Cleaning my PC

[Schliebe]

What is the best way to clean my PC without screwing something up? My desk is in my shop and I have a fairly new Dell. I have dust and lint showing around the disk slots and vent openings. Should I try to vacuum or blow air or what?

 

[PHiers]

Steve I would go with the vacuum. You don't want to blow the dust into the drives. I always remove the cover of the computer and use a vacuum that is made for electronics. (It has the small attachments that make it easy to clean.)
You will be amazed at the dust inside!
Make sure you vacuum out the power supply also. Most power supplies fail because of heat caused by being full of dust.

Paul

 

[John in MA]

I used to use a vacuum but it just didn't do the shop. I use shop air now. Probably do two computers a week this way without any trouble. Spend time on the power supply and around the vents. Blow from the inside of the machine out.

 

[rke[pler]

I use a vacuum to pick up the dust I blow off. The problem with using a vacuum is that they'll often build a pretty big static charge, and that's the last thing that you want when running the hose of the CPU heatsink.

It's a good idea to have things off during the process, and to be careful not to spin up the fans too much as you can ruin the motors and bearings. I try to clean a couple of times a year, and usually see about 5-10 degreeC lower temperatures after cleaning.

 

[N2IXK]

Another vote for shop air. Or at least a serious vacuum cleaner (Shop-Vac).

The little "computer vacs" just don't move enough air to remove the typical dust buoldup in a PC. I would avoid blowing dust into the CD/floppy drives, but there isn't much that will be damaged by blowing out with air. PCs tend to gather a LOT of dust.

Resist the temptation to spin up the fans with the airstream, though. Really hell on the bearings...

 

[Mike W]

I have pulled off the cover and used shop air before. I did it outside.

 

[JRouche]

I take the box down to the garage and blast it with compressed air. Hard drives are pretty sealed up. I do stay clear of tape, CD, DVD and floppy drives though. I have done it like this for 15-20 years. No problems.

Now, if you are in a humid environment make sure you are not spittin water out your compressor. If you are just make sure you dry the box thoroughly before plugging it in.

JRouche

 

[EPAIII]

As Mike said, if you remove the cover, shop air is a good way to blow it out. Be sure to blow the power supply out very well. And make sure all the fans are working while the cover is off.

Don't use 100+ PSI air in the removable disk drives. A can of dusting spray would be better here. Delicate stuff here.

Paul A.

 

[scphantm]

i used to work for canon on their tech support line. i actually had a caller that spilled the toner cartrige inside her laser printer and cleaned it in the shower. scrub brush, soap, the whole nine yards. then wanted to know if that was covered under warrenty.

 

[Jeremy]

I bought a cheapo $30 Sears (p/n 00917713000
) wet/dry portable vacuum. Hook the hose up to the outlet port and dust away. It's high volume/low pressure. You really shouldn't be using high pressure for cleaning delicate electronics. That Sears vacuum hardly weighs anything, so it's no hassle to pack around. You also risk moisture in shop air, definitely a bad deal for computers.

 

[JRouche]

While working on Uncle Sam's missile systems years ago part of the PMS (preventative maintenance system) schedule was to remove the $15,000ea circuit boards and wash them down with warm soapy water in a bucket. There were prolly 250 or so cards in the system. They would be completely dried before being energized.

Of course we used mil-spec 234-54999-xxx55 soap, for you lay folk thats "palmolive"
JRouche

 

[reefcruiser]

As a computer hardware consultant for the last 20 years working in hospitals and the like, it is amazing to see what people do when faced with dirt in their computer.

For starters... computers don't like water... even when they are thirsty. If you are in the navy and it is the navy way.. knock yourself out...wash 'em!.... Uncle Sam will buy you another.

For all the rest of you, I highly recommend a decent vacuum and not compressed air. I used to use canned air to blow off boards but you are really pushing foreign crud into places that, otherwise, doesn't like dirt.... especially dirt that has metallic particles in it... because the metallic dirt, when forced into all those little tight places at 150 psi or so, usually has a way of grounding out the little circuits on the boards, causing you much grief and anxiety.

Vacuuming removes the dirt.

Yes, the days of 68 degree cleanroom environments are all but over for computing and I'm sure most machine shops have tongue in cheek stories to tell about how much crap a pc can endure. I have opened many cases where you couldn't see boards in the machine for the filth, but IMHO a good vacuuming is the right thing to do. If you see crud oozing from the vents, I would seriously look at a regular cleaning routine...

To the posts worried about static.. hold the metalic part of the wand and touch the frame of the computer to ground yourself to the case. That should eliminate any grounding potential.

I would use the plastic crevice tool or small brush. Every thing else is just too big.

Yes the computer should be off.

Be careful with CD, DVD or any floppy drives. They have sensitive moving parts used to read and write the data on the disk that can get out of alignment if whacked with a vacuum wand. Don't try to clean the laser... or read/write heads. There are special chemicals or disks and instructions for that.

For those of you with track ball mice or the old style ball mouse, they can be taken apart and the "Ball Only" washed or cleaned. don't forget the rollers inside that get caked with the equivilent of ear wax and navel lint... used to drive me crazy where the pointer on the screen jumped as it tried to navigate. I think the optical mice have eliminated that problem.

For those of you in harsh environments, You probably already have a keyboard skin.. If you don't.. highly recommended. Before their time, we used to pick all of the keys off the keyboard and wash them in soap and water, dry them, and stick them back on... makes a big difference in performance. Vacuum all the crud underneath the keys before you stick them back on.

Aside from that, you should be in great shape.

Oh, yeah..... How many out there that have done this kind of maintenance have BACKED UP the DATA before they started??? Is any of the information on the computer IMPORTANT? Any IRREPLACABLE Data files? What happens if your CD Drive gets out of alignment????

Just a thought.......