Bought a New Gaming PC? Don’t Make These Infuriating Mistakes

Unboxing (or adjacent better, building) a caller gaming PC is exciting. Some people, adjacent seasoned IT experts, get mislaid successful this excitement and marque immoderate egregious mistakes that upwind up ruining their gaming experience. Here's a fewer large ones to avoid.

Using the Onboard Display Output Instead of Your GPU

"Why is my caller gaming PC not capable to play the latest games well?" is an all-too-common question posed successful tech enactment forums. The archetypal reply is invariably that you should cheque if you've plugged your show into the incorrect port—and it's usually right. Sometimes radical endure years with sup-par gaming show due to the fact that they plugged their show into the incorrect larboard erstwhile they acceptable up their PC, and ne'er realized.

How does this happen? Many motherboards person a built-in show adapter that is bully capable for bureau work, and unspeakable for high-performance gaming. The motherboard's show connector (the 1 you should avoid) is usually located adjacent your PC's networking and USB ports.

Instead, marque definite you're utilizing a larboard attached to your graphics card, which is usually further down connected the backmost of your PC successful its ain dedicated slot, distant from the clump of ports connected your motherboard.

Not Using the Latest Drivers

The drivers and bundle that your PC oregon graphics paper shipped with were the manufacturers' champion effort astatine the time, but there's ever country to squash bugs, amended the show of older hardware, and marque tweaks for the latest games.

While Windows Update does an admirable occupation of keeping drivers up-to-date for the intent of keeping your PC moving smoothly, there's often a hold betwixt instrumentality manufacturers releasing caller drivers and them reaching users done Windows Update. So, support an oculus retired for the latest graphics drivers, particularly if you're playing a recently released game.

Disabling Windows Updates and Antivirus

Some volition effort and speech you into disabling updates and antivirus to amended performance. Don't bash it. You request the latest updates to support your instrumentality patched against caller information threats. You besides request to support antivirus protection (even built-in Microsoft Defender is simply a wholly capable option) enabled and updated. The show deed is negligible connected modern PCs, and you don't privation to person to reformat your instrumentality to wide a persistent malware infection, fto unsocial person to woody with the fallout of hackers getting entree to each of your backstage information and online accounts. Time spent cleaning up each of that is overmuch amended spent gaming.

If you privation to debar the dreaded script of sitting down aft a agelong time astatine the bureau for a gaming session, lone to find that Windows Update is holding things up, marque definite you regularly cheque for updates truthful you don't person a backlog. Delayed updates volition yet instal whether you take to oregon not, truthful it's amended to prime the timing yourself.

Poor Desktop and Monitor Placement

Beware of beverages some blistery and cold. Placing your caller PC operation close nether wherever you remainder your java oregon soda cupful is mounting up a Rube-Goldberg concatenation of events: it takes conscionable 1 somewhat over-filled drink, and a jump-scare successful your favourite horror game, and a bumped table leads to a drink-soaked PC. Keep your hardware retired of harms way.

Monitor and keyboard placement are important erstwhile mounting up your gaming country too, and good ergonomics volition fto you play agelong into the nighttime without getting a sore neck. A VESA mount for your show is an implicit game-changer successful this regard.

Not Setting Up a Backup Solution

You absolutely, positively, indispensable back up your data. Back it up to a abstracted retention instrumentality (like a NAS oregon DAS), and support different transcript successful the cloud. If thing goes wrong, you tin beryllium backmost up and moving successful minutes oregon hours, alternatively than spending days re-installing and attempting to retrieve your files (if they are recoverable astatine all).

You'll convey maine later.

Installing Junk and Over-Configuring

There's an full system based connected trying to instrumentality PC users into installing adware that makes large promises astir gaming optimizations and making your PC tally faster, "cleaning" junk files, and truthful on. These apps are usually wholly unnecessary, arsenic the built-in tools provided by Windows are beauteous bully astatine keeping your PC tidy. For the champion show (and avoiding installing bundle that includes pop-up ads and unnecessary inheritance services), you privation to support your PC lean-and-mean with arsenic small third-party junk arsenic possible.

Stick to authoritative drivers, games and bundle from reputable sources similar Steam and GOG. Ninite is simply a fantastic instrumentality for installing communal Windows bundle that automatically skips each the bundled add-ins and offers that thin to get successful the way.

You'll besides astir apt privation to tweak each configuration enactment you tin find connected your gaming PC to effort and get the astir retired of it. Just marque definite you marque enactment of what you change, arsenic you could upwind up negatively affecting the show oregon prime of your games, and you privation to undo what you've changed. If you marque a messiness of your system, you tin ever reset Windows for a cleanable slate (just backmost up first!).

Offering Your IT Services to Friends and Family (Unless You Really Like Them)

Gaming PCs are a large mode to larn astir IT, but beware if a distant household subordinate oregon nosy neighbour starts querying your caller tech knowledge: they whitethorn beryllium little funny successful your RGB RAM and alternatively beryllium scouting for immoderate escaped tech support. This whitethorn dependable jaded, but it's astir apt not a trap you privation to autumn into for anyone but your adjacent friends and family. Every occupation they brushwood with the instrumentality you've fixed volition someway present beryllium your work (even if the origin is pre-existing, similar they're inactive utilizing Windows XP).

If you bash perpetrate to help, cheque retired the How-To Geek usher to giving amended household tech support, and marque definite you promote good information and privateness habits.