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Cleaning Your Computer

You may have arrived at this page because you want to:

1. Physically clean the computer i.e. dust
2. Remove rubbish files and infections on your hard drive. If so, follow the link to "Cleaning the Rubbish"

Cleaning Desktops of Dust

The effect of this dust is that air vents clog up restricting air flow. Temperature inside the computer may rise and the computer may overheat damaging components and causing software freezes and dropouts.

If you have a desktop computer, you should once a year take a look inside and if a dust build up exists, remove the dust with a vacuum cleaner (carefully of course). You should particularly inspect the fan that sits on top of the CPU for dust build up (see picture below). You might have already noticed that the CPU fan seems to run faster and louder on hotter days than it did before. This could be because the dust in the cooling vanes is restricting air flow and the fan is not as effective in keeping your CPU cool. There are three ways to clean the dust off the CPU:

1. You can detach the fan from the cooling vanes that sit on top of the CPU and use an old tooth brush or some other small brush to gently brush away dust and use vacuum cleaner to remove.
2. You can purchase a can of compressed air and blow the dust out. This is a more expensive solution as compressed air in a can is not cheap.
3. You can leave the fan on top of the CPU cooling vane, but pick at the dust clogging it with a tooth pick, or a very small screwdriver, or some other small sharp tool. Then as you dislodge the clumps of dust, just vacuum it away. This "operation" is done through the blades of the fan. You can get most of the dust away using this method which is quite quick and no expense.

The picture to the right shows the build of dust in the heat sink which sits on top of the CPU. If this heat sink clogs badly with dust, the CPU may overheat and be damaged.

Cleaning Laptops of Dust

If you have a laptop, it is not a good idea to disassemble in order to remove the dust. In this case try to dislodge the dust from around the fan by using a can of compressed air, usually costs around $10. Yes, fairly expensive, but much cheaper than a dead computer.