Most people don’t realize that there is more to keeping a computer cleaned up than getting rid of viruses, spyware, and buildup of temporary files. You also need to keep your computer physically clean. Dirt buildup is a common killer of computers, especially in dirty environments. Keeping your computer clean will not only extend its life, but will also improve its performance.
Basic Cleaning
All computers, including towers, desktops and laptops, etc, have fans that try to keep the computer’s internal components cool so that they can run properly and efficiently. Over time, the system fans and cooling grids will get filled up with dust and dirt, which will eventually cause overheating. This overheating will cause the components to cook or nuke themselves more or less, making them inoperable.
Comparing this situation with cars, this would be like you driving your car with a blanket over the radiator on a hot summer day, or even worse, driving your car with no coolant in the radiator until the engine dies and the car stops dead in its tracks.
For basic cleaning, you can buy cans of compressed air to regularly blow dirt out of the system fans and the vents on a regular basis. The more dirty your environment, the more often your computer should be physically cleaned.
Advanced Cleaning
The best way to clean your computer, in addition to the previous notes, is to open it up and blow it all out once a year. It’s better to perform this kind of cleaning outside in good weather or in a basement or shop, not in the house, because lots of debris will blow around!
Where towers and desktops are concerned, cleaning inside is pretty simple. You’ll want to blast air through the system fans that you see, especially the fan on the motherboard (circuit board) that’s sitting on a metal cooling grid. It may be full of dirt, similar to consistency of dryer lint, and you’ll want to blow that out so that you can see the cooling grid through the fan.
You’ll also want to blast air through the power supply, the square metal box in the upper-back of the tower. You should blast air through the back where the fan is and also blast air into the air grids on that power box inside the computer. Finishing up, you can blast the remnants of dirt out of the rest of the case. After cleaning, close up the computer and set it back up.
Where laptops are concerned, it’s best not to take apart a laptop or portable computer unless you really have to. Your best bet is to regularly blow out all of the vents, fans and ports that you can see with canned air on a regular basis, as well as the keyboard itself.
I realize that many of you may not feel comfortable doing this, so you can contact me for a house call and I can clean your computer for you.
Super Cleaning
For a really dirty computer, it may take a number of cans of air to clean it out thoroughly, so you can also clean the inside of the computer with an air compressor if you have one, but you have to be careful. I suggest tuning its pressure down to 160 PSI or lower, even 80 PSI will do the job. Keep the air nozzle farther away from the circuit board than you would with canned air, just in case the air is strong enough to blow off or bend components.
I know that most of you probably don’t have air compressors, so you can contact me for a house call. I can come and pick up your computer, bring it back to my man cave, and clean your computer with my own air compressor.
One More Tip: Lift It Up
If your computer sits on the floor, I suggest sitting it on some sort of sturdy plastic box, plastic milk crate, or maybe making a wooden box of some sort to sit it on. When a computer sits on the floor, it literally acts like a vacuum cleaner and sucks in all of the debris that floats along the floor from traffic and pets, etc. If you keep the tower at least 12 inches off the floor, it will greatly reduce the amount of dirt and debris that gets sucked into it over time.
