cleaning hardware @ machine speed

I agree.  One of those GPUs should have been CPU though.

installing a clean xp makes a pc or laptop quicker, but never qucker than it once was, as over time thing like the registry gets fragmented and detrius left in there making it slow and old apps and font's etc make windows slower

what do gears do?

what are gpus?

Can you please elaborate the below a little bit--
>>Well, if the gears in your pc are clean and well lubricated, it produces less friction and will run...what a bunch of BS...although it will help to prevent overheating
>> and may keep the gpu and or gpu from throttling back under over-temps and return a pc to normal function...it won't make it faster than it ever was.

:) really just kidding 'bout the gears and lube. A clean pc/parts is always a good idea for stable/reliable performance. Keeping dust out and maintaing good case ventilation, especially with modern cpus and gpus(thanx willcomp) that have thermal control. Good operating system maintenance is also important; spyware, antivirus, service packs/updates, disk defrag, etc. as IanTH indicates.
So in reality...a well maintained pc is faster than a poorly maintained pc, but that is because a poorly maintained pc slows down, not because a well maintained pc gets faster.
This is too early...have a good day all!
T

Don't forget to empty the bit bucket. :-)

I have a CPU micro-gear-sharpening machine I'd be glad to sell you -- comes with a free tube of special CPU Lube grease :)  
willcomp bought one and it's working well for him, so perhaps he can endorse it :) :)

Kidding aside, disassembling a machine and reassembling it can NOT cause it to run faster.  What it will do is remove any dust accumulation and improve the airflow, which will keep the system cooler and reduce the likelihood of heat-induced problems.   And to some extent this can help the "speed" -- modern processors, as noted above, have built-in thermal management which will, at very high temperatures, cause the processor to either slow down or shut down (depends on the specific processor and the temperature).

As stated above, a well-maintained PC will definitely run faster than a poorly maintained one.   But in this case, the "maintenance" we're referring to is keeping the registry "clean", being sure you have good antivirus and antispyware protection (and frequently cleaning out anything that escapes the real-time protection), keeping the OS up-to-date, defraging the hard drives, etc.    No greasing involved :)  :)

Assuming a PC is reasonably physically clean (dust bunnies and such removed) and has plenty of RAM, the single greatest speed improvement is a clean install of the OS from a retail or OEM CD, as opposed to a recovery CD with lots of shovelware.

Then install only needed applications and utilities.

Gary, hone is working fine ;-)

Understood.

>>Don't forget to empty the bit bucket. :-)

What is it?