NZXT PODCAST - #168 - Best PC Tips (Submitted by You!)

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

On this week's episode of the NZXT Podcast... We go over the best PC tips that YOU submitted to us on Discord about building, maintenance, and not eating thermal paste. Watch the VOD at twitch.tv/NZXT and join our Discord server to let us know what you think about these tips: discord.gg/NZXT

and welcome to episode 168 of the n60 podcast the official podcast at the nx60 community this podcast podcast covered live every friday at 10 a p.m pacific same time on the official n6t twitch is available to stream on demand on apple podcast google podcast spotify and sound cloud my name is mike gives me as always is ivan how are you doing ivan doing fantabulous michael i'm very happy to be here uh i love fridays I'm always on a natural high for some reason on Fridays. Maybe it's because it's the podcast, maybe because I know it's never about to have two days off of just chilling and vibed and whatnot. But I'm also stoked because today's podcast is a very cool one. So what we did for this week's podcast is we went in our Discord server at Discord.g.g slash NZXT earlier in the week.

and we asked them to give us their best PC tip for a chance to win a Pucci plushy. I don't have my Pucci with me here. Do you have yours, Mike? I don't have mine right here. I can't go get it if you want me to show it. No, that's fine. I think people know what Pucci looks like.

But yeah, so we're going to give away a Pucci plush to anyone, or not to anyone, but to one random person who submitted one of those PC tips to us, and we'll announce the winner later on our Discord server. And if you're tuned in live to the Twitch stream right now, we also have another giveaway going on. So if you type exclamation giveaway in the chat, you'll get a link to enter a giveaway to get you either a free hoodie,

a free t-shirt, or a free lanyard and sticker pack, all with the beautiful NZXT logo on there. And if you stick around to the end of the show, you'll get a very special secret word that will get you 1 billion entries into the giveaway. So stick around and like Pellinius says, let the spam begin. So without further ado, Mike, let's start reading off these tips and see what the Discord community had to say.

All righty all. So we got like 500 entries into our 500 responses of this Discord PC tips. A majority of them were great. Some of them were not. Just letting you know, also in order for you to win a poochie, your thing actually has to make, you know, actually has to work well and not, you know, please give a free, pre-see or, you know, don't eat thermal base. You know, there's, you got to give a little bit of extra stuff. So I think we had at least, I don't know, 100 people telling, telling us. to eat the thermal paste.

So many people. All right. Which, by the way, it's not toxic. So do what you want with that information. Do with that. I am not condoning eating thermal paste. I'm just saying it's not toxic. Yes.

All right. So we split up the PC tips into three different categories. We have PC building the planning stage, actual PC building, and then some maintenance and aftercare. Oh, Ivan, I think I'm a little echoing. on your side. It's a little bit. It's okay.

Don't worry. No worry. It's okay. If it's equating, no worries. Oh, you know what? There you go. Okay, I think I fixed it. Maybe.

Maybe? No, I'm still echoing a little bit. That's okay. Don't worry. We'll move on. So we are going to the first stage of PC building slash planning.

So for the first step we have here is, I guess, the first stage of building. And I hope this helps for anyone that is starting to either build a PC or looking to buy one is determine your budget and what your PC want what you want your PC to accomplish that's actually like the first question I usually ask people's like hey I want a PC what should I get that's usually the first question make a list of all the components you need or you want if you're trying to buy

like a pre-build and ensure all your components are compatible with each other and fit within the case you've chosen like GP CPU socket rank aboutability GPU clearance stuff like that basically the whenever someone asked me, hey, I want to buy a PC, what should I get? The first thing I ask is, what's your budget? Like, you know, if you have $1,000, does that $1,000, is that just for the PC?

Do you also need a monitor? Do you also need a keyboard, a mouse, a headset, a mic, you know, a desk, chair? You know, there's so much you have to also, you know, include into that. And then what you want to do, are you going to just play Minecraft,

League of Legends, Valerant? Or are you going to go for, like, Microsoft? flight simulator. You're going to stream. You got a video edit, stuff like that. Yeah. That's a really good tip because we get a lot of questions on social like, hey, NZT recommend me a PC. And it's just like, it's pretty impossible for anyone to give a recommendation for a PC without answering those questions.

It's like, how much are you willing to spend base number one? And number two is what are you going to need your computer for? because there is a big a big difference if you know your budget is $5,000 and you're going to use your PC for you know playing

you know Call of Duty and you're also going to be streaming and editing you know videos because you're a Twitch moderator or something versus you're going to your budget's a thousand and you're going to play Star Do Valley

so definitely figure out your budget and make a list of or figure out what you need basically. All righty. I can still go on the next one. Oh, before you move on, the third one, the third tip there about ensuring how making sure all your components are compatible. That's also something a lot of people, not a lot of people, but some people don't do.

I've seen people like just recently, I think it was on, I think it was on the PC MasterRaeus subreddit. someone posted a picture of their PC and the GPU was like not able to fit in the case. And then they said that they spent like a year planning their build and did not realize that the GPU would not fit in the case. And there's a very easy way to make sure that all your hardware is compatible. And that's to go to PC Part Picker.com. You plug in all your parts and it will tell you if there's any incompatibilities there.

So yes, definitely make sure everything fits. because the last thing you want to do is, you know, save up money and then spend the whole year or whatever, like getting all these parts and then you go build and then you're like at the very end and you're like, dang, my GP doesn't fit. So, yeah. Didn't we have something like that? Some guy like literally sawed his case to put his GPU in because it couldn't fit. Yeah. Yeah, people have, like, destroyed their cases because, you know, some compatibility issues. And I mean, obviously, I don't want to tell people, like, you shouldn't do that because, you know, it's your money.

You do whatever you want. If you want to chop up a case, go for it. But, I mean, it's unnecessary if you just plan ahead. Yeah. Just plan ahead. If you wanted you to work, go for it. But, like, you know, it's a lot of extra work for something that, honestly, is the GP's probably one of the most simple parts to put in the case. And Lawnfire here in the chat says that PC Part Picker is not accurate 100% of the time, but easily 99% of the time.

And it's always a good idea to double check the case dimensions listed on the manufacturer's website. Yes, I always double check. You know, like we also get a lot of questions on social asking us like, you know, hey, will this GPU fit in this case? Or is this motherboard compatible with this or that or whatever? and if you go to the ntc.com you go on the product page you scroll down to the tech spec section and you'll see like all the dimensions

and everything so yeah you always want to double triple check even make sure like you know that what you're buying is actually going to work with everything yeah and on piece spark figure is usually accurate it won't be 100% accurate with very new stuff like if you they just released this new case

or new graphics card or stuff like that it may not be a hundred accurate so yeah especially if you have new stuff keep an eye out for that yeah all right ivin you're next yeah so i wish we knew who actually wrote these tips so we kind of screwed up the google form so our apologies for that uh the next time we do this we're going to make sure we collect our discord username so we can give you a shout out um you guys did give us her email addresses but we don't want to share those um because we don't want to docks you so sorry about that we'll make sure we collect your Discord username next time so this tip is one of

my favorites and it's don't overcomplicate it keep it simple the reason I love this tip so much is because keep it simple is actually like one of my personal philosophies in life and work and marriage and being a dad and everything I do I always try to keep everything simple and building a computer is no different or even buying a computer is no different. You know, like every time I've built a PC or bought a PC, I'm trying to keep the process as simple as possible. Like especially, and this is a good tip, especially if it's like your first PC, right?

Like if it's your first PC ever, the last thing you want to do is tell yourself, well, I'm going to make this custom water cooled loop and I'm going to have, you know 15 RGB fans and I'm gonna get like 40 90 TI and I'm gonna you know overclock it and I'm gonna like modify the case and paint it like no like if it's your first PC you have no idea what you're doing trust me do yourself in favor just build the easiest simplest cheapest even computer you can possibly can know how you do it Figure out how to do it and then you know the next time you can make it a little more complicated if you want or You know, maybe you realize the next time you know maybe I should go simple again. So yeah, I love this tip but keeping it simple

Like that. I like it. Keep it simple. You know sometimes people want to go crazy or you know start you know Try to put everything just make it simple just make a you know what you need to get is it doesn't work 80 simple. And there's a couple questions really quick before we want to the next slide. Coalition Chris is asking if Mike or Ivan took the call for the Linus Tech Tips secret shopper video, we wish we did because it was a very, very good call. And you guys haven't watched that video. Check out the Linus Tech Tips secret shopper video.

They called up them ZXT trying to get a PC and we had some hopeful words for Linus. there. Another question here from Rosco 2100. This is like the one million time people have asked it. So I'm going to answer it just so people don't have to keep asking it. And it's any hints on where we can find the secret code for the creator PC giveaway. And yes, the hint is actually in the giveaway form. It says go to the giveaways channel and you will find the code. So if you go to the giveaways channel on Discord, roll up till you see the creator PC banner there. You will see the code there. Yeah. So next slide, Mike, for you, I think, right?

All righty. This is, I kind of want to go a little bit into. I have the email, but basically, if you are interested in buying computer, you have three main choices by pre-built, a custom pre-built for build your own. And actually have the person that wrote this i think it's aaron um they actually go a little bit into it and i added a little bit of my

own insights into this as well uh so for the pre-built there's pros and cons with each one of these pros and cons of like a standard pre-built you don't have to you don't have to have you don't have to have so trying to configure you know the software or like trying to figure out what to do you literally just go oh buy done easy super simple everything comes with the build so whatever you get is what you get and you also get a warranty you know it's so for someone that doesn't want to build doesn't want to research doesn't want to order

doesn't want the you know do all the pre-planning research all that stuff you literally just go out to a website figure out what your budget is and go you know what i can buy that buy it done ship it easy done and you set up however there are usually bill fees associated with us for ncxte we usually associate a $99 bill fee into them and you're also limited to what the company has to supply So if you want a specific graphics card or something, well, sometimes you just won't be able to get that because that's what the company has.

And the custom pre-build is kind of the same way, except it's a little bit more fun. You know, you get to change things up. NZXT has like a custom pre-built configurator where you can, you know, change up an AMD CPU to an Intel or an AMD GP to an Nvidia GPU. So you can kind of change things up, which is very nice. However, like again, built fees and usually a limited supply. Now, this is what we usually recommend if people are thinking about building a PC. We highly recommend that you build your own PC. It's usually the cheapest route.

When you build your PC, it's usually like the price of that component, usually, plus tact. It's also very fun. You know, it's a dull Legos, right? Yeah. It's fun. It's like Lego, but way cheaper. Exactly. Oh, yeah.

And Go for it I just want to kind of elaborate a little bit on that Like yes Like people are kind of shocked All the time

I think like people ask us on social Hey NZXT Should I build my PC Or buy a pre-built And we always tell them You know We recommend you build it yourself If you know what you're doing

But we'll do it for you if you want And you know That's part of the reason why We don't really charge An arm and a leg To build it for you And that's because, you know, NZT, we started as a PC DIY company. Like, we didn't always make computers.

For the longest time, we just made computer parts and we were not making computers. So at heart, we're all builders here. And, you know, building your own is definitely the best way to do it for a variety of reasons. Number one, yes, it's cheaper. Number two, yes, it's fun. Number three, it's also rewarding. you know, there's nothing better than like, you know, taking the time to build something and then, you know, you push that power button and it fires up. It just feels good, you know, and then the things that you do with the computer, you know, obviously gaming is fun, but also like there's a lot of productive things you can do with it. And I don't know, I personally take a lot of pride in the fact that, like, I can accomplish a lot of things with something I built with my own two hands. So building your own, man, like, if you can do it, for sure, you, You know, I feel like you should.

However, you know, not everyone can or wants to build their own for a bunch of reasons. Maybe, maybe you are too scared and you tell yourself, you know, for $100,000, and ZXC can build it for me. I'm just going to have them. I'm just going to get a pre-built or whatever. Or maybe you've built 20 computers and you just don't have the time to build yourself, you know, or maybe you're just over it. You're like, I know what it's like.

I know what to do. I'm just lazy. get a pre-built. The custom pre-built route, you know, I really only recommend you go that way if you know what you're customizing. Because I've actually seen people, even on our own website, you know, they'll customize a PC and they're not always selecting the right parts, right? Like maybe they'll put a mini ITX motherboard in a really big case, which it works, but it also looks pretty funky. so unless you really know the parts and what you're doing I wouldn't recommend customizing a pre-built I would just say just get a pre-built you know and I'm only speaking from NZXT but like our pre-built are the parts we use are you know tested and selected for a reason they all work together pretty well and they all look nice when they're put together so yeah but build it yourself if you can that's I

highly recommend it. And then Voodoo Lord actually in the chassis, how easy is it to upgrade a custom pre-build? It's pretty easy because everything can be, everything's plug and play. You know, like, it's not complicated to unplug a GPU, unscrew it,

take it out, put a new one, right? It's not complicated to unscrew a water cooler, take out CPU, put in a new one. It's not complicated to do any of that stuff. However, you have to know what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing, it can obviously be very hard, very intimidating,

very challenging even. But it's not hard. It's just like anything in life, if you don't know what you're doing, it just feels hard. You know, because if you've never driven a stick shift or even driven a car, and then I give you the keys, and I'm like, here, like, take me to the,

the store and you don't know how to drive like what are you think is going to happen you know you it's probably going to crash but if you if you if you take a you go to driving school you take some lessons you pass your driving test and you know i take you around from the spins in the parking lot teach you how to change gears on a on a stick shift it's not going to be a problem it's going to be super easy and so yeah it's not hard it's just you got to know what you're doing exactly and i i kind of agree it's uh it's easy in some aspects some aspects are hard you know that know, like if you have to change, like, the CPU or like a motherboard. Yeah, it's going to take a little bit more time to get through it all.

But if you're just, like, swapping out RAM, graphics card, that's easy. Super easy stuff. The hardest part, the hardest part is not licking the thermal tape. I know, right? Got to lick the fingers, you know? So tempting. I think Jules, I think this is Jules in chat. It says a lot of people get in the head that thinking PC building is.

is this super complicated, boardline dangerous experience. Modern PC building is super easy. And there are a good number of resources on the net that can help guide through. Starting with a good pre-built that uses off-to-shelf parts is a good way to get started, since you can upgrade it down the road and get familiar with PC and turtles. That's also a really great idea is that you don't have to, if you don't build a PC, does not mean if you don't build it at first, does not mean you can't continue to build it after.

You can upgrade it. And that, in my opinion, it is actually sometimes worth a lot of, like, worth a lot of knowledge because you are physically looking through your PC, figure out what you need to upgrade and then you upgrade from there. Yeah. You know, you learn a lot when you do it like that. Mm-hmm. This will go on to the next one. Yeah. All right.

So this is another tip that I selected. And it is never get a cheap power supply. It could ruin all your parts. And there's like, when I read this, I laughed because I immediately thought of that CSGO meme where they're planting like a cheap power supply and it says, bomb has been planted. And it's true. Like, you know, a lot of people will spend their life savings on a GPU when they're

building a PC and then select all their parts. And even like RGB, you know, They'll buy like 15 RGB fans before they get like a 250-watt power supply or something like that. For whatever reason, it's always the last thing people think about when they're building a PC, especially your first one. And my gut tells me it's because, yeah, power supplies are freaking boring. It's like the most boring computer part you can think of, right? Why?

Because it's not visually appealing. It's hidden. You never see it. It's just like this boring thing that you have to get to plug your computer parts into, right? But it's the most important because if you get a really cheap power supply that doesn't have enough wattage, it could catch on fire. It can destroy your motherboard. It can do a bunch of different things that you are going to regret.

And most people don't need like a 1,200 watt power. supply or anything like that like most people can get it by with like even 500 watts or 750 watts it just depends on like what is going inside your your computer the best way to know which power supply you should get is like just google power supply calculators and you will see a bunch of different websites that provide this but you just basically plug in your parts and it will tell you, well, if you have 4090 and a 9-9, you're going to need at least 1,000 watts, for example, and then you know, like, okay, I'll get that.

All right, Pellinius here is saying that PSU calculators are a mess. So Pellinius, I'm curious, how would you calculate the wattage you need for your PC? I guess you could look at, like, you could calculate it yourself by looking. at like the tech specs of everything that's going on your PC but I personally have never had an issue with the PSU calculator like if it tells me you know I need 500 watts I'm gonna get a 750 watt source supply like I always go up like I never you know say like if it tells me I need 500 watts I'm not gonna go okay I'll just get a 500 watt PSU I'm always like getting something a little bit more because I always figure a

that's safe you know you're you're gonna like you know be safe because you're gonna have more wattage than you need and second you're gonna have more wattage for the future if you choose to to upgrade so yeah I think if you I think if you use a power supply calculator I guess Pellinius does have a good point you might want to take it with a grain of salt but I think it gives you a pretty good estimate of what you need. I would just recommend you get a little bit more than what's recommended just to be on the safe side.

I do like what Jules said in the chat. It was a little bit while ago, but it says, I'm going to paraphrase some life wisdom when it comes to buying things like a power supply. You don't have a $20 head. Don't buy a $20 helmet. Same applies to power supplies. I love that. Love that.

Like, I love that idea. It makes sense, right? It's, you know, if you have something that's, you know, you know, I actually equate this to like a desk, right? Like you, you can have, you know, two to three thousand dollars worth of like a monitor, a monitor arm, a camera equipment, a PC, keyboard, everything. But you have a $20 desk that's cardboard and will, and it's already like Boeing. Oh, yeah. You probably want to spend a little bit extra into that, right? Yeah.

So that also is something to look out for. Yeah, and I guess actually that's kind of going back to a near-year tip about selecting your budget. When you're budgeting for computer parts, you know, you have to also keep in mind the budget for your peripherals, your desk. Maybe you want to have a foot hammock. I don't know what you're looking for. Yeah, like you got to keep all that stuff in mind. and if um because the last thing you want too is like you know you build this awesome PC and then at the end you realize you know I only have enough money for a 250 watt power supply

and a cardboard desk like it's not going to be good it's not going to end well I agree all right I guess we go on to the next section which is I think a lot of people are 8 for is actual PC building tips what we were in was more like a planning stage now we're actually going to go into actual PC building tips. My favorite. Obviously, stay organized. Don't rush anything. Take your time, step by step, take breaks.

When you're building something, you want to take your time. There's no, there's no, I get it's exciting and you want to get the PC up and running that day. Take your time. You know, it's better to make sure everything works or everything's correctly placed. All the wires and all the plugs are correctly in their place than, trying to rest your it plug everything in then turn it on and something's wrong

and you have to kind of redo the whole process over again. Take your time. I love the stay organized tip because remember that PC we shared yesterday or last podcast where it was like

it was just like a motherboard on a desk with like no cooler and cables everywhere. I don't know if you guys remember it or not but it was chaos and I felt like, you know, this person has an organization problem here because the first thing you should do, honestly, when you're about to build is you should lay out all the parts you need and set aside all the parts you don't. Keep things nice and clean. Put all the screws like where you need them, your tools, you know, make sure that, you know, you know where everything is.

Like if you're only going to use half of the power supply cables that came through PSU, just put those there on the table, get the other ones out of the way, just so you know where everything is and you have everything nice and organized. So it becomes a lot easier for you to build. And like Mike said here, take your time, step by step. If you need a break, take it. You know, there's no, you're not in a race. You know, no one's like timing you or anything like that. unless you're at an NZXT party because a couple of weeks ago we did have a PC building race

for telling people but yeah if no one's timing you man yeah like there's no reason to like hurry things and you know potentially mess up or break something right so very good tips yeah also a little tip for keeping everything organized I always use bowls put all your screws and all your cables or anything like that in like a bowl or a plate uh it just allows you to see everything and just allows you to just kind of drop it in but like all right i'll get back to it later um anything you take out put it back into the bowl you have no idea if you're going to end up needing it or not needing it down the road so just keep you know what i you know what i used to organize my screws the nzxte puck hey yeah i just pick the screws on that oh yeah anything magnetic

also works really well yeah all right we'll go on to the next question yes so my tip here is the two tips before putting the motherboard into your case install the CPU cooler ram and any end up two drives you have first and the idea is to build as much as possible outside of the case and then plot it in all at once so you aren't hunched over working inside a cramped dark space trying to drop the CPU in awesome tip. I love this tip for a couple of reasons. The first is because I myself am a very clumsy individual and I have tried building a PC like by putting things one by one inside the case. You know like you put the motherboard in and then you put the CPU in and then you put the RAM

in and then you know you're connecting everything like one by one in there and it becomes not necessarily hard, but it just becomes easier to to like bump things and to you know like you might want to you might drop something in there like you're screwing in the the AIO and then the the screw falls into the you know underneath the PSU shroud things like that and it just becomes really annoying and then you have to kind of you know take a step backward and fix a mistake so it's pretty annoying So yeah, if what I do whenever I build a PC, I have the same process I do is I get the bot, the motherboard box.

I put the motherboard on top of the box because it's non-conductive. It's not going to shock me. And then I put in the CPU, the RAM, any M.D.2 drives as much as I can onto the motherboard. Then I screw the motherboard into the case. Sometimes I will connect the cooler onto the motherboard before I put it in there, but most times I don't. Just because I've installed a bunch of crackens already, it's a pretty easy installation for me at this point. But what I do do is I like to install the radiator and the fans onto the case first. so when I put the motherboard into the case,

it just becomes easy to just put the pump on there and you save yourself a lot of hassle and probably some time, to be honest, if you build outside of the case first and then put it in there. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it just makes it easier. I always try to get the,

especially the CPU cooler, that's always the hardest part for me, is just getting it screwed on, having to radier kind of outside, and then you put the motherboard and then the cooler, much easier than trying to do everything together. Yeah. And then also the other thing, too, is with the power supply cables, like Pellinius here says,

I always put the power supply in there. Well, first of all, before I put the power supply in there, I know I figure out what cables I need if my power supply is modular. It usually is. And I connect those already to the power supply, and I put the power supply in the case. So I know, like, I don't have to worry about, you know, plugging cables underneath the shroud or anything like that. It's like super easy. You just plug it in the cables first, then you slide it in the case,

connect everything, and you're all set. You don't have to, like, you know, press over, figuring out what you got to do in there. So it becomes a lot easier. Agreed. All right, the next PC tip. I know everyone has forgotten about this. this and why I want the things that I did. Everyone here has,

if you build a couple pieces, you definitely have may have forgotten the IOS shield, which is, you know, the thing that it's in the back of the motherboard, and you just accidentally forget to install it. Sometimes I definitely have done that before. This tip is actually kind of nice. You don't need to do this,

but buying a motherboard has a built-in I-O shield definitely does help just so that, you know, you don't end up installing the mother's, motherboard, gale screws into going, oops. I forgot. I need to unscrew, redo it all again. Having a motherboard that does that is really nice. Again, it's not a necessity, but I thought this was funny because I think everyone here has forgotten an I.O. Shield every once in a while.

Yeah. And I.O. shields, you know, back in the day, you know, like, they were, they would cut you. It was, like, really hard to even put some I.O. shields on a case. Like you would literally cut your hands trying to get those tape on there. The funny thing too is like you actually technically don't need an I.O. shield to have your PC work. I think the biggest benefit of an IOS shield, it just keeps dust out of your PC. It will work without it. But I think you definitely want to have it on there.

and I've seen people that forget the I.O. shield and then they'll like duct tape it on there or something and it's just like... Bruh. Yeah. So, yeah, I think probably like the first thing you want to do when you're building is put that I.O. shield on there so you don't forget. Great.

Blood for... The I.O. shield requires blood sacrifice. The blood sacrifice is necessary for post. Blood for the blood gulf. All right. Next Kwan. I someone in chat actually read this one so I had this question. I was like oh just just wait a little bit. Yes, when build so I love this tip. It's probably my favorite one to be honest for a couple of reasons. So when building PCs,

RTFM read the effing manual. There's a very high chance the answers to your question are in them and And the reason I like this question so much is, well, number one is because I speak from first-hand experience, and not just with PCs, but with a bunch of things. Like, for example, I recently built, or not built, but I assembled an exercise bike. And I got stuck. And then I was like, what do I do? And I was like, oh, yeah, there's a manual. Let me look at this manual. Like before I, before I, you know, went on the, on Reddit or on a Discord server or on social media and tag the company, like, hey, like, how do I put this together?

It's like, no, it's the information is there. It's on the manual. Like, I just have to read. And the second reason I like this tip is because, you know, working in social media, we do get a ton of questions about, like, you know, how does this thing work? How do I install this? Where does this cable go? I don't know how to put this together. And I don't tell people, you know, RTFM,

all the information is in those manuals. So I always tell people, go to the product page and scroll down to the download sections and you'll see the manual there. It will literally tell you what you need to do. You just have to take the time to read and understand what it is you've got to do. And I say it with peace and love,

RTFM. Yep. Yep. Great. RD FM. The next tip. Always make sure you put your fans on the right way

or your PC will overheat. Actually has happened a lot more than I think when you first build a PC you kind of forget which way the fans go. Here, I'll pull up the NCXT fans real quick.

Opponents. Here go. So I'll show the fans off. So as you can see here, here, I'll do this one. So there is the logo and then there's like this backside. The way the fans go is usually in all actress and more in most retrospect of like or at, uh, and most like branding and any sort of thing. Usually you, if you're going to use it, the brand logo is in front of you.

or you're facing it. So if the NXT logo right here is facing you, the air is going to come this way. It's going to go through the logo. And if you have this, which looks like a little fan right here, this little plastic piece, that means the fan is coming towards you.

So if you're facing this, the air is coming towards you. If the fan is facing you, the logo, it's going away from you, going through it. Yeah. And there's a very easy, A way to determine which way the fan is blowing is you can power, once it's powered on, you know, get a piece of paper and just put it next to the fan and you can see like which way is blowing.

So like, you know, in the NZXT case fans that are in saw in the back, they blow out, you know, you put a piece of paper there. And if the paper is sticking to the case, then you know the fan is backwards because it should be blowing out. right um i guess you can also stick your finger in there to find out which way it's blowing that is very true is easier that's very very true uh yeah and some fans actually have arrows on it uh they should have like an arrow sign on it that shows like oh it's coming this way or it's coming that way um just keep an eye out for it okay we'll keep an eye for that um yeah that's pretty much it uh yeah i don't i don't think I think you can reverse the fans but in my opinion it makes no sense to

have to do all that than just plugging it one way and just now I have to change it in the motherboard bios or anything like that I recommend using a piece of paper or tissue to check how your fans are you? Like I even said. Oh, the next one. That's what I said.

Don't forget to put the thermal paste on the CPU and remove the thing on the cooling thing. peel the CPU cooler plastic sticker, yes. This is a common meme on the PC MasterRace subreddit community there. At least once a week, someone will post a picture with a caption of like, I finally figured out while my PC is overheating, and it's just like they didn't take the sticker off the CPU cooler or they didn't apply thermal paste to the CPU.

and yeah, it's unfortunately a common thing that people do. So don't be that person. You know, like the first thing you do when you put the cooler on the CPU is make sure you have thermal paste. Make sure there's nothing in between the thermal pace and the cooler and you're good to go. And I know thermal pace, thermal pace is probably like the biggest meme in the PC community. but you know it is also like a serious thing you know you don't want to forget it because you're going to damage your CPU like you imagine you spend $500 in a CPU and then it just like gets destroyed because you don't put thermal paste on there like thermal paste is like the cheapest thing you can possibly buy for your during your PC building experience so don't forget it also when you apply it I mean there's a million ways you can, not a million ways, but there's a bunch of different ways that you can apply it. You know, some people just put like a P-sized dot in the middle. That works. Some people do an X. That works. Some people do a couple lines. That works. Don't overthink it. Just don't overthink it. Just don't overdo it because you don't want to put an entire tub of thermal paste on there and then apply the cooler and then have the

the paste just spread out all over your motherboard or anything like that, you know. So me personally, I just, I primarily use the cracking when I'm building and I has thermal paste pre-applied. So it's not really a issue. But when I do apply thermal paste, I don't do the line method. I just do like a like a circle, like almost like spirals. I just do like a thin little spiral there and almost looking like dog poop. Yeah, so I guess it is kind of like the line method, but I just do a circular line versus just straight lines. I don't have an A2.

X going to X method. X going to give it to you. X going to give it to you. What? Yeah. But yes, luckily for, I also want to show off, I hope no one has ever put an NXT crafting cooler plastic on it because this thing is thick. Like, this thing is a thick piece of plastic. You can't even screw through it.

So I hope no one has actually tried to screw with the podcasting. I just want to show this picture because I'm just like, I hope no one has actually done this before. All righty. I think this is also a meme in the PC community. Cable management. Seriously, take all the time you need with your cable management. If you end up rebuilding your PC or just changing one in the many parts,

you will struggle with the cables interwoven with each other. Yeah. You know, a lot of people make the means, oh, out of sight of mind. Just put the back panel on, you know? but there is a thing of if you need to go back and change something up it's going to take you a lot longer to basically replace that part because you don't know which cables which um yeah i know i know uh i forgot who it was but someone in our chat uh cable colored their cables so they had like a red zip tie for their CPU or like for uh

their like fans, they'll do like a blue one. And I was like, that is absolutely smart. It's genius, actually. And then, yeah, going back to last week's podcast when we were rating gaming setups, you know, how many computers did we see that were like amazing builds? And then on the desk was just like a rat's nest of PC,

of PC cables or wires or whatever. And, you know, yes, it's a meme. like thermal paste, but cable management does actually have some benefits besides looking pretty. To the two big benefits are number one, believe it or not, cable management does impact your airflow. Because if all you're doing is when you're building your PC, it's just like, you know, I have a bunch of messy cables everywhere. Everything's, you know, like a rat's nest. I'm just going to shove it in there and squeeze it in there and like take up every last square inch that's under the PSU shroud and behind the back panel and then just like jam that back panel on there. Like you're restricting air from flowing through the case itself, believe it or not.

Because the airflow is not just on the components. It's also like in those empty spaces. And so that's number one. Number two is when you have organized cable management, it becomes much, much easier to change parts or upgrade parts when you need to in the future. So can you imagine if you have an entire rat's nest or a spaghetti monster on your PC? and then you're like, I'm going to upgrade my, I'm going to upgrade my GPU, you know, and then you have no idea what is the GPU cable.

And then in figuring out which GPU cable you need to like take out or whatever, you know, you'd end up like unplugging something else or breaking something, et cetera, et cetera. I see a few comments here in the chat saying my mind. mic is horrible, so I promise I won't use this anymore. I've actually been having issues with this headset, so... You know what, you need, Ivan. You need an Ed ZXT

capsule Viti. I do. I just... I have one. I think I used one last week, but I figured this microphone would be fine today. I guess not. It's okay. It happens. Well, that sucks.

But yeah, I actually didn't think about that, but yeah, it does actually affect airful. I did not actually think about that. It does. Yeah. I mean, it's not going to like, it's not going to cause your PC to overheat, but it does impact airflow. And that, that helps a lot with the, uh, the lifetime on those parts. Yeah. Last one of the building tips. Yes, this is another common mistake that we see and I think everyone has done, to be honest, it is to check if the power, supply is powered on after building your first PC before starting it. I've had a mini heart attack myself when I've built a computer and then I go to turn it on and

like nothing happens. You know nothing's going and I'm like oh crap did I mess something up and it's like oh no I didn't flip the switch behind the power supplies I had to turn on the actual power supply so yeah it's a good tip because a lot of people forget it and I think there's even been people that have returned pre-built PCs because they get their pre-built PC and then they don't turn on the power supply switch at the back and then they're like, it doesn't work, you know?

Yeah. Good tip there. Yeah. Getting mad. All right. Now this is the next section, which is PC maintenance and aftercare. I made this kind of thing of like,

after you get your PC, after you built it, after you have it, what do you have to do to continue? Can you guys hear? I don't know, be here. But basically what you do after you get your PC. Oh yeah, you guys can't see it. Uh, so the first tip I have, one of the easiest, but also kind of one of the forget, most forgetful is, you know, making sure you update everything, your drivers, your software system your software applications everything uh you know all you have to do is just go to your

for me i have an in vdia graphics cards so all you have to do is just go to your drivers and make sure it's up to date let me see if i actually have an update oh i'm all up to date right here so just make sure it's easy you just do it done okay yeah the uh the updates are super important i feel like a lot of people ignore those messages because they want to use their PC and they're like, well, I'm not going to wait five minutes for my PC to update. And it's just like, just do it. Because it's not even like for performance a lot of times too. It's even for just security reasons.

You always want to have the most up to date driver because, you know, it's the safest, to be honest. And I know, yes, there are horror stories of like, you know, I updated my driver and now my game won't load but it's like you know that happens very rarely and when it does happen you know they fix it really fast

so it's not like a huge deal if you know you can't play Minecraft for 30 minutes so just update those drivers make sure you're always up to date and be safe yep all righty

next one let's see Remember to prolong the life of your computer dust it at least once bi-monthly and completely power off and unplug the PC when doing so I love love this tip. What I like to do is I don't know if I do it bi-monthly but every so often, you know, I'll look at my PC and I'll just think like, man, this thing's dusty. I will unplug everything, well turn it off, unplug everything. I'll take it outside, take up all the panels, I'll get a leaf blower, and I just like go to town and just like, take all that dust out of my, my PC, you know, put the panels back on, put it back on my desk, plug everything in and turn it on and like, boom, it looks not like brand new,

but it does look like it's a lot cleaner. When that's usually like when it's like super dusty when I've ignored maintenance for a while. most of the time I have like a just like a regular air compressor or if I see dust on a fan I'll just blow it blow it on there a little air duster

yeah I was gonna ask so I was like leap blower like an actual leap blower I love doing that like I do that at least once a year to be honest like I'll just I'll just get every little speck of dust out of that computer um

it's cool Like it does a great job. It really does clean every single nook and cranny. But for the most part, when I am dusting my PC, I am using like one of those just air duster cans. Yeah, it's important to keep the dust out of your PC because it makes your PC run smoother, improves performance, prevents it from overheating and things like that.

So you don't have to do you don't all have to go out and buy leaf blowers now. I just personally like like to, uh, you know, get everything nice and clean every so often. I even do that with my car. I'll open the doors. And my wife told me this actually. She's like, you should need a leaf blower to clean out the car. I'll just open the doors and I'll get the leaf flower and like blow every little piece of dust that's inside the car out of the door. So yeah.

All right. And you think about it, leafflowers are. Just really big air dusters, right? Really? Yeah. In rally. PC tip. The most important tip I know, get external storage, back up everything important to an external drive and keep it safe.

If you don't have copies and safe places, you run to risk of losing things. When my old PC got fried during the storm, I never recovered years of memories, which someone had told me the same. I actually, I chose this one because I need to do this. I have lots of footage. that, you know, if I lose, that it's gone forever kind of a deal. Yes. Getting like a simple external hard drive.

Let me see. I actually have one in my... It's somewhere here. I have an external hard drive here that you could just grab, put it in, take out anything that you just want to keep. Family photos. Funny gaming clips with your friends. Anything like that.

Put into external hard drive. Keep it away because if you lose it, you're probably going to lose it. So I agree with this tip 50%. And the reason is because I don't necessarily think you need an external drive nowadays because you can back up everything in the cloud. Oh, that is also very true. So that's what I do.

Like I rather than taking or spending more money on like, you know, hard drives and, you know, plugging things into my PC and whatnot, I just back up everything in the cloud. And then I never have to worry about it. You know, like if my PC crashed today, I'm not concerned because I back up everything in the cloud. And I see a lot of comments in the chat here saying, don't trust the cloud. The cloud is not enough. I mean, I don't know what kind of stuff you guys are backing up. For me, it's basically photos, my family photos.

And I don't know. I've never had an issue. My PC, I had my PC crash a few times and I've added, just reset everything. Fire back up and it was like, okay, everything is still there. Maybe it depends on what you guys are backing up. I don't know. Next one. I actually really liked this one that you chose, Ivan.

If you have some art skills, customize your PC parts. Don't be afraid to add some details. Cover some logos or make new ones. It can be a really simple way to make your PC, your own and unique. Do your research about the component. and materials you're going to use. The reason I love this tip is actually because I am a huge fan of sticker bombing, my computer's Death Rage Asset in the chat.

By the way, Ivan, are you still on your old Manta PC? And yes, I am. I have my sticker bomb Manta. I have a sticker bomb Dess 340. I think every single PC I've ever had, I eventually end up just covering it in stickers. It always starts with one sticker and then it goes from there. I don't know, I just feel like customizing your PC,

whether it's by stickers or by painting it or putting a magnet on there or something. I don't know. It just I think it's cool because it makes it unique. It makes it your own. And there's no other, I can safely say there's no other computer in the world like mine. You know, and there are some people might have the same parts. the same case but I can guarantee like it doesn't look anything like mine and I think that's cool and it kind of goes back to when I was a kid like I don't know

what it was I just I've always had a fascination with stickers like I had my entire room plastered in stickers I just stickers everywhere and I would put stickers all over my notebooks and yeah that's so yeah I think customizing your PC is is a fun little way to to make it unique make of your own because you know at the end of the day they're all the same you know computer part was kind of like you know it is what it is um if you know it's you know it's it's not like a requirement i guess to make it your own but i just personally i find it very refreshing when when i look at my pc and i you know i realize oh there's there's no other

pc that looks like mine it's pretty cool it's it's mine and i think that's cool I agree. I haven't actually, because he sticker-bombed his case at work when I was an intern. I said I stick around my H-500 I. And I loved it. And then this new one, I kept clean because it's a brand-new white. I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't stick around because I want to show off the white. But you know what?

I agree. Add the personality to that. There's so many white pieces out there. Like, throw on some stickers, you know? And then I'm putting in some, like, you know, stickers that I love. and stuff like that on it so I'm very excited a lot of brewery stickers that uh I do I forgot to tell you I should take a picture of this next time I'm at the office but um my new my new office PC I actually with the marker I just wrote free PC on it

because I got it for free and I just thought that would be a fun way to uh to customize my PC yeah we got uh we got some good free PCs yeah oh you know what I should also show off the fun part about my side pan. Throw it off, I'll see what you got. Yeah. So I'm going to take out the side panel. So when I got this PC, I moved up here to Seattle. I moved up here to Seattle.

So I left California. And when I got to do PC, oops. Oops. When I got to do PC, I was like, hey, I need a new PC to replace it. And they decided to do a little gift for me. And they went ahead and signed it.

A lot of them signed it. You can see Ivan's right here. I think Laurence is somewhere. I can't remember. Oh, there's Eugene. There's Kevin. Oh, Kevin's here. Lawrence right here.

Calvin's here. Jim's here. So a lot of cool people signed it. I like how I like how mine is the biggest and right in the middle. Yep, right in the middle. The most important. Yeah, it's split, sorry. But it's just all the cool signatures on it.

I thought that was such an awesome thing. I was like, you know what? I absolutely love this thing. And that I think has a lot of personality to care about to think. And it's not like so overtly like there too, you know. Yeah, now it's your own. Like there's no other, there's no other PC in the world like yours because it's,

it's unique. And I think that's cool. Exactly. All right. Next one. I think a lot of people have talked about this, but re-applying thermal paste. If your CPU's running unnecessary hot, really simple.

If your temps, let's say, let's see, let's see what my temps are. now. So these are my attempts right now. I got 40 degree CPU and 33 your GPU. If your thing, if it's usually 40 on idle and all of a sudden it's like 60, go ahead, reapply some thorough paste. It makes it real simple. It does not take long. You know, you just turn off the PC, make sure power supplies off. Everything's unplugged. Unscrew. Wipe it off with ice purple alcohol, I think it is. Um, get rid of that and then put out some new ones. Done. All right, put up, put up the cam, the camtamps again, and then load up Minecraft with shaders. My crowd shedders and blow it up. Yes, I have, I have a CD and E drive. I have, my C drive is just for my windows, D drive is for Steam, and then my E drive is just everything that I've ever used for anything downloading for footage or anything like that. But yes, super easy.

Just do it. This side of throw this one also in as well. It says, I'll read yours, Ivan, because I think the last one I think you want to read is a piece to use nzc cam. If you have any nzzyc parts in your PC, like where you have right here, you can see you can monitor your attempts or hw monitor or msi after burner are great ways to monitor your tips. Monitor your attempts. That's the best way to figure out if you're having any issues. You utilize some like scanning software to make sure. that you're running well so you can see my rams at 36 percent my CPU is running at pretty good

temperatures if i'm sorry to notice temperatures are going really high or the load's going crazy yeah oh yeah here uh hw info 64 instead of hw monitor uh oh yes yes thank you but uh yeah you don't have to use nzdhc cam if you don't want to exactly but uh there's tons of tools out there i I like spec-y as well. It's like a very simple tool that just tells you like all your PC specs, uh, and easy to read,

uh, display. So just, yeah, you just want to make sure that you have, you have as much information about your, your specs and the performance and all that as possible. And it also looks pretty cool.

I think it's cool to like, have, uh, Like for the longest time, I used to have a four monitor set up. Ooh! And I know. And the only reason I had that is because I wanted, it was three monitors, but then I was like, I want one monitor that just shows me my temp.

And on that monitor, yeah, I literally just had like a screen just telling me like, well, the temps were of my components. And I felt like a hacker every time I was on there. All right. And now we're going to the final. tip. I'll go ahead. You can go ahead and read something I read yours.

All right. Final tip of the day. Set up a customized keyboard shortcut for frequently used folders or applications. This can save you time by quickly accessing what you need with a simple key combination, boosting your productivity. And yeah, this is an awesome tip. I use keyboard shortcuts, I think, for like every, single thing that I do online. Even like if I'm switching through tabs on my browser, I use control and in the number for the tab. Alt tabbing all the time, especially in gaming, you know,

you're chatting with your friends. You can tab into the chat and things like that. It's just super convenient to know those shortcuts and it's faster than, you know, dragging a mouse and clicking and selecting something from a drop-down menu or whatever. Like, it might not seem like you're saving a lot of time, but, you know, it adds up quick, especially if you're on your computer a lot. You want to just, you know, it's, honestly, it is kind of daunting sometimes to figure out all these different

keyboard shortcuts or to like program keys on your keyboard to, do certain things but it's worth the effort trust me you will you will love hitting uh control shift s take a screenshot instead of clicking the start menu and looking for the screenshot tool it's so much easier and faster uh also a great way uh this is actually something i learned because i always did control alt delete then clicking task manager instead of just doing that you can just directly pull it up doing control shift escape and it'll just pull it up immediately so keyboard shortcuts straight up can save so much time if you're using a keyboard shortcut once or like once every five to 10 minutes over the course of like a month or two that's a lot of time you could just done done easy

i had my taxpayer trip into my start you don't need a pin into your start just do control shift escape and you just pull it up uh I think that's it for the given questions. Well, I guess I'll give the best, the best keyboard shortcut is to hit the shift key five times really fast. Shift key five times very fast. Yes. Shift key five times really fast and have fun with that one. Alt enters very good.

Alt tab is also great too. Go through all your stuff like that is also really nice. hitting the shift key five times really fast that's a good way to trick your friends if your friend ever leaves their PC on and you want to mess with them just hit the shift key five times really fast and they will go berserk figuring out what the heck is going on with their PC control R is probably the most common one I use because I can not only launch a number programs but can also update oh yeah you also upload directory and app data yep I know that one Windows tab

With X plus you plus What is that one? Alt F4 It's a great way to double your FPS in games Oh Jules Come on man Can't do that to them Actually that's a good one

Jewel We're gonna tweet that one later Right in a dead Yeah right Write that down put that spitballs All right I think that's it for the things Do you have any other ones

You want to go through Ryvin Um, no, I think we have some pretty good tips here from the community. So thank you to everyone who submitted tips. We will be announcing the winner of the Pucci Plush in the Discord server later today. As well as the winners of the NVXT swag giveaway for the podcast here. And I know, I guess we're coming at the end. So we need a secret word for the podcast giveaway. and I think I have it.

Oh, I, oh, don't worry. Don't worry. I, I have it. Oh, okay. You already have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Check to, check the gleam. I just want to make sure I spell it right.

Okay, first. Also, if you guys want to do, do you guys want to do another one of these down the road? If you guys are interested, just let me know in the chat right now. If you guys want to do like a part two, like an extra one, I don't know if you guys want to do again. We can also do another giveaway for another poochie as, well um because i feel like so i remember i forgot who said it but uh oh forbidden forbidden forbidden

rose you said you're johnny stuff down you know i feel like we could probably bring us some more question more uh more coat or more uh tips to bring to you guys yeah maybe um for the next one i could actually uh show how to use the leaf blower to clean your pc you could do that destroy my fans oh yeah heck heck yeah it helps people like me who are starting up my PC learning journey. Best of luck, Rose, best of luck. You got this. It's going to be such a fun time. Building your first one is super daunting, but so fun. Forbidden Rose, I don't know if you're in our Discord server, but if you're not up in there

and there's tons of helpful people like Pallinius here who loves to, you know, answer questions and point people in the right direction. Yep. All righty. First, I'll go into announcements and then I'll give the the code word at the end for the Glean giveaway. So stay tuned. So hold off for just a second, guys. I'll get you guys that code. So first, we just update our Cracken Coolers.

We updated the Cracken Base and the Cracken Elite with new GIF functions and web integration functions. Take a look at NZC.com to check out the Cracking Base and the Cracking Elite and all their other sub-variants of like the 240, 280-360-millimeter radiators. We just launched a creator of PPC series. We just launched a creator one and a creator one Prime PC. These PCs are literally made for creators. You know, if you are 3D rendering, video editing, simulations, scientific computations, programming.

These PCs are crazy. So nzxy.com slash creator PC or nzxc.com. I think I also have a command of chat. There you. There's a command of chat as well to take a look at the creator PCs. We are also doing a creator PC giveaway. By the way, guys, if you guys want to go to our Twitter, just go to NST on Twitter and then find our PIN tweet.

We were giving away a creative PC worth $4,99. We're giving this to one of you, global, to one of you for free. This is, and I was telling this last time, I think this is probably one of the biggest giveaways that we specifically, not like anyone else, we specifically are giving away. This is a $5,000 PC, guys. Definitely definitely definitely giveaway ends today so if you haven't entered do yourself a favor go enter and Get that secret word in the Discord server in a giveaway's channel and get a bunch of bonus entries and good luck

Yeah, can it handle sim for mods? I don't know. I don't think it can handle Crisis, so I don't know if it can handle Sims for may not even be able to handle Minecraft on high Alrighty, so for those are here for the I see is someone and oh nightbot just sent it uh we were giving way a hoodie a sticker a shirt and a sticker in lanyard pack to those that are listening this is our thank you for those that are joining in because you know we love having you guys here um and you know just interacting with us in the chat so there is a special code there for the uh gleam giveaway uh it is for secret entries 500 extra entries and majority time when we pull winners they tend to be the winners from these things so the code

And I think everyone kind of has to agree that this has to be the code. The code is don't eat thermal paste. Code is don't eat thermal paste. That is the code for 500 extra entries. That's our way saying thank you guys for doing this line. Yes. Thank you guys for doing this live because I think legally we have to say don't eat thermal paste, but we also can say legally or allegedly talk, uh, thermal paste is not.

toxic and we're not lawyers either yes don't know what you guys are going to do with that information but yeah don't eat it what about vegan thorough face no no just don't eat the thorough face guys the forbidding goger oh that's a throw that the spitballs Ivan that's that's a good one forbidding all righty thank you guys for joining us tune in live a Friday at 1080 specific time on the official nCC twitch and don't get to listen to previous episodes on oh zelda apple podcast google podcast spotify sound cloud and please leave us a positive review if you like what you hear or if you didn't got any question for us email podcast at nzc or tag at nzxc on social media platforms if you guys want to do another one of this uh go ahead and uh join our discord discord

dot gg slash ndxc i feel like we got to do another part two maybe in the next two to three weeks or so um and we'll give out some more stuff so discord dot gg slash njxd and thank you guys for joining us bye everyone