It can be tough to know when it’s time to replace the parts in your PC. Afterall, with the soaring prices of PC hardware these days, it certainly not cost effective to replace a part when you don’t even have to. So, here are 5 tell-tale signs that your PC issues are worth looking into, and some advice about where to start investigating. That way, hopefully, you can snag the problem early and avoid a costly replacement unless you have to.
1. Random crashes
This one the biggest signs that you should not ignore. This could be due to a number of parts failing such as your CPU or Power Supply. First step is trying to identify exactly which part is causing the crashes, or whether it’s something else entirely causing it. Keeping tabs on your Event Log and Task Manager can help with getting to the bottom of it. It also helps to keep note of if there are certain games or programs that lead to crashes more often. A crash every once in a blue moon isn’t something to get too worried about, but if it’s happening constantly that is certainly a cause for alarm. Updating your drivers is way cheaper than getting a whole new rig, so try and sort this one out yourself first and as soon as possible.
2. Games and programs are chugging
Now by this, I don’t mean when you run Skyrim with five hundred mods, I mean simple games or programs like Stardew Valley or Microsoft Word that should run fine on most systems. If you’re sitting on the lowest settings and you are still having massive frame drops in your games for example, it is certainly time to address this. It could be something simple like your internet, or something more sinister. Again, keep tabs on our task manager and see if any of your PC’s components in particular are struggling.
3. Your PC is LOUD
Of course, if your PC has always been loud this might not be an issue. However, if your PC used to be quieter and recently you’ve noticed it’s gotten a lot louder, that could be something of concern. It could mean your fans are getting a bit dusty and tired, therefore less air is cooling down your hardware. And of course, letting your hardware get too hot never a good thing. This is super easy thing to fix of course, just by cleaning them whit some compressed air. It could also indicate something like thermal paste being too old and needing to be replaced. This is a very subtle sign that is very much worth looking into if it happens to you, as solving it quickly could save you from some issues later on.
4. Everything is slow
There is a number of reasons why this could happen to you, and all are well worth looking into. It could be something as simple as you have run out of space on your drives, or it could mean that a drive is failing entirely! Also don’t neglect your RAM here. Your memory might not be running to its best capacity, or perhaps you need to look at enabling XMP in your bios. Either way, if things on your PC are suddenly not running as fast as they used to, don’t just get annoyed and live with it. It could most certainly be a sign of worse things to come!
5. Screen Issues
Something that told me when my old graphics card was dying, was the screen issues I kept having. If you are finding that you have strange issues with colours flashing or changes of the colours on your screen, you might need to be a bit concerned. It could simply indicate a loose cable, or potentially that your graphic card is having issues, which is a far more expensive problem. Make sure to investigate all options first before looking into a new graphics card though. But most certainly do not ignore this issue – it could be very costly if you do!
So, those were 5 tell-tale signs that your PC issues are worth looking into, and some advice about where to start.
Are there any other big signs of PC issues you think I forgot that are worth including in this list? Feel free to share them below. Also, remember to check out the rest of our Tech posts here, or head over to our YouTube channel for more awesome content from us!
