Servicing PC components

Hi All


I was wondering, how do the rest of you go about cleaning all the dust from the inside of your PC's. Not so long back i blew the fan on my CPU becoz i used a blower to get rid of the dust but im guessing somehow it must have gotten static, from the dust maybe ???

Anyway, was just curious.

How to clean a PC from the inside? I always use the fire hose

Nah just kidding... usually the vacuum cleaner works fine. Just make sure you don't kill any hardware (static electricity can damage hardware easily!). A good way to keep your system is by preventing dust from getting in (use filters to clean the air that gets sucked in).

I use a can of compressed air...never tried a vacuum cleaner before! But knowing me...*fzzzzzt*

Hi Slussh
I’ve used a vacuum cleaner for 40+ years to clean out the insides of all sorts of electronic equipment with the aid of a half inch paint brush and never lost a patient yet.
Be wary of just blowing the dust off as if it gets into the air and you inhale it can cause medical problems.
Just hold the nozzle close to the area you are cleaning and use the brush to sweep the dust towards it, depending how dusty your room is you should do it at least once or twice a year. Just leaving it alone causes the dust to pile up and it blankets components causing them to heat up and over stress possibly causing premature failure!

Thanks Guys


Maybe i should try using a vacuum cleaner instead of a blower, it will probably be much better since you stand less of a chance of blowing around static dust, but will take longer though.

I'll try that.

The safest method is using compressed air. I know quite a few folks who killed their computer using vaccums.

Suppose that is true but its worth a try, the blower i have is about 800watts so its quite strong, i must have gotten some dust in my CPU fan which caused itt to blow, it was quite a hot day aswell which is probably not a good time to do any sort of servicing.

I have been recommended not to use an ordinary household vacuum cos the belt inside the vacuum generates static charge and this moves down the plastic tube possibly having a charge at the end of the nozzle ready to discharge through components. Also - don;t use too much of that canned air - it might freeze some components and cause joints to crack if they contract too much.

air compressor with jet nozzle

So using a vacuum cleaner might not be the best idea then, i'll use my blower then, just scared i might damage the CPU fan, because its so strong. Are the Intel fans two ball bearing fans ?

What destroys fans is dust, too much load on the motors. The cpu's get cooked from
dust clogging the heat sink fins. Set your computer directly on dirty carpet and let it run 7/24, or keep a lot of dogs, cats and kids close by.

Cleaning dust? What a concept :P
By the way, using compressed air cans on computer fans is a very bad idea. It'll be spun to ludicrous speed and probably fry its electronics.

I get my fans spinning so fast they make a high pitched scream, I do it almost every week on some computer. The only fans that I see screw up are the ones allowed
to run clogged with dust. One compressor does 120 psi the other 160 psi, I
use common sense and don't blow anything out of it's sockets. We have one sign
letter business where computers control channel letter bender and cnc router,
they get dirty quick.

When I use compressed air on fans, I kinda stop them from spinning while I'm 'doing the business'. A screwdriver tip between the fins usually helps - I haven't killed anything (yet), and my case and CPU fans are pretty ancient!

But then again, like rbrtpl, I've used a can of air on same fans, and they've spun like crazy - like I said, no deaths (yet).

I guess it's a case of "whatever floats your boat" there!

When I haven't had access to a compressor, I have used an electric leaf blower,
quick as heck, just stand a little ways away, and do it outside.

Does a good job!

Like i said before, it must have been some static dust which just got into the fan and caused it to blow when i turned the power on, i just thought maybe all the pressure on the fan when blowing it might cause some damage to the bearings in the fan.

compressed air....

just do it like once every 6months and u shud be straight..