JULY 2020 PCWorld 103you have a traditional spinning hard drive,
most modern operating systems perform the
task automatically.
- SPRING CLEANING, PT. 2
Scrub your hardware while you’re busy
scrubbing all that unwanted software, too.
Ideally, you want to clean out the interior of
your PC once per year, but
let’s be honest—most people
never pry open their case and
blow out the dust bunny
horde. Over time, the
accumulated gunk can wreak
havoc with temperatures
inside your PC, which in turn
makes your PC components
either throttle back
performance to compensate
for the increased
temperatures, or just
plain struggle.
No joke: Once a
family member called
me over because his
PC was sluggish and
unresponsive. Merely
cleaning out the inches
of dust inside his
machine made the
system run like new.
Check out PCWorld’s
guide to PC cleaning
(go.pcworld.com/pcln)
before cracking open your case. (Why not
clean your keyboard [go.pcworld.com/clky]
while you’re at it, too? It can get gnarly
under those buttons.)- REINSTALL WINDOWS
Still running slow? We’re running out of pure
software optimization tricks now. Windows
3.4.