[JohnWill]

Gee, I've been designing and building electronic circuits for aerospace applications for many years, and my favorite two debugging tools were a can of refrigerant spray and a heat gun. In truth, it's VERY hard to damage a semiconductor with heat or cold if you don't really get carried away. We regularly used to spray a heatsink on a processor until it was covered with frost! Of course, in military equipment, there is rarely a fan on the processor, much too unreliable. You may have airflow through the case, but most of the time you count on just keeping the whole case cool with the rack ventilation. Many heat producing components are actually bonded to the case, and a lot of the equipment would have cooling fins on one or more surfaces of the case.

I seriously doubt you'll damage anything with canned air in your PC, with the exception of possibly optical or floppy drives if you get carried away. I've heard stories about over-spinning the fans, but I've used a ton of canned air on machines and generously sprayed the fans with no ill effects. They make a nice whirring sound as they spin.

One of the most important areas is the processor heatsink, since they quickly fill with dust from the fan blowing directly on them.

[Mike46]

Don't use the air to spin the fans clean unless you are using shorts bursts of air, over spinning a fan to hear the cute little noise can have adverse effects. Use a non metallic tool to keep the fans from spinning as you blow it off or you can ruin the bearings, what can happen if you over spin the fan is the bearing could go out, especially if it is a low speed fan, that destroyed bearing will lock up the fan, so that the processor will be destroyed.

[JohnWill]

I don't spin it to hear the "cute little noise", but it happens in the cleaning process. Nothing wrong with holding it stopped, and that's probably a good idea. I also don't use long bursts of air anyway, too wasteful.

[hewee]

Now the hard part to clean on my computer in the heatsink fins on the CPU. I do have a nice long eyelash brush that works great or what ever make up brush. I got it years ago and it has been used on may things to help clean. A lot better then small brushes like come with my elc. razor.

[JackDogg]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

One of the most important areas is the processor heatsink, since they quickly fill with dust from the fan blowing directly on them.

tell me about it ! over a 6 month period, my CPU temp at idle rises from 39C to over 50 heading towards 60C. oh oh, i know its spring cleaning time ! so i strip the box bare of all parts, except the PSU. i clean all around the outside and inside of the case. PCi/AGP cards and memory are removed from mainboard and each idividually dusted with a very soft hobby brush.

now for the problem area >>>> the Intel Celeron heatsink 'n fan. the gap between the top of the silver heatsink and the bottom of the fan assembly which sits on top of the HS is very narrow and is where the dust sits.......suffocating the HS. it can't breathe. i take deep breathes and blow the sides of the HS. not much dust there, its on the top. so i use a very narrow long bristled brush and just flick it out from between the fan blades and from on top of the HS. ALL CLEAR ! then i'll get my "feather duster" out again and do the motherboard

all clean, reassemble everything, boot, and there we are >>>> CPU temp sits at 36C, 38C at idle.

might consider the canned-air next time.

[JackDogg]

we have a program called CCleaner to clean out our software. its too bad we don't have a hardware cleaner.....call it HCleaner. Click on its icon and little hands and brushes emerge inside the box and clean everything >>>> a kind of dishwasher LOL



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[4cs077]

use USB comp.vacuum cleaner cost $2.