How to keep your computer running cool.

There are many common things can be done to keep your computer cool and CPU humming. I will focus on a desktop computer and this article will be written for someone who has at least opened the computer case (e.g., adding memory on a computer or adding a bigger hard drive.)

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer! :)

1. First enemy of computer is heat which can not only reduce the life of the CPU, but also its performance. Make sure a computer's vents and openings are not blocked.
2. Most computer boxes have vents on the bottom of the case. So lift your computer off the floor, especially carpet. Old magazines or books are cheap way to get your CPU off the floor.
3. Adding vents by cutting/drilling out holes will improve the ventilation and reduce CPU temperature.
4. For advanced users, you can go into the BIOS setting to make sure CPU clock and bus speeds are set properly. Maany BIOS will drop the CPU and bus speed to a safer (and slower) setting if the computer locks up or fails ("Blue Screen of Death") for whatever reason.
5. Another CPU speed killer is hard drive that's full or almost full. Remove any old files (especially pictures and videos) or applications that you no longer use. For maximum performance, a hard drive should have only half of its storage space used.
6. Also, graphical setting that are too high will reduce CPU performance even with dedicated graphics memory. Reducing the color to 16bit and eliminating cutesy features like shading, 3D windows will give you bit of improvement in performance.
7. Advanced users can go in to computer management and disable any services that you don't use (like mobile device or telephony services.)
8. There are myriad of third party software that can help keep computers running at optimum performance. Useful site is cnet.com and download.com which are full of free tools and reviews by users.