best way to clean inside of computer?

W

Wich0

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 5, 2004
Messages
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I was wondering what is the best way (and correct) to clean the dust off inside my computer? I just realized that in all my years of owning a computer I've never actually learned it how to do it correctly.
 
I suppose you could get all technical and official about this but I just power down, open the case, and blow the dust out.

If the case is really dusty, I take it outside before releasing the herd of dust bunnies.

I'm curious to know too, is there a "right" way to do it?
 
Well you want to make sure your not on carpet whenever you open your case for one thing. Second thing is you want to make sure you dont stick anything in the case that would cause a static discharge. ESD damage is a very real and serious issue and has to be dealt with in a proper way. Just try and make sure you dont touch the tops or bottoms of the PCB's on your motherboard, video card, sound card, PCI cards, and so on. They are the most electrically sensitive components.

Alot of people just use canned air to blow away the dust on their components. You can use a wet wash cloth to wipe out the inside of your case. Just dont use it to wipe off the actual hardware. Something like that could probably cause ESD damage. I've seen ESD proof wipes at like OfficeMax that you can use on electrical components. I dont know how well or safely they would work on like a motherboard or video card though.
 
A complete overhaul involves taking all the stuff out of the case, then clean the case inside and outside, wiping all dust off with a wet cloth, blowing doesnt take all out of the case, when its clean, give it one more time with a cloth with some sort of anti-static fluid on, to prevent dust to settle too fast after the cleaning.

Next clean everything that doesnt have a circuit board exposed the same way, like cables, top of HD's and CD/DVD drives and the sorts.

For circuit boards like vidcard and mobo, use some canned air and carefully blow away every dust particle, some q-tips might be a good help to loosen the worst dust and saves some canned air.

Then re-assemble the computer....
 
Carnival Forces said:
this question gets asked far too often.


read the stickies at the top of the subforums.
Click to expand...

Sorry but that tweak3d cleaning guide sucks, they dont go in-depth and even tell ppl to use window cleaner on their monitor screen, i wouldnt use that on my screen for sure, due to all the different coatings which might be damaged. :eek:
 
MindBuster said:
Sorry but that tweak3d cleaning guide sucks, they dont go in-depth and even tell ppl to use window cleaner on their monitor screen, i wouldnt use that on my screen for sure, due to all the different coatings which might be damaged. :eek:
Click to expand...

while what you say is true, re: Window Cleaners damaging monitor screens, you need to read more carefully:

Tweak3d said:
There are two steps that need to be performed when cleaning a computer monitor - cleaning the screen and cleaning the casing. To clean the monitor, simply apply some window cleaner or TV cleaner to a cloth until it is damp (not soaked) and then rub the monitor screen evenly. Never, and I mean never, apply the cleaner directly to the monitor - that is an easy way to ruin a very expensive piece of computer equipment.
Click to expand...

they dont' advocate just piling on the cleaner on the screen, they just want you to lightly dampen a cloth w/ it...so no damage is done.

as for in-depth; it's FOUR PAGES LONG. i don't see anyone else posting 4 pages...

as well, it talks about Mouse Cleaning, Monitor Cleaning, Keyboard Cleaning, Connector Cleaning, External Port Cleaning, Optical Drive Cleaning, and even Floppy Drive Cleaning.

That's 7 catagories to 1 catagory that most people post about (which would be only case cleaning).

So far, everyone ('cept for you, what with wiping off the top of drives) has only posted on Case Cleaning.

Sure seems in-depth to me...
 
I always like the "Vacuum and a can of air" Method:
Use the can of air to get the dust airborne, and then use the vacuum to suck it up.
Works quite well, and no chance of ESD because the vac hose is far away from any PCBs
 
i've never had problems with ESD, even while working with a computer on the carpet. just touch the case before you go and stick you hand in and touch any electronics. if you are really that worried about it, leave the PSU plugged in but switched off, so as to leave the system grounded but without power.

i use a can of compressed air
 
yeah i have never had problems with esd either and i almost always work on my computers on carpet, but anyway for cleaning, wheniver i am at my friends house for a lan, i just use his air compressor we all blow out our comps before the lan
 
I've always been a fan of taking the case outside and blowing it out with a compressor on a low PSI setting. Don't want to try and clean out the case with 200 PSI because you might be missing a few add in cards and capacitors. That's not a good thing.
 
if you use air in a can be carful not to let the nozzle hit the fan blades (trust me :rolleyes: )
I was blowing dust off of one of my fans and the red nozzle hit a blade and nocked it clean off, I still never found it and I havent gotten around to replacing it.
 
I'm dying to know how you broke a fan blade with that crappy plastic straw
 
ok fine I wasn't exactly cleaning it I was seeing how fast I could make the fan sping with compressed air and the little straw just got sucked in oh and it was one of the small fans on my northbridge I think so they are alot easier to break. It's the size of a cpu fan but it has like 12 blades (11 now)
 
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