This guide will show you how to safely give your computer a well needed spring clean to free the airways and cool down. We also have a guide on how to wipe your hard drive clean if you are interested in cleaning your PC virtually.

Step One – Opening The Case

There is really nothing to worry about, as long as your PC is UNPLUGGED, then you and your PC will be safe.

Most cases will have either a screw, a catch or a thumbscrew.  The case in the picture requires undoing a simple thumbscrew to open the side panel of the case, this has already been removed.  Once opened, place the side panel of the case in a safe place.

Step Two – Cleaning The PC

Inside, you should see the CPU fan and heatsink right in front of you.

The fan/heatsink in this picture is not bad at all, if your fan looks like this you should generally be fine. Sometimes it can get EXTREMELY dusty in there, so the fan has a hard time rotating.

I recommend using the COOL AIR setting on a hairdryer to blow away all  the dust, then a vacuum cleaner to collect it. There are pressurised air cans that you can buy, but for can of air, they are pricey.

Step Three – Closing The Case

Basically, the side panel goes back on the way you took it off. Some cases may require you to horizontally slide the side panel on, then screw it.

Now just turn your PC back on and listen to how much quieter it is, as your fan doesn’t have to push through all that dust and wear itself out. More importantly, temperatures will drop, causing your CPU to run at a much faster rate!

Take not that another fast method of achieving faster windows startup times is to wipe your hard drive clean. You might also want to take time to defragment your hard drive for an extra cut in windows startup times.

1. Click on Start, then Run

2. Type Regedit and click OK

3. Look for  “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOpt imizeFunction”

4. Check Enable

5. Right click on the name in step 3, and click Modify

6.Edit the value to “Y to enable” then OK

7. Reboot your PC and see the difference!

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Despite being known for its fast speeds, Firefox can be tied down by pointless plugins and company adverts. This 5 step guide will take you through the main causes and solutions for a slow Firefox browser

1.  Simple Homepage

- Setting your homepage to a busy website full of ads such as msn.com is bound to slow down the startup of Firefox. Instead, use a simple search engine like Google.com

2. Remove Shortcuts

- Often, whilst installing certain programs, they will automatically install icons and shortcuts to their websites on your browser.  The most common, being “smiley/emoticon” shortcuts. These slow down your Firefox all round, whilst loading the program initially and loading each web page you visit.

- To remove these, right click on the icon and click Delete

3. Delete Temporary Internet Files

- Temporary Internet Files are used to make regularly visiting the same time, quicker. However, over time these files build up and slow down your overall browsing speeds.

- You may be interested in this article for removing temporary internet files

4. Disable Unused Plugins

- Click Tools on the menu bar

- Click Add-Ons, then Plugins

– Click Disable on any unused Plugins

5. Block Flash

- Sick of being slowed down by flash-advert-ridden websites? Download and install the Flashblock plugin. and it will block all Flash applets from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. Click here to download Flashblock