What I Learned About Computer Optimization Through Trial and Error

Have you ever had an old laptop that just did not perform the same as it did when you first purchased it? If so, you’re probably like most people when they start to notice their 5 year old laptop slowing down. Most people are clueless and ready to be exploited when this happens. Well, I’m going to try to do my good in the tech community through a small blog post that might help those understand how and what is happening.

Understanding Your CPU and Cooling System

So to start, the main brain of your computer is a part called a CPU or a chip—it gets very hot, especially under heavy load. The CPU needs cooling, hence your laptop has fans and a heat sink. OVERTIME the material that is placed between your chip and the heat sink will degrade. This material is called thermal paste and it costs maybe $10 at BestBuy for a decent amount. The thermal paste in a lot of older laptops needs to be replaced—it’s like changing car oil, just the interval is much longer.

The heat sink itself is just metal pipes to transfer the heat away from the chip to the atmosphere and the fans to cool that metal. Heat sinks get DIRTY. Why you might ask? Because computers are essentially big fans that need a lot of airflow to cool down their internals. So after a quick dusting and re-pasting, you’ve basically revived your laptop’s ability to perform.

Why This Matters

Why is this important? It takes 10 mins and very elementary knowledge to be able to become your family computer repair man—just re-paste and clean the processors you can get a hold of. There’s really no barrier holding every tech enthusiast from being able to bust open a laptop and do that basic maintenance for their crew.

My Experience

Being able to do this service to computers allows me to do a couple of things. One, I was able to revive the computer I use as a home server by just cleaning it out and not even re-pasting—the gist is still applied. When I had a 5 year old laptop that sounded like an airplane in regular usage, all I did was re-paste, give it some more RAM, and boom—new computer.

Get Started

If you’re really into tech and you want to see the first rabbit hole that’s easy to get into and also fun to see a system optimized, then try to re-paste a friend’s laptop and see how much they thank you for a $10 job after.