–NIELS BROEKHUIJSEN

YOU’LL NEED THIS

YOUR PC

Compressed air, thermal paste, and patience.

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, you don’t actually need to spend a whole wallet full of cash to make your PC run silently with liquid cooling and big radiators—which is great, because with the human malware that is Covid-19 going around, chances are your local PC shop won’t accept cash, and you’ll also prefer to save it for a rainy day. But now we’ve come to a non-metaphorical rainy day, and you’ve decided it’s time to do something about that loud PC of yours. So here’s how you can silence your PC for under $20 (your results may vary).

A wonderful thing is that almost every PC—laptops not included—comes with cooling gear that is, at least moderately, over-dimensioned for the task. Like your car, it has to be able to keep running properly on a hot day, which means that if it’s not too warm it can run silently. There are several steps you can take to silence your PC without spending big bucks, and though you don’t have to go through all of them, completeness will yield the best results.

1 CLEANING

To start off, you’ll have to unplug your PC and take it to a suitable workspace—preferably without carpeting or where static electricity isn’t an issue—and clean it. Whip all the panels off that bad boy, wield your can of compressed air, and get to cleaning. It’s probably a grimy, dusty mess in there by now, and all that gunk isn’t doing airflow any favors.