Much needed maintenance on a Dell OptiPlex 9020MT

In this video I'm giving a 10‑year‑old Dell OptiPlex 9020MT desktop a full restoration after years of neglect. This machine came in still running Windows 7, packed with dust, old thermal paste and even a broken front USB port. It hadn’t been opened or maintained since 2019 — so it was long overdue for some serious attention. Since the 9020 can’t run Windows 11, I upgraded it to Windows 10 Pro and activated an ESU license to extend its supported lifespan. Along the way, I tore the system down, cleaned every component, replaced the front I/O panel, refreshed all the thermal paste (CPU, GPU, and even the Mellanox NIC), upgraded the optical drive to Blu‑ray, installed a 4TB game drive, and rebuilt the system from the ground up. 00:01:10 Wipe of dust from desktop 00:06:39 Inside look of the system 00:10:08 Teardown system 00:16:09 Removing the CPU Heatsink 00:22:44 Replacing the CMOS Battery 00:26:53 Cleaning thermal paste off the CPU 00:29:20 Cleaning thermal paste off the Heatsink 00:30:28 Re-pasting the CPU 00:40:27 Replacing thermal paste on Mellanox NIC 00:50:41 Replacing thermal paste on 1660Ti GPU 01:18:29 Upgrading the Optical Drive to a Blu-ray 01:32:09 Replacing front I/O Panel due to faulty USB 01:54:53 Connecting everything back up 02:18:45 Installing 4TB Game Hard Drive 02:20:01 More cable work inside the case 02:39:17 Installing GPU back into the system 02:44:36 Putting the Front Bezel back on 02:46:11 Booting into the BIOS 02:53:21 Resetting and configuring the BIOS 03:07:29 Installing Windows 10 Pro 03:22:49 Dealing with OneDrive 03:24:00 Tidying Windows 10 a bit 03:30:08 Downloading Drivers 03:38:07 Disabling Automatic Driver Updates 03:49:28 Installing Drivers 04:06:09 Doing Windows Updates 04:08:17 Changing some necessary settings 04:15:24 Installing Software and doing Windows Updates 04:54:16 Re-connecting the 4TB Game Drive