Cleaning XPS 15 9550 Cooling System

What is a good way to get the dust/hair/etc out of the cooling system? What do I need to disassemble?

 

Find the service manual at the Dell site. Unscrew the screws (T5 screw driver if I recall correctly, and two phillips screws beneath the small central plate), and remove the case bottom. Then you should be able to remove the dust. In case not, you may also remove the fans, not difficult. If you remove the heatsink, you will need to replace the thermal paste (e.g. Kryonaut), which is a bit more involved, particularly removing old paste, find some guides at YT. Though, repasting is a very good idea if you haven't already, because often too much of the factory printed paste remains in the gap.

 

Unplug. Disconnect the battery if you are going to touch anything inside.

I use canned compressed air to blow out the dust, especially from the fans and radiators.

Compressed air may not get the fans fully clean so you may need a soft brush. Do not overspin the fans with compressed air or they will get noisy (ruined).

Be very careful not to bend the radiators or they will become less efficient. Use care with the heatpipes as they are also delicate.

 

I just use compressed air, no need to open it up to use that.

 

Where do I blow it into? The vents at the bottom?

 

Well I think the XPS 15 is super easy to open (unlike my former thinkpad T which had to be almost completely disassembled) so why bother blowing dust bunnies around the internals, except if one does it regularly once a month or so before they can form thick dust tissue I've just opened up mine yesterday after about a year prompted by this and found both fan outputs half-clogged before the fins, though I pay attention to only using the laptop on clean hard surfaces.

You could blow into the two fan exhaust holes through with a straw, between the laptop body and display on the inside of the hinges. Mind blocking the fans from spinning which may wreck the bearings (too fast).