Time to Blow the Crap Out of Your Computer?
The other day, I had to remove (and later replace) a dead memory module from my laptop. As long as I had the little latch over the memory socket open, I blew into the opening to remove a few visible specks of dust. What happened shocked me.
A large cloud of gray dust billowed out from every aperture of the computer casing. You know in horror movies, how they always find some ancient book that conveniently explains how to slay the monster that has already killed off all the extras and is now bent on an especially gruesome end for the main characters? Well, they find this book and, for some reason, blow hard on it, and a backlit shot shows a large cloud of dust to demonstrate to us just how very ancient and untouched and no doubt magical this book is. That's what this cloud looked like.
It had never occurred to me how much gunk might build up over time, so this prompted me to open up the computer as much as possible, without actually resorting to disassembling it, and repeat the "blow hard" operation for every socket, latch or opening. Thus having removed an amount of dust probably exceeding the amount NASA have collected from the Moon in all missions combined (though I'm sure their dust is more interesting than mine), I started the computer again, and was amazed to look at the temperature indicator that I always keep running in a corner of the screen since overheating has been a problem with this particular laptop since day one.
In the three or so years I've had this laptop, I've gotten used to seeing internal temperatures around 65–75 degrees C; putting some stress on the CPU could easily bring it over 100 degrees and cause the computer to turn itself off (measures can be taken to avoid this, though; more on that some other time). Now, the indicator hovered around 51 degrees, and even giving the machine a good workout barely brought it over 70. Under normal working conditions, my computer is now around 20 degrees cooler than it used to be. That's quite a difference.
So, allow me to humbly suggest that you ask yourself: "When was the last time I cleaned out this computers' interior?" Consider how much dust typically collects on air vent grids and in other places where air flows. Now consider that modern computers are usually equipped with fans that run more or less the whole time the machines are turned on, and that there are lots of places inside the computer case for dust to get caught. Finally, consider that this dust is preventing heat from escaping and could probably even be a fire hazard. Getting rid of it may sound boring, but I'm sure that by now it will also sound like a fairly good idea. Right? Right?
Well, you can always do it tomorrow.