The Free Fixes We Recommend Before Anything

Writing the PC and desk sections produced a pattern worth collecting. Page after page, the first recommendation turned out to cost nothing — and because those paragraphs sit above the products, they are the easiest thing on any page to skip.

So here they are on their own. The organising principle: it must cost nothing, take under an hour, and appear on this site as the step before a purchase. Anything requiring a product is excluded by definition.

A note on this collection: every item here costs nothing, so the argument is from what each one changes rather than from products assessed here. See how we test.

Clean the intakes before diagnosing anything thermal

A desktop that got hotter, louder or slower over a year almost always has felted heatsink fins and blocked filters. Fans then run harder to hold the same temperatures, so the machine is louder doing identical work.

The method matters, since a few obvious approaches cause damage — cleaning a gaming PC without damaging it covers holding the fans and working outdoors.

Run the panel-off test before buying anything for noise

Take the side panel off and listen. If the noise drops sharply, the case is resonating and the fix is mechanical. If it is unchanged, the noise is aerodynamic and comes from the fans.

The full diagnostic is in why a gaming PC gets loud.

Turn the desk ninety degrees

A window or a light reflecting in the panel is a geometry problem. Rotating the desk removes the reflection angle entirely, and frequently fixes overlooking at the same time by putting your back to a wall.

Covered in reducing monitor glare in a bright room.

Fold the keyboard feet away

The flip-out feet at the back tilt a keyboard toward you, which increases wrist extension. Almost everyone uses them because the keyboard arrived that way.

The ordering argument is in do keyboard wrist rests actually help.

Put something under your feet and something under the screen

A stack of books under a monitor and a box under your feet answers the two questions that matter most about a desk — screen height and hip angle — before any money is committed.

The sequence is in fixing desk posture in the right order.

Cap the frame rate

On a handheld or a laptop, limiting frames reduces heat generated rather than trying to move more of it. Battery life improves at the same time.

See do clip-on handheld coolers work.

Move the router, or move the machine

Routers get installed where the line enters a building rather than where they work best, and desktops sit under desks against walls with a steel case between their antenna and the room.

The diagnostic is in fixing bad gaming Wi-Fi.

Photograph the back of the machine before unplugging anything

One picture, taken while everything still works, answers every question that arises during reassembly.

What was deliberately left out

Anything requiring a purchase, however small. A rubber grommet costs very little and it is still a product, so it belongs on hard drive rattle rather than here.

Software tweaks and settings advice. Real, and a different kind of list — this one is restricted to physical actions, because those are the ones that get skipped in favour of buying something.

Anything taking more than an hour. Rebuilding a cable run properly is worth doing and it is a project. These are all things you can do before finishing a cup of tea.

Cleaning a laptop's internals. Free in principle, and considerably riskier than the desktop version — which makes it a job with prerequisites rather than a free fix.