Question About Hardware.

I was wondering what exactly hurts hardware? As long as I don't overclock or mess with the BIOS (and not go at it with a hammer) it should be fine, right? Lets say, I have a computer for two years. And then when it starts to slow down due to multiple driver/game/patch installations I decide to do a full system restore. Should it perform the same as if it were new? I am basically asking that aside from normal wear and tear from use, software-such as video drivers- will not affect the hardware in any way?

I am asking because I recently screwed up an ATI driver install, so I did a recovery (from the HP recovery partition) and I was wondering if it should perform the same with no problems.

Your hardware doesn't get 'damaged' from nornal use. Parts do have a lifespan and do fail. Overclocking can reduce that lifespan. There are some very rare viri that can disable your BIOS but so rare that it's nothing to worry about.

So, yes, after a format and reinstall your performance should return.

i agree, just keep your pc neat and tidy, defrag at least once a month and run disk cleanup and scandisk/diskcheck on regular basis and you be fine, i would also invest in a can of "air" from tandy or similar and give the inside of ya pc a good airdusting every few months paying particular attention to your processor cooler fan/fins and power supply fan to keep it dust free as to much dust and crap on ya cooler especially can make ya processor run to hot which aint good ;) and open the drawers of your cdrom drives and give a blast in those too ;) treat your pc as you would ya car and keep it maintained and you reduce the risk of things failing ;)

I would go to the library and check ou t computers for dummings im not kidding I found some great things in there that I found very informitive. Who says your freinds know everything .

I would like to add please defrag after adding or removing any programes. i like to use System mechanic my self but norton system works is good too . regcleaner or the like is also very usefull.But disk maintence is very important .