Articles & guides

Windows performance, explained honestly

Practical articles to read — from real sensor data, not recycled myths.

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Type a symptom, not a title. Matched by the problem each guide solves. Press Enter to open the top result.

Deep-dives on how AI changes what a system monitor can actually do. Long reads, real code, no fluff.

Top guides
Optimization

Services to disable

Read →

100% disk usage

Soon

Startup apps

Soon
Upgrades

Will this CPU fit?

Read →

RAM or SSD?

Soon
Featured guides
Processes

What is this process in Task Manager?

A familiar name proves almost nothing. Tell a real Windows process from malware by its path, signature and parent, with a reference table for svchost, RuntimeBroker and COM Surrogate.

Read the guide ->
Upgrades

Will this CPU work with my motherboard?

The socket matches and the PC still will not boot. The five layers of compatibility, the three traps a spec sheet hides, and the Compatibility Receipt that says "do not install yet" for a reason.

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Temperatures

What's a normal CPU temperature?

72°C while gaming is fine. The same 72°C at idle is a warning. Why one threshold for every PC is a myth — with per-workload reference table.

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Drivers

Ghost drivers: the hardware you removed years ago

Your old GPU's driver is still in Windows — hidden by Device Manager. How to find and remove ghosts with pnputil, step by step.

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Optimization

How to speed up a Windows PC without the usual myths

A useful order of work for startup apps, background processes, services, storage, RAM and temperatures.

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Services

Which Windows services can you turn off safely?

A conditional list, the 33-service no-touch guard and a reversible way to test every change.

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Health

Is my Windows PC healthy?

Five plain questions that separate a normal busy machine from a real problem, without a benchmark score.

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Memory

Why is my RAM usage so high?

Read Available memory and hard faults, then reclaim memory without killing the apps you use.

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Cooling

Why are my PC fans so loud?

Most fan noise is a twitchy curve chasing spikes, not real heat. Build a quiet curve that still cools, and cap it where more RPM stops buying degrees.

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Coming next
Disk

100% disk usage in Windows — the real causes

Indexing, diagnostics telemetry, antivirus scans. How to identify which one is eating your disk.

Coming soon
Startup

Startup programs: what's safe to disable

Boot impact ratings and the entries that quietly re-add themselves.

Coming soon
PSU

What 12V rail readings say about your power supply

Reading voltage rails like an engineer — spikes, sustained sag and what's physically normal.

Coming soon
These guides come from a real tool. PC Workman monitors temperatures per workload, finds ghost drivers and manages services automatically — free, open source, offline. Download it here.
MF

Marcin Firmuga

Solo developer · HCK_Labs · Guides grounded in PC Workman's sensor pipeline

I write these from what PC Workman's sensors actually show across real machines — including the 2014 laptop at 94°C this project started on.