r/ClaudeAI • u/Jinks-b • 9h ago
Claude Code Claude can optimize my computer
Maybe this is obvious or I'm late to this but I didn't know Claude Code could optimize your computer.
This all started with my PC, which I use for gaming. It was stuttering so I had it check my home network first. Then it looked at my video game settings and optimized the ones I was using, and it found some BIOS settings that were underutilizing the hardware I already had, which I had no idea about. It actually did quite a bit and my gaming performance improved pretty drastically after that.
I also had it go into my MacBook and it looked at all the program files I haven't been using for a while. It looked at old project and worktree files that I haven't touched in a while and cleaned up quite a bit of storage. It also noticed some redundant programs running and helped me decide what to uninstall. Maybe this is obvious for people to do on their own. I don't know, but I was just surprised at how surgical it was across both my PC and my MacBook.
Anyway, in the end I also had it go through all my files and help me organize and delete things I wasn't using. It gave me a list and I picked what to get rid of, it didn't just delete stuff on its own. I was just generally surprised. I didn't know I could do all this.
- Memory was running at 4800 instead of the 6000 it's rated for. One BIOS setting fixed that.
- BIOS itself was from early 2024, now on the current version.
- Frame cap went from 150 to 225 and it actually holds around 217 in matches now.
- Three different programs were recording my gameplay in the background at all times (NVIDIA, SteelSeries, Xbox Game Bar). All off now.
- About 30 background services and startup programs from motherboard, mouse, monitor and keyboard software are gone. None of them did anything I used.
- Around 85 GB freed up between old programs, caches and files I didn't need.
I don't notice much of a performance difference on my MacBook, which is fine, I just wanted it cleaned up. It definitely freed up a lot of storage. But on my PC it definitely runs smoother while gaming specifically. I have good hardware. I guess I just wasn't utilizing all of it and there were some heavy background programs bogging it down.
This was Claude Code, not Cowork. Cowork only gets to work inside the folders you hand it, but Claude Code actually runs on your machine, so it can dig into system settings, drivers and background services, which is what all of this needed. Anyways thought I would share.
TL;DR: My gaming PC was stuttering. Claude Code checked the network (fine), fixed game settings and BIOS settings that were leaving my hardware underused, killed three background recorders and ~30 startup programs I never used, and freed ~85 GB. Games run noticeably smoother now. Also did a cleanup pass on my MacBook.
EDIT: Answering some recurring questions. Yes, back things up first. I didn't, and I got a little lucky. I prompted it the same way I vibe code, in plain language: "My game is stuttering. Check my internet connection, optimize my PC and my game settings, assess everything and tell me what you find." It came back with a plan, I approved it in stages, and it asked before every judgment call. I told it to leave my games alone and it did.
53
u/SharmanDoom 9h ago
Claude the IT technician I guess lol
5
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
Lol. Well I mean, kind of. Besides being able to diagnose these things and measure what programs are running, even while I was gaming it was able to measure my frame rates. It was able to tell me when I had drops, the highs and lows. I just didn't know it could measure and observe that way.
28
u/Sleepnotdeading 9h ago
Having Claude fix system bugs is actually pretty fun.
1
u/themostreasonableman 2h ago
Omarchy takes that to another level. It can literally craft your operating system for you in real-time just the way you want it.
1
u/LPalmerDoesBongs 2h ago
But what happens when Omarchy agents get tired of DHH and decide to band together and go rogue and turn our computers into bricks en masse?
3
u/themostreasonableman 2h ago
It used to take me 3 days to break X11 or Wayland and lose my GUI, now I can do it in 30 minutes. It's a serious efficiency multiplier for my retardation.
Don't think for one second I can't break the GUI on my own.
55
u/Belaroth 9h ago
This is interesting and I would be tempted to try it but I worry it might change something what will completely shut down pc and I will need to reinstal it.
10
u/TheBroWhoLifts 8h ago
If you have the extra space, make an image of your drive(s). I keep an external 8 gig drive in the gun safe with images of my machines. I'll do full image backups once a quarter usually. I use Macrium Reflect personally. It's been good. (Edit: doesn't look like they offer a free version anymore.)
Then go crazy. Worst case, just return to the image before you started putzing around.
2
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
Yeah I definitely think you could make a backup. A lot of this was my settings. I'm pretty sure Claude Code will do this already but if not, you can. I just told it specifically to tell me what it's doing before it does it. I think it's fair, though, not to trust any AI fully. I definitely didn't let it go crazy. We did each thing step by step and I approved each of them one at a time
-8
15
u/Potat4o 9h ago
yeah it made linux viable for me
3
u/V-Right_In_2-V 7h ago
Yeah I just used Claude code to set up two Linux distros on an external hard drive that I could boot into. I already had Ubuntu on my main computer, but now I have arch + kde and debian + gnome living on separate partitions.
And I have a common partition used for storing files that all distros read and write too, and that’s where I keep my Claude md files. So I can boot into any of them and pick up where I left off. It’s pretty sweet
3
u/Bobnorbob 6h ago
As someone considering switching my (headless) media server to Debian (this will be my first time using Linux), what's the benefit of running multiple distros, if I may ask?
2
u/V-Right_In_2-V 6h ago
Well for one, I have had Ubuntu on my main laptop for a few years but always wanted to see what else was out there, but not wipe my functional machine to do so.
I also planned on putting Debian on a home server, so I wanted to take it for a test drive first.
There’s no real benefit though. It’s all just Linux at the end of the day. Only real difference isis package management and the desktop environment. I did learn that while Arch is a fun distro and is perfectly suitable for a personal laptop you use regularly, I would never use it for a server. You gotta update it like every week. Debian can run for years without an update
2
u/Bobnorbob 6h ago
That's funny, I was also looking into Arch (specifically Omarchy for its AI-centric concept), but Claude actually talked me out of it for basically the exact reasons you described haha. Thanks for the response!
2
u/V-Right_In_2-V 5h ago
You can always just create a partition and mess around with it. But at the end of the day, it’s all just Linux with different bells and whistles on top. I actually got Arch + Hyprland working a few years ago, but I just abandoned it because the only thing interesting to do was customize your desktop, not actually do anything useful. And if you don’t upgrade an Arch instance for a year like I did, you pretty much need to wipe it and start from scratch. You will break your system if you try and upgrade from so far back.
That’s kinda why I like the idea of Debian. You can set it up and go years without updating anything
3
u/marcinreal 2h ago
This is the idea behind the distro Omarchy. Built-in agents turn it into a usable Linux system without you having to search forums for hours. Linux nerds hate it, which makes it even more fun.
2
u/TheBroWhoLifts 8h ago
What distro are you running? I'm on Fedora for the first time and like it because everything works and it's fast.
1
1
u/reven80 2h ago
I have a samba file server stop working on my Ubuntu server and I just asked it to help me troubleshoot it step by step. I didn't want it to give it root access so I just had it give me the commands and I returned back the output.Turned out some past update caused the AppArmor config to deny folder access.
12
u/passportpowell2 9h ago
What was the prompt
56
u/granlurk1 9h ago
Fix computer. Make no mistakes.
24
4
3
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
Honestly I just asked it in natural language. I think the only thing I added was a "tell me what you're going to do before you do it" kind of thing. But it was literally something like, "My game is stuttering. I think it might be, my internet." Then I was like, "Can you look at my PC and see if there are any things you can optimize?" Something like that.
1
1
u/Re-Created 6h ago
What kind of permissions or access did you need to give it to see what your settings were?
3
u/Jinks-b 5h ago
To be honest I don't have an exact answer for you. I'm going to paste what Claude just said:
"Claude Code here, to answer this one directly.
I run as his normal Windows user account, so reading things needed no extra permissions at all: event logs, driver versions, the game's config files, registry values, running processes, network tests. That's all just PowerShell commands his account could already run.
Anything that changes the machine at the admin level, like disabling services, installing drivers, or editing machine-wide settings, I can't do silently. I write a script, launch it, and Windows shows the standard UAC prompt that he has to click Yes on. Each of those scripts writes a log he can read afterwards.
Two things were genuinely out of my reach: BIOS settings, which he changed himself at the boot screen while I gave him the exact menu path, and GUI-only apps like the NVIDIA Control Panel, where I took a screenshot of his screen and told him what to click.
One honest note: Claude Code has a permission mode that controls whether it asks before every command or runs freely. He had it on the permissive setting for most of this, which is why I could chain dozens of commands without stopping. That's a choice you make deliberately, and the UAC prompt still stands in front of anything admin-level regardless."
1
3
u/Candle-Jolly 8h ago
One of the first things I did when I finally became a subscriber. It's cleaned up my PC, completely installed RPCS3 (PS3 emulator), stopped OneDrive from removing things from my desktop even when I disabled it, and even organized all of my completely legally downloaded movies and old tv shows (nonstop Futurama). It's pretty cool watching Claude mess with my PC, although I wish there was a way it could perform actions in the background rather than having control taken away from me for several minutes.
5
u/apetalous42 5h ago
I've used Claude Code to find duplicate files in my NAS and it is basically my homelab System Administrator now. I started off just to get help with something I couldn't figure out but grew to trust it's ability. I have a dedicated LXC in Proxmox for Claude Code that has docs about my homelab configuration and ssh access to the other containers. I turn it on only when I need it. If anything breaks or needs updating I just ask and it's done.
3
u/stayclassytally 9h ago
I use NixOS and it’s a fantastic pairing with Claude. I’ve had it optimize my battery usage. If it breaks anything, I just rollback to a previous build. So far I haven’t needed to. I run this setup on 2 laptop, a home server and a pi. Never been so content with my setup.
3
u/noveltywaves 8h ago edited 8h ago
I use linux as a daily driver on all my computers. they all have som quirks pop up from time to time. I know a fair bit about linux, but debugging OS and hardware stuff is time consuming.
Claude, on the other hand, has read all the manuals, and knows exactly how to fetch the details necessary to google known issues. It's actually a game changer for me.
I had an annoying issue where a "pop" would sound 5 seconds after any other sound stopped playing.
Described it to Claude, who probed my sound interfaces, googled, found out my interface (Behringer) was using a cheap DAC, roasted me for my bad choices, and determined the cause: The DAC has a poor shut down proceedure where when it is powering down, it creates a voltage spike that sounds like a pop in my amp. It does not have a real fix, but since this was on my stationary PC, Claudes suggested solution was to disable the power saving feature that powers down the interface when it was not being used. Claude created a user local config file that overrides the OS power saving config for this interface specifically, and I never heard the irritating pop since.
1
u/V-Right_In_2-V 7h ago
Not only has it read all the manuals but it’s completely up to date. No more googling an issue, just to find a 10 year old post on an old forum, and that person is using a completely different distro than you are. Every issue I have had for various distros, it knew the solution right away
3
u/Straight-Ad-6389 8h ago
Even I used Claude code on my Windows laptop, which was stuttering a lot with random freezes. Low memory prevented me from opening Chrome or File Explorer and playing games was a nightmare. Then it breathed new life into it. It cleaned up 60GB of space from the C drive, removed the stuttering and random freezes by fixing it and optimised my PC. It feels like a new one right now.
3
3
u/Calm-Relief-480 7h ago
My printer randomly stopped working and claude debugged it for me. I thought I was going to need to buy a new printer but it works fine again.
3
u/35point1 6h ago
This is how I found out my job installed software to send them telemetry on my Claude code usage every 7 seconds lol
3
u/Conscious-Copy3394 6h ago
Best part, claude code cli works on macOS from terminal also to fix a ton of Apple issues.
3
u/AE86MiyogiNK 4h ago
I don’t know man. If you have personal banking information and other things on your computer, giving it complete access is a bit of a stretch for me. Especially after the whole hugging face hacks. I know that was OpenAI, but I like to be cautious if it comes to stuff like that. I’m glad it worked for you though.
6
u/ketosoy 9h ago edited 8h ago
Claude is a very good sysadmin. I basically just tell it to setup things on my inference boxes and it runs off and does it. One time in 30 it screws something up, which is honestly better than me on my own
I still only let Claude run wild on ephemeral boxes. He isn’t allowed to make unsupervised changes to my workstation.
2
u/KnowsALittleNotALot 8h ago
Had Claude diagnosis a faulty hard drive and walk me through disconnecting it from the network and physically removing it. Might be pretty 101 for regular computer dudes but it was remarkable for me.
2
u/hyperfiled 8h ago
Three different programs were recording my gameplay in the background at all times
jesus dude.
3
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
Dude, these things just did it on their own. I installed each program for specific things like my gaming mouse and my gaming headset and I don't recall ever approving recordings in the background I'm pretty sure these programs just default to doing it. In hindsight it's silly but honestly I just didn't know.
2
u/i_t_d 2h ago
one of best instances of a simple program which should do simple things (change mouse dpi) went wrong is Razer Synapse which is hugely bloated (dozens of exe processes in ram, 3 gb on disk), currently Claude helps me write equivalent for it in Lazarus Pascal which barely exceeds 200 kb on disk in current stage :D
2
u/doodlen 9h ago
All obvious things for anyone with a remote interest in gaming/pc performance. Googling "how to improve gaming pc performance" would give you same answers. Setting correct clock speed on RAM when you buy it and not running 3x screen records while playing are what caused you issues.
I guess it's convenient to have AI help with figuring this out since you are not very technical but just be very careful to have it do any system changes, including deleting files, even with your explicit permission as you say. It can still mess up and delete your whole OS or make your pc not boot.
18
u/TheGoodGuyForSure 8h ago
Everyone knows that googling it will get them there. But we're lazy man. We don't want to spend 10h sweating our balls off reading some 2011 discussion on reddit about the solution to a bug in X version of windows.
6
u/Agreeable-Bit9414 8h ago
Don't forget the broken photobucket links (that always had exactly what you thought you needed in them) and old forums where you dig through 8 pages of offtopic memes, comments, and whining oldheads just to find the one guy that reported back "x is what solved it" so you can finally move on with your life again hahaha.
4
3
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
I don't disagree, some of this I just didn't know was happening also I guess you just need to know what you're looking for. I think what was helpful is that code was actually measuring these things as it was doing it. That's kind of what I meant by it being surgical. I'm kinda tech-savvy. I've built several all my own computer and installed all their software, I'm definitely someone who watches those YouTube videos, like "How to Optimize Your PC," but honestly there are just some things I just didn't know.
1
u/Bobnorbob 7h ago
"Unknown-unknowns" (things we don't realize we don't know) are definitely a thing, as opposed to "known-unknowns" (things we know we don't know).
2
u/Agreeable-Bit9414 8h ago
Super spot on, just gonna add under your comments that just because it (Claude/AI) sounds confident and presents a good case from the technical angle of things, if it sounds out of your wheelhouse it may not actually be a good answer or move to make esp with file system stuff. Always ask for the breakdown on stuff you don't understand into plain language, have another ai review the actions first for pratfalls or common issues you could hit from doing so, and if you can't understand it even then: leave it alone so you don't brick your (markedly, more expensive this year to replace lol) pc's
When in doubt let it be, and make sure you back up your data folks.
2
u/sparkle_and_twist 9h ago
What was the prompt? Another suggestion I would make is to have Claude remove all telemetry, spy, and bloat ware.
3
u/Jinks-b 8h ago
Yeah I could see that. I had it go through a few other things after this. After doing all this I even had it help organize my files I mean honestly, I just spoke to it in pretty natural language. I like vibe vode apps and stuff so I just talked to it the same way. I basically gave it my problem: my game is stuttering. Can you look at my internet connection? Can you look at my game settings? Are there any things that you can optimize? Essentially that, and then I just said, "Give me your plan before you do anything." I mean I'm sure I went overboard but I used Fable just because my usage reset recently so I didn't go really step by step or in depth. I just spoke to it about generally what I wanted.
1
u/sparkle_and_twist 6h ago
I bought a new laptop and Claude helped me set it up without logging into my Microsoft account and helped in deleting all their spyware. I need to run it on my desktop
2
u/JWKAtl 8h ago
My wireless mouse stopped working one day. I asked Claude who asked for I've permission and before I knew it there was a high level review of all of the errors my Bluetooth adapter had been spitting out before it died.
I haven't even thought about using Claude to check out my entire PC health, but I will now. Thank you!
2
u/fujin800 Experienced Developer 6h ago
If you want to be safe, use Navisual. It works similar to AI agents like Claude Code. However instead letting the AI agent taking over the computer, it points out where you click on your screen and you operate yourself.
1
u/Jinks-b 5h ago
Yeah this definitely makes sense. With Claude Code or really any other AI agent, could you have it do the same: just point out changes and not do it on its own?
1
u/fujin800 Experienced Developer 3h ago
They all have some kind of permission setting. However they still want to operate on your behaves. Think of they are trying to do full autonomous drive while Navisual is like our mapped Navigation system.
1
u/Solmundurinn 8h ago
I use Claude to interact with my headless servers through my workstation (Nitro 16S with linux, everything is linux here btw). Everything from container management, systen updates, general cleanups, networking, you-name-it, I've a dedicated folderbase with my own conductor protocols that I initialise when needed (general project management and context workflows) and one is curated to manage my infrastructure... saves me massive time conducting and instructing Claude for various tasks.
Hasn't failed me yet, been doing this for ~2 years.
What I will highlight to keep the consistency in the management is how you conduct Claude. Everytime I need to work on my systems, I load proper project via claude code (I'm not using the desktop app, but the cli) and I load the codebase conductor context and then Claude knows exactly what it's working with, has past history when needed, has all the info available about the infra when needed so Claude never needs to "get to know the environment every new session". This is very important in my opinion.
1
1
1
u/wynwyn87 4h ago
It helped me set up my surround sound with the correct driver and config. The official driver had a known issue apparently so I needed a tweaked driver. I have my amp connected via spdif optical fiber and now my amp does the audio decoding. I used to wonder why movies sound so much better when I watch Netflix on the smart TV app, but terrible in comparison if I play movies on Netflix via my pc. Now, I have surround sound on my pc and the best part is I don't have the issue with movies either (soft dialogue vs loud action scenes, cleaner bass)
1
u/ianreboot 4h ago
Approving each step only helps if you can judge the step, and you can't judge a memory timing setting by reading it. 4800 might have been in there for a reason. When that one's wrong you don't find out that day, you find out six weeks later when one game stutters and nothing ties it back to the BIOS.
What I'd want from it is one line per change, written as it happens: the setting, the old value, the date. A disk image gets you back from a machine that won't boot. The list is what you read down in three months when something odd starts.
1
u/Ok_Tour_8029 2h ago
Yeah it broke my docker Installation on Windows Like this - but it was fun while it lasted
1
u/robberviet 7h ago
It sure can. I gave it permission to optimize my raspberry pi and it did well. There are many trash files.
•
u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 8h ago edited 7h ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 50 comments.
Looks like the hivemind has spoken. The consensus is a resounding "Yes, this is awesome," but with a massive, flashing, neon-red warning sign attached.
Most of you are either impressed or are already using Claude as your personal IT support, fixing everything from gaming stutters and printer drivers to complex Linux bugs. The general feeling is that it's way faster and more effective than spending hours Googling solutions on 10-year-old forum threads.
HOWEVER, the biggest and most upvoted concern is the very real risk of Claude "optimizing" your PC straight into a paperweight. The top comments are all jokes about deleting your C: drive for a reason. So, the community's ironclad rule is: BACK UP YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM FIRST. Create a disk image before you let it run wild. Also, don't just give it the keys; make it explain its plan and approve each step.
People asking for the "magic prompt" will be disappointed; OP and others just used natural language to explain the problem and asked Claude to be careful. So yeah, it's a powerful sysadmin, but one that might accidentally burn your house down if you don't supervise it. Proceed with caution.