Cleaning Your Notebook Guide Part 1: Cleaning the Air Vents Discussion

In the first of a four part series we'll take a look at how to clean various aspects of your laptop. To start with we'll look at cleaning the vents and cooling system. This is most important because if your laptops vents get clogged up it won't be able to cool properly and in turn won't function properly. Later on in this cleaning your laptop series we will look at cleaning your keyboard and case, screen, and finally look at preventative maintenance.

Read the full content of this Article: Cleaning Your Notebook Guide Part 1: Cleaning the Air Vents

 

How often do you guys do this? I did it once in 5 years with my old vaio...

 

I do it once every 2 months or so...

 

This may sound odd, but I actually clean out my underside vents with the tiny blade-cleaning brush that comes with most electric razors. I do it from beneath, so the dust falls out...........

 

Great idea! i will try that some time

 

I'm glad to see this guide. It will be vary useful.

My only question is, do any of the procedures in this 4 part cleaning guide void manufacturer warranties?

 

It will depend on the way the computer is built. On a computer like the one I showed in the guide, no, because access door that was opened is supposed to be user serviceable. However, on some computer you would have to disassemble the entire computer, which would void the warranty.

How often you need to clean your vents depends. I usually go between 2 weeks and a month, just to make sure there is no large buildup. Certainly 2 months is the upper end of how long I would go.

 

I know on my nw8440, to get to the fan/heatsink, all you have to do is remove the keyboard. I tried that once, and I broke the left ctrl key in the process (though I managed to fix it). To remove the keyboard on my machine, you have to loosen 2 screws (clearly marked with a keyboard icon), pull 4 tabs on top of the keyboard, then lift it off. I had trouble with that final step. Then again, I don't think it would void my warranty, since you have to remove the keyboard to get to the second DIMM slot.

I just shoot compressed air straight into the vents without disassembling the machine, which seems to work. I can clearly see dust come out when I do that.

 

i also have that tiny brush but i use it to clean the keyboard sometime..i never thought to use it on the fan..i'll try. hmm this also my sound lazy but sometimes i just tilt my laptop and use the vacuum cleaner to clean the fan,..of course i use the small nozzle..is this dangerous?

it's the big vacuum cleaner for the house,not the small one..

 

Here is simple idea for laptop manufacturers:
add a switch to run fans in opposite direction so it blows all the dust, hairs, dirt outside. It is already patented and whoever implements it send me free laptop ....

 

As I state in the article, I find that allowing the fans to spin freely when forcing air through them is usually a bad thing. All the fans that I have done this to died. If I pin them in place, then force air through, they are fine. Just my experience, I know that isn't how it is for everyone, though.

 

what kind of laptop is that.? It's pretty convenient than Dell and HP when you want to clean vent. My room is dusty and after 6 months my Z84j has some unsual sound of fans and noisy and it's hot under the CPu, then i found out it was my vent wasn't clean.

 

A somewhat close relative to your Z84j, it is the W3j. The V6j was virtually the same in that regard as well (expect the hard drive had its own door). The Dell and HPs that I have worked on required a good bit of work to clean.

 

Any idea on how to clean out the G1S? Other than cleaning the fan blades, do I need to try and clean out the heatsinks?

 

On a gaming machine especially clean the heat sinks, you need optimal performance from the cooling system so your G1 doesn't melt. I haven't ever seen a G1, so I don't know how to get to them.

 

I give all my computers a good dusting every 2 or so months and usually a quick dusting about every 1-2 weeks in the summer. It gets humid here so I like to do what I can to prevent anything.