July 10, 2010
Dust that laptop!
My ThinkPad was starting to run very hot, with the fan running almost continually. I could no longer use it on my lap, and I was worried about damaging wood surfaces it rested upon. Online research provided lots of answers, the simplest and most basic being: (1) small notebook computers often are pretty marginal when it comes to cooling; (2) a notebook's ability to get rid of excess heat is easily compromised by the inevitable accumulation of dust in the fan and radiator/heatsink.
Wanting to do this neatly, I did a very simple bit of partial disassembly (removed four screws, lifted off the keyboard), and used a can of compressed air to blow out all the dust -- and there was a lot, none of it visible from the outside. The fan now runs quietly, with minimal heat buildup, and I can use it on my lap once again.
Went and did the same for other family members' laptops as well, though theirs are all larger and better-cooled. Still, judging from the amount of dust that came flying out once I blasted the radiator/heatsink vents, their cooling must also have been significantly impaired too.
Posted by David on July 10, 2010 4:44 PM
I use Antec Notebook Cooler in conjunction with a laptop. It won't address the dirt problem but keeps the laptop cooler. It is amazing how much dust accumulates.
Posted by: Charles on July 11, 2010 6:32 PM
Desktops are also affected, if perhaps not as quickly since components are relatively spread out and some heat warms the enpty space.
Posted by: John A on July 12, 2010 5:13 PM
I was going to get a laptop cooler, too, but I'm glad I took care of the dust first. The difference before and after cleaning was so dramatic, that I'm not sure that even the most powerful external cooler would have prevented the CPU from overheating.
Desktops should be cleaned out, too, of course. Yet whereas a desktop would have to be absolutely jam-packed with dust before overheating becomes a problem (high-performance video cards being a possible exception), a small, powerful notebook is much more vulnerable, even in seemingly clean environments.
Posted by: David on July 14, 2010 11:24 AM
Try to gently blow dust out outdoors from keyboard and air vents or desktop, carefully suck out with a vacuum if that's not possible. OK to just work at the vents without disassembling anything.
Folks with hairy pets (dogs, cats) are most at risk.
Tip desktop keyboard upside down and shake it.
Move a laptop VERY gently when it's running or you can cause head crashes on the hard drive -- very bad.
Don't cover the vents on a laptop by sitting it on your lap or a bed.
If it STILL runs hot, you may have a virus that's using your PC to send spam 24/7/365. If you get annoying popups to buy/renew your anti-virus package (Norton, McAfee), uninstall it and install free Avast! anti-virus. (Google avast free download)
Posted by: Charlie Gosh on July 27, 2010 7:01 PM
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