Clean Inside of Computer to Help Performance

[Seabody]

I'm not going to try to open mine, but mine seems to have screws in the bottom.

[BellaClo]

It's usually not advised to open and clean a laptop by oneself. Components inside a laptop case are smaller and much more closely packed together than in a desktop case. So, it makes the cleaning process really tricky and complicated. It's easy to forget where what has to go back and to lose some of the tiny screws.

If you think that your laptop is stuffed with dust, better contact the manufacturing company (HP, Dell...) or the reseller to know what they can do for you. You'll have to pay for the service of course, but if the laptop is not too old, it's probably worth it. And certainly better than "break" it and still have to pay (more) for a reparation :-)

This is why it is also a good idea to pay attention to how you use a laptop: don't put it on places where there is a lot of dust. Rather use it on clean hard surface than on your knees, bed, couch...

[samoht04]

My Dad said someone he works for's Computer just shut down and never came back on, so the guy took it outside and looked inside and there was a load of dust inside, literally caked in it. He did what is described here and put it back, turned on the power and the computer worked fine again. So when I explained this to my Dad he knew what I was talking about. 

[KJSinclair]

You can open a laptop relatively safely with little knowledge.

The trickiest part is getting the casing open but if you goggle that with your make and model there are usually many step by step guides. The trick is keeping all the tiny parts together, when I do it I use cups to keep the screws in. The other main issue is transferring static but if you sit still then touch the plastic side of your laptop before you begin you ground yourself and then you will lower the chance of transferring static.

Usually with laptops you end up removing the hard drive and ram (memory) before opening the case and these need to be stored safely while you are inside. Canned air is useful but I wouldn't recommend it's use inside a laptop because you can push the dust further inside. So I usually concentrate on the fan and I use an anti-static brush to gently pull the dust into an open space then turn my laptop upside down and give it a little shake.

Dusting a PC or laptop should be done after the warranty has expired to protect yourself, then every 6 months. It is part of the basic maintenance that I wholeheartedly encourage.

Kindest Regards
KJ

[Frey]

My laptop is always very dirty on the outside, I have to clean it all the time because it gets so dusty I can't see anything on the screen...  I don't even want to think how it looks like on the inside! I'm on vacation right now but when I come back to the city I will ask my super-tech-geek best friend to clean it for me  .

Anyway... I have a question: my CD drive looks horribly dusty! When I open it to insert a CD I can see loads and loads of dust in there. Lately it's having trouble reading some CD's, and I have to insert the same CD even 20 or 30 times before I can run them. Is there a safe way to clean it? I have never cleaned it because I'm scared of damaging it, but my laptop is now 4 years old and it's really, really dusty in there. I remember many many years ago I bought a cleaner CD, that had little brushes in it, but I lost it and I haven't been able to find a new one.

[Saltypaws]

Also, if you blast the fans so that they turn while you are blowing it out with the canned air, it will also clean your fans.  Goes for the one in the back, just point the canned air from the inside out on the fan in the back and you will see the dust fly out the back.  Never blow outside in, kind of defeating the purpose, lol.  I have been doing that for ages and it always works, especially if you start hearing noise from your tower.  I try not to keep mine on the floor, but sometimes space is a problem, so you get alot of dust from the floor.

[warr2098]

my pc is quite slow at times and makes a super loud noise when turned on but the thing is... I can't open it 

[Seabody]

my pc is quite slow at times and makes a super loud noise when turned on but the thing is... I can't open it 

It's possible. My father's done it before. And so have I (although we were throwing it out and mutilating the motherboard and everything to destroy all personal data. Plus I got to go at it with a hammer. )

[sydneysagee]

Yeah, me and my brother-in-law worked on my computer, because it was incredibly slow, and Sims took hours to load, town map had random black spots and wouldn't load the graphics, and then the computer started making a whirring sound, we thought it was the fan, so we took it apart and cleaned around the fan and card and everything, and sims is faster , I mean I've never been able to leave my house and everything loads fast like it doesn't think about it.. I don't know why dust would do that, but I plan on doing this once every two months.

have to be careful though, because if you touch the wrong thing, your computer might not work again, I personally recommend a vacuum cleaner, it gets the hard to reach places, and it's a lot faster and safer than dusters and paper towels.

[Xazeal]

So, I just wanted to thank you for this tip, and I really recommend that other people try this if they have problems with the game. I've been having some pretty severe lag for so long that I just got used to it, and it never crossed my mind that cleaning the inside of the computer would help.

But then I read this, bought a can of compressed air, and tried it. Now, I did run into some issues, because I was stupid and didn't pay much attention to the space below the graphics card, where there was a fan I didn't know about. When I was done cleaning and tried running the game, it ran SO smoothly, but then the computer turned itself off within a minute - the system log told me the graphics card overheated. Taking apart the computer again, I saw that there was a chunk of dust in the barely-visible fan, which probably prevented it from spinning. So yeah, real dumb. Should've seen that.

Anyway, having gotten rid of the dust, the game now runs so, so smoothly. Graphical settings were turned way low before, so I can probably even turn them up a bit now and still run the game better than I used to. So, thanks!

[Miketech]

As a computer technician can I say PLEASE clean your computer out...tell all your friends to do it too! It really should be done at least every six months, in a smoking home every three-four months, I smoke not only in my home but at my computer desk so I clean it out OFTEN to keep it running smoothly.

Also if anyone has any computer problems feel free to message me...I will try to remember to check the forums but I have TONS of different websites and forums that I have to remember to check.

[Pam]

Welcome to our Forum, Miketech.

I've noticed that all of your posts have been very technically minded.  Do you actually play Sims 3?

[Miketech]

Oh I certainly do! I love playing...I had just spent the entire day working on computers so I was in a very technical mind. I have been using the guides on your website for a few months now...especially the building guides. I will probably post more sim related topics soon but first and foremost I am a computer technician...I have been working on computers since I was 11 years old. (Currently 20) so working on them and proper care are very big with me.

[NeonAngel]

My game was going so slow that it was unplayable....just out of nowhere. I mean SLOW. So I thought the graphics card might not be in the slot properly. I opened up the pc and tried to push the graphics card in to make sure it wasn't loose and wow!! I burned my finger!!

The card was super hot. I realized that the fan had stopped working and it was overheating. So I just had to give the fan a flick to get it moving and that solved my problem.