Systems halt upon completing a PC cleanup process.
Systems halt upon completing a PC cleanup process.
Last week I removed my two-year-old gaming PC for maintenance. I’d cleaned it several times before, so I stuck to my usual method. I unplugged all components, powered down the PSU, and held the power button for half a minute before carefully moving it outside. This time I also purchased a new datavac to work alongside my old air filter and a microfibre cloth. I kept an ESD wristband on during the whole process.
After that, I used the datavac to clear most of the dust in quick bursts, then cleaned the fans and hard-to-reach areas with the can plus cloth. Although there wasn’t a lot of dust left after six months, I always aim for thorough cleaning. It took some time, but the final appearance matched the previous ones.
I never touched any parts except gently with a tool or cables, and I double-checked fans, I/O ports, and connections like the 12HPWR to the GPU. Everything was secure before I powered it back on. The PC started up normally, and idle temperatures were slightly lower than before; the GPU stayed stable.
The next day I opened Anno 1800 with HWiNFO running. CPU temps hovered between 68-69°C, GPU stayed close to its max of 70.9°C. I hadn’t noticed such high readings before, but I figured Anno’s CPU usage might be the reason. The game ran smoothly for over an hour without issues.
The following day I played CS2 briefly, but a few minutes later Twitch VOD froze unexpectedly. All windows froze simultaneously, even when I closed them. I tried to fix it, but the issue persisted. I thought it was linked to Chrome 137 after updating and restarting, but it worsened the next day.
While playing HOI4 with background music, the PC completely froze—cursor stuck, no rendering, and even the power button didn’t respond. It shut down on its own after about 15-20 minutes. When I rebooted, the Nvidia app reported an error, and several hardware warnings appeared in Event Viewer. There were also system resource complaints.
I checked for corruptions, but DISM found only a few minor issues—mostly in logs, not affecting performance. It seemed Chrome was likely the culprit, though I wasn’t sure if it was the sole cause. My GPU driver was set to 576.28, installed soon after DDU release, and I kept GSync-override enabled. Windows hadn’t been updated since May’s Patch Tuesday, and I hadn’t upgraded any software except Chrome.
RAM was still functional, and I didn’t notice any obvious faults. Still, the freezing episodes were unusual, especially after a clean session. I’m leaning toward hardware problems—possibly from the cleaning process—but I’m not sure where to start troubleshooting.
Steam seems to have a glitch where the overlay can crash your PC. It happened when I tried to shift+tab out of it, but that doesn’t clarify what occurred in Chrome the previous day. I suspect a hardware issue might be linked to the cleaning process, though I’m not sure yet.