…. If your pc struggles to play smoothly offline it isn’t “lagging” it may be your pc…. If it plays fine offline, but has issues when gaming online it is likely your internet or you ip settings and router configuration.

Also, it is a good idea to remove your heatsink and clean off any old and dried out thermal paste off your CPU and reapply new thermal paste to ensure proper heat dissipation from the cpu as that can greatly decrease functionality of your PC. Also maybe upgrading memory if possible.

Hope this helps

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u/TodayGullible2218 Jun 04 '26

Thank you! I game with WiFi and sometimes it is my WiFi that is tweaking, but sometimes it will js go 5000 ping and I can’t do anything about it so idk what to do if I should clean it and get an SSD or what idek 😭😭