Collection
Where the PC Sits Decides How Much Dust It Eats
A machine on carpet next to a shedding dog breathes a different room to one on a desk. Five things that fix intake, in the order that matters.
5 min read
Cooling & Airflow
Heat, dust, and the fans that are supposed to deal with both.
Start here
What Goes Wrong With a Gaming PC After Year One
Dust, heat, noise, a sagging graphics card and one expensive power event — the problems a gaming PC develops after it is built, in order of how likely each is.
Guide
CPU Contact Frames, and Whether You Need One
They address a real bending problem on one socket, and they are irrelevant on every other. Which platform you own decides this before anything else does.
3 min read
Guide
Repasting a GPU, and When Not To
It voids warranties, it is fiddlier than a CPU, and the pads matter more than the paste. When it is genuinely the fix, and the cheaper things to try first.
4 min read
Guide
Reading Temperatures Without Misreading Them
A peak means almost nothing and a sustained figure means almost everything. Which number to watch, and the threshold the chip decides for itself.
3 min read
Guide
Repasting a Laptop
It is not a desktop repaste with smaller parts. The pads and the screw order matter as much as the paste, and dust is more often the actual fault.
5 min read
Guide
When the Case Is Genuinely the Problem
The case gets blamed for most thermal complaints and causes few of them. One free test separates the cases that really restrict from the ones that do not.
5 min read
Guide
GPU Thermal Pads and VRAM Temperatures
Memory runs far hotter than the core and is cooled through pads that harden with age. Why pad thickness has to be measured rather than guessed.
4 min read
Guide
Keeping a PC Clean in a House With Pets
Pet hair does not behave like dust. It mats across a filter instead of settling through it, which changes the maintenance interval more than the filter choice.
4 min read
Guide
Where a Radiator Should Go in a Case
Top, front or rear changes what the radiator breathes and what everything else gets. The pump must also sit below the highest point of the loop.
4 min read
Guide
Fan Orientation, and Which Side Is Intake
Two arrows are moulded into the frame and neither is easy to see. Where to find them, the fallback that always works, and what a reversed fan actually costs.
5 min read
Review
DEMCiflex Review: Bought Per Case, Not Per Fan
A sub-2 mm magnetic filter cut for a specific case. The single mesh layer is the engineering; needing your exact case model is the buying constraint.
4 min read
Fix 9 · Ugly 3
Review
Govee H5075 Review: It Logs, Which Is the Point
A cheap sensor with published accuracy and a history you can read back. Both of the guides that need one ask for a trend, not a reading.
4 min read
Fix 9 · Ugly 4
Comparison
Laptop Cooling Pad vs Laptop Stand
One adds fans, the other adds clearance. Which actually lowers temperatures on a gaming laptop depends entirely on where the machine takes its air in.
3 min read
Guide
Does an NVMe SSD Actually Need a Heatsink?
NVMe drives throttle by design, and most people never reach the workload that triggers it. When a heatsink earns its place, and when the board already has one.
4 min read
Guide
Dust Filters and the Airflow They Cost You
A filter is a deliberate trade: less dust reaching the heatsinks, less air reaching them too. Where that trade pays, and where covers do nothing at all.
4 min read
Guide
What Goes Wrong With a Gaming PC After Year One
Dust, heat, noise, a sagging graphics card and one expensive power event — the problems a gaming PC develops after it is built, in order of how likely each is.
9 min read
Guide
Is Your Gaming Room Too Hot for Your PC?
Every cooler works from ambient upward, so a warm room raises every temperature in the case. How to find out cheaply, and what actually helps once you know.
3 min read
Guide
PC Temperature Displays Worth the Desk Space
A sensor panel shows numbers that software already shows for free. The narrow case where a physical readout earns its place, and where it is decoration.
3 min read
Guide
Should a Gaming PC Sit on the Floor?
Carpet is the worst place a tower can stand, and the reason is not dust alone. What raising it actually changes, and when the floor is genuinely fine.
4 min read
Guide
Why Heavy Graphics Cards Sag, and What Holds Them
A modern graphics card is a heavy object cantilevered off a slot never specified for it. What sag risks, and the difference between supporting and levering.
4 min read
Review
Cooler Master ELV8 Review: A Brace With an RGB Habit
A steel brace that holds a heavy graphics card up, sold with addressable RGB and no published load rating. Both of those matter more than they sound.
4 min read
Fix 7 · Ugly 3
Other things that might be annoying you
- Warning lightThe light is on and nobody can tell me why.
- A long drive coming upSix hours in the car and I have not thought about any of it.
- Wi-Fi that keeps droppingThe PC is upstairs and the router is by the front door.
- The desk is set up wrongThe screen is too low, the chair is too high, and I have never changed either.
- A screen that is hard to look atGlare across it, or text I keep leaning in to read.
- Stuck at the roadsideSomething failed away from home and I had nothing useful with me.
- Taking a handheld awayCharging it, filling it, and getting it there in one piece.
- A PC that will not startIt was fine yesterday and now nothing happens at all.
- A car that barely movesIt sits far more than it drives, and that is its own problem.
- Nobody can hear me properlyHum, echo, or a microphone that picks up every keystroke.
- Losing work to a power cutA flickering supply, a failing drive, and no backup worth the name.
- Dead batteryThe car sat for a month and now it won't turn over.
- No garage spaceThe car fits, but only just, and nothing else does.
- Car clutterEverything I own is loose in the trunk and rattling.
- Dirty interiorThe interior has grit in places a vacuum cannot reach.
- Bad lightingI cannot see what I am doing under the hood or under the car.
- Lost toolsI own three 10 mm sockets and can find none of them.
- Loud PCIt sounds like a hairdryer the moment a game loads.
- PC runs hotFrame rate drops after twenty minutes and never recovers.
- Cable messBehind the desk is one knot I refuse to look at.
- Cannot drillI rent, so nothing can leave a hole or a mark.
- Nowhere to put itThe flat is full and there is nowhere left to put anything.
- Bag will not closeIt all went in last time and now the case will not shut.
- Everything needs chargingFour devices, one socket, and a flight in the morning.