Computer Maintenance/Warning Signs

[Turmoil]

Please share your personal rig maintenance techniques here. As you may or may not know I just purchased a new gaming rig and I am a first time desktop owner coming from laptops. I am trying to keep this desktop in as good of shape as possible because I plan to expand upon it for many years to come. Please let me know any maintenance guidelines I should follow and/or warning signs I am doing something wrong!

Also, I had a quick question about fans and cooling. Is it necessary (and even possible) to up the RPM on my fans if my case does not have an option built in? I have heard somewhere that you can do it with programs but I'm not sure if I need to. And also this may sound like a stupid question but I would like to know if it is safe to put my GPU fan up to 100 percent when playing games like Battlefield 3. I am trying to keep my parts as cool as possible and I just want to make sure I won't be damaging the lifespan of the card or anything like that by putting it up to 100. The noise doesn't bother me.

One more thing; is there any reason to avoid leaving the GPU fan on a high speed at all times? Naturally, I would like it to idle as cool as possible. I could really appreciate some advice on all of these fan questions!

Oh, and one more thing, any thoughts on surge protectors? I have heard horror stories about desktops not using surge protectors and I would hate to take a risk with mine. Is it worth it to purchase one?

 

[Skagnatti]

If you don't already know I am the new owner of a gaming rig I built for around $1200. I have never owned a desktop computer before, so this is a new experience for me.

I would like to know your personal tips on maintenance necessary to keep the components of my computer running at top performance.

Also, I would like to know some warning signs to look for such as high temperatures or anything else that may be letting me know I am not maintaining it properly. On another note, what gpu fan speed would you recommend when running graphic-intensive games?

Yes I know there are a million articles on Google about this kind of thing; and I am reading them, but nothing beats personal tips. Thanks!

I remember the first gaming rig I bought. It was my first real PC, I bought with my own money. A Falcon Northwest Talon system back in 1999. Ahhh......... those were the days....

I would tear the PC down every six months and dust/vacuum/compressed air the components out like it was new again. Still do it to this day. ***I do not advise this as it is probably a little obsessive. :blush: *** Eliminate dust bunnies from trapping heat in heatsinks, between RAM DIMMS, GPU fans, PSU assemblies. Room temperature is a contributor to the heat factor. I can say I never have issues outside software or just plain defective hardware. (now I just jinxed myself)

The GPU will usually ramp up its speed when under stress, automatically. If you plan to overclock then you might want to use Afterburner or something like that to tweak the fan speed to compensate.

If you keep it clean, be smart if you intend to overclock it, feed it enough power after upgrades, you won't have to worry about warning signs. Typically the signs are strange errors showing up that typically never appear during a normal routine. Random reboots out of nowhere, getting stuck in boot loops, display artifacts but on a display driver you have had for months, etc.

As for surge protectors, USE EM! I use an APC Back-UPS ES 750. I don't plug my rig into the battery backup outlets but I have surveillance cameras, DVR and my cable modem and router on those outlets. The rig and monitor is plugged into the regular protected sockets without the battery supply.

Congrats on the new rig, man! It has me itchy for my summer overhaul!

 

[Turmoil]

I remember the first gaming rig I bought. It was my first real PC, I bought with my own money. A Falcon Northwest Talon system back in 1999. Ahhh......... those were the days....

I would tear the PC down every six months and dust/vacuum/compressed air the components out like it was new again. Still do it to this day. ***I do not advise this as it is probably a little obsessive. :blush: *** Eliminate dust bunnies from trapping heat in heatsinks, between RAM DIMMS, GPU fans, PSU assemblies. Room temperature is a contributor to the heat factor. I can say I never have issues outside software or just plain defective hardware. (now I just jinxed myself)

The GPU will usually ramp up its speed when under stress, automatically. If you plan to overclock then you might want to use Afterburner or something like that to tweak the fan speed to compensate.

If you keep it clean, be smart if you intend to overclock it, feed it enough power after upgrades, you won't have to worry about warning signs. Typically the signs are strange errors showing up that typically never appear during a normal routine. Random reboots out of nowhere, getting stuck in boot loops, display artifacts but on a display driver you have had for months, etc.

As for surge protectors, USE EM! I use an APC Back-UPS ES 750. I don't plug my rig into the battery backup outlets but I have surveillance cameras, DVR and my cable modem and router on those outlets. The rig and monitor is plugged into the regular protected sockets without the battery supply.

Congrats on the new rig, man! It has me itchy for my summer overhaul!

Thanks a ton for all of the information!

 

[pillar]

Hey turmoil, I checked out ur specs & will more than likely closely resemble mine (except for the video card & case when I upgrade my stuff). I noticed u have an AData ssd. Hows the performance on that guy? Enjoying the speed? Also I take it youre using either Win7 Pro or Ultimate?

 

[Turmoil]

Hey turmoil, I checked out ur specs & will more than likely closely resemble mine (except for the video card & case when I upgrade my stuff). I noticed u have an AData ssd. Hows the performance on that guy? Enjoying the speed? Also I take it youre using either Win7 Pro or Ultimate?

I absolutely love the speed. I noticed at least 70 percent greater load times on many of my games versus the hard drive on my laptop. It's fantastic and doesn't make loading a hassle!

 

[I'm your huckleberry]

Do not defrag the ssd; only do it to your mechanical drives.

As for information, you talking like programs to install for antivirus and malware?

If so, Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Spyware Blaster are the programs I use. I also use a program called Secunia PSI to ensure that all the software remains up to date as these can lead to security risks if they are not updated regularly.

Beyond that, I do not think you need to run the fan at 100% all the time. As was mentioned, you can get MSI Afterburner and set a custom fan profile so that it runs faster than it does now, but I would probably not run it 100% the entire time (not sure they are even designed for that kind of performance). You can get CPUID HWmonitor to monitor the temps of your cpu and gpu. That should tell you if anything is wrong. Post the temps you are getting under load such as in game and for the cpu, use prime95 to apply a full load (or a game that stresses the cpu hard).

 

[Muffs]

Clean your case with compressed air.. Maybe once evey 3 months (I hate dust lol) re apply thermal compound on your CPU, clean your monitor (no one wants a dirty screen)

 

[Turmoil]

Alrighty, thanks for all of the advice. I already have some "high performance thermal compound" that came with it (what was left after they applied it), so I'll be doing that when the time comes.