Just like your car, your house, and even your body, your computer needs a good cleaning from time to time to prevent dust buildup and overheating. Cleaning a computer is easy to do and only takes about 20 minutes, so we’re going to cover how to effectively clean the inside of your desktop computer.
How often should you clean your equipment?
Depending on your environment, you may need to clean your computer more or less often. The placement of the computer is an important variable. Keeping your computer on the floor allows dust, hair, skin cells, and carpet particles to stick to the interior much easier. If you keep your equipment above the ground, say, on your desk, particles are less likely to get inside.
Preparation Options
Do not open your computer while it is running or with cables attached to it. It is always safer to remove all peripherals such as USB cables, audio cables, video cables, and especially the power cable. Yes, keeping the power cord grounded does make the PC and it is often convenient to leave it connected while working inside the case. However, even the slightest trace of moisture from compressed air can cause problems if the components are getting more power.
Next, move the equipment to a well-ventilated area like your backyard or garage. This is especially important to note if the equipment has accumulated a large amount of dust from being blown around. Breathing in the old accumulated dust is not good for you, especially if you are in an enclosed space, so go to professionals for a great cleaning.
gather your tools
Before you start opening the computer case, you will need to collect your cleaning tools. We strongly recommend that you do not use a vacuum cleaner to clean dust from computer components. This can create static buildup and could fry important electrical components in the motherboard, video card, and other locations.
There are some tools that are needed to clean up the computer:
- Hardware set including screw drivers
- compressed air can
- Cleaning Cloth
- fastening bands
- Scissors
- cotton swabs
- Thermal paste
- pencil or pen
Open the box
Now that you’re in a well-ventilated area with all your tools, we can start the setup process by opening up the computer case. All computer cases are different.
To make the cleaning process easier, it is best to carry out any of the components that can be easily removed. Most desktop computers allow you to remove sticks of RAM, video cards, and hard drives. You don’t need to do this, but it can be cleaned more thoroughly if you do.
Most people shouldn’t need to remove the CPU and CPU fan. It just doesn’t make sense considering almost all the dust finds its way into the CPU socket. On the other hand, if you are cleaning your computer, why not go all the way? The choice is yours.