I tend to use a very soft paint brush (art type) to gently remove the dust off delicate parts and onto the case frame, then use a vacuum to pick it up. I should really get some canned air too as it's a lot easier to clean heatsinks properly with those, especially graphics card ones!
Any HDDs which are "on" (i.e working) would be destroyed if they "fell". All is lost for eternity.... unless you pay you, your mom and your dads life savings to get it repaired!
The straw on the can gets into a lot more crannies than a giant vacuum nozzle. A good mixture of both will clean it out nicely. Just dont let the vaccuum get close to anything inside the case.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129597 there what i use, realy big cans for the money.. wait THEY WAS £8 WHEN I GOT MINE!! MOTHER F%&KER!
had a look at mine today and decided it needs cleaning - the mixture of dust and nicotine tends to create a sticky substance....yuk i think i'll just buy compressed air because i have incredibly bad luck with this kind of thing
Shop-Vac on blow works pretty well too. Outside.... I also use my Dyson, the crevice tool works pretty good for the tight spaces. Make sure if you're using a bagless vacuum to empty out the canister first, the crap swirling around creates static, I've never had an issue with static discharge on any of my components, but I don't go banging around in there either.
At my pc repair shop we use compressed air, from cans and compressor. Shop vacs, and the small low power hand vacs that have the brush attachment. We only really use the handvac with brush for nice cases on the outside bezel crevices. Canned air for light dust jobs. For heavy we use a compressor. The compressor gets changed alot depending on what air handle we are using, as one handle has a larger outlet hole then the other. We, (I), broke a mobo cap off of an old mobo with the compressor on high psi setting using a small holed handle. So just fyi, watch out there. (I now use 25-35 psi on small holed handle, 60-75 psi on the large handle, and when it's up high, i don't get very close, as in about 2feet away from board). We have a homemade cardboard box, very very large, that we attached to one of our shop vacs that use as a booth for the really dirty ones, think of it as the cheap mans negative air pressure booth. And if it is extremely dirty, take that sucker outside to blow it off, and stay away from my car with it!
Clean out your vac,reverse to blow if you can,switch on,get a 1 1/2" paint brush if you have one and blow it away.Electronic/computer components are far hardier than they used to be,static is not really a problem,unless your wearing nylon and are kniky that way! ;-)
Vacuum cleaner, make-up brush, isopropyl alcohol and cotton-tips. Vacuum cleaner nozzle never makes contact with components - it has sufficient suction to collect debris and the make-up brush enables me to dislodge any hard to 'reach' dust. Isopropyl Alcohol is more relevant for when I clean PCB terminals, but is still rather valuable when it comes to removing some of the more 'persistent' items such as labels an such. My absolute favourite feature of isopropyl alcohol is that it evaporates in a matter or seconds, which makes it just that little more versatile.
I break everything down and use a air compressor to blow out all the dust. I used micro fiber rags to wipe down the case. I get roughly 95% of the dust out each cleaning.
You guys/blokes will probably freak out on this one. Every once in a while I break down my computers and wash them in the sink with water, MB, fans, GPU, etc. Dry them and set them in the garage to air dry for that oh so brand new look. Never have had a problem in the last few years of being brave enough to do it. Once I dropped my cell ph in the ice chest full of beer, took it a part and let it air dry. Put it back together and it worked. So I said hey........ my PC?...... Why not! But most of the time I use a air can. I advise not to be like me, but thought you might like to know PC parts can handle a good cleaning.
We fix PCs professionally. Here's how we do our cleanings. Canned air is better than nothing, but it's nothing like hitting the computer with a proper anti-static vacuum cleaner. We use DataVac 3s, vacuum out all the dust we can without touching any electronic components (pc boards, memory, etc...Anything that could be fried by static electricity)... We show the customer the results, and they go, "Oh! That looks much cleaner! I can't believe there was that much dust in there!" Then we take the hose, switch the vacuum to blower mode, put on a small nozzle (half centimeter or so?) and blow the thing out. HUGE, HUGE amounts of dust come flying out everywhere (do this outdoors). After a good ********, we'll take a paper towel, wet it with alcohol, and wipe off the bits that still have a fine layer of dust. It's very rare that vacuuming out dust will FIX a problem with a stock computer (like crashing), but all the dust certainly degrades performance, and the life of the computer in general. And nothing is worse for the computer than smoke. Smoke KILLS computers and hard drives. (Even dog/cat hair isn't as bad). YMMV
I disagree. My old Athlon XP had never been cleaned from dust between the CPU fan and the heatsink. It started BSODing a few years back. Added a rear case fan and it worked for a year without a hitch. Then added a front case fan. Again it worked fine for a year. Then I cleaned the CPU cooler and the temps dropped with over 10°C and since that it has never had a crash.
Sorry Maltor, but I lol'd I just use q-tips and kleenex, I've never had enough dust build up that it merits a vacuum cleaner. Mind you don't use acrylic/synthetic cloths - static charge, et cetera.
I use canned air or compressor, with a paint brush. Isoproanol and q-tip for sticky stuff. It's a good idea to ground yourself, your tools and your working place.
