PC Maintenance

[jp_bl_68]

Sorry if I'm on the wrong board, wasn't sure where to post this. My laptop has been overheating a lot recently and as it's never been cleaned I'm assuming that this may have something to do with it. I've seen cans of compressed air going for as much as £15, which seems extortionate. What's a reasonable price to pay for a can of air and does it matter which brand I buy?

And, other than deleting unnecessary files, defragging, cleaning and uninstalling unused programs what else can I do to help my PC perform better (short of upgrading hardware)?

 

[simbady]

Just buy a cheap can of air there all the same, for performance you could backup all your important files and reinstall windows. A fresh windows install is always fast

 

[Quixote]

Well, if you can entirely re-install windows that will of course bring the software side back to new speed.
You can also configure windows to be more basic visually, with less animated windows etc which may help performance, especially if you're low on RAM.
I don't know much about cleaning laptops, I've always found my lungs and a tissue enough to clean my desktop out with.