Just about time to pull out the air compressor again

Dru2 said:

My post was not a joke, but I should have noted that I too hold the fan in place to clean the blades, though I use my finger. Your point about the tube is valid and I should have clarified my statement when I said I powered off the machine for cleaning. Apologies.

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IMHO, Anyone who doesn't know to turn off and unplug their computer first should never open up their computer.

MisterEd said:

I am dismayed when someone said that a modern computer shouldn't accumulate dust. That is only true if the case was designed to be that way. Most cases probably aren't. None of my older cases have filters. I guess people didn't think about things like that back then.

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I am the one who made that comment, and what I said exactly was: "With modern cases, decent airflow and especially air filters, it's been extremely rare for me to see much dust inside of my computer case"

I stand by that statement for MY setups. I've had cases with dust filters since ~2008. (Antec 300's, Antec P182, Fractal Meshify S2). I do remember the old days where you would pop open your case, and spray your CPU cooler with compressed air and a cloud of dirt and dust would appear.

These days, I have a case window and can see that there isn't much dust in my case. I can pull off my front and PSU filters and they usually have a pretty decent layer of dust on them. I usually just blow them off with my little air blower and usually just wash them off in the sink and dry them with a towel. Inside of my case though, is always remarkably clean. I check the fan fins, my fans on my GPU, the fans on my air cooler, etc and usually the top shroud over my power supply which is in the bottom. I have an electronic duster rather than buying cans of air. It's a little noisy, but I don't use it for long periods of time.

I'll just leave it was follows:
1). I love filters on my case and they have worked great for me
2). I don't find much reason with my cases to have to clean them out often. (no more frequent than 12 or 18 months)
3). You may have a need or environment requiring more frequent cleanings that I do, but I think those who are frequently cleaning are doing it for pride in their build, moreso than being needed to keep their computers running well.
4). Whatever works for you, just keep doing it.

MisterEd said:

I am dismayed when someone said that a modern computer shouldn't accumulate dust. That is only true if the case was designed to be that way. Most cases probably aren't. None of my older cases have filters. I guess people didn't think about things like that back then.

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pparks1 said:

I am the one who made that comment, and what I said exactly was: "With modern cases, decent airflow and especially air filters, it's been extremely rare for me to see much dust inside of my computer case"

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Unless you have a case that has zero ventilation (an obviously bad design for PC builds, and why they don't exist), there's going to be dust build, even with filters... which my case does have. Perhaps some have a different definition of "dust"?

With that, I'd like the know what some consider "dust"? Is a light coating which turns a black case gray considered dust or no dust?

Maybe we need a dust meter

This is my wife's computer. It will be 3 years old in February. So, 2.5 years old. I've never once opened it to clean the inside. Does it have dust inside, yep sure does......enough to impact anything.....nope. This amount of dust is not impeding airflow, it's not causing heat built up, no components would be throttling or under any increased load due to this. Cleaning it only makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Here is the front of the case, filter is behind here, and it's pretty dusty.

Moving to the inside, there is a bit of dust on the front intake fans.



Here is some dust on the video card.

Agreed. Dust will get in, no matter what. Filters have a minimum foreign object size that they can block, and anything smaller will still get in. Case in point (literally) - I'm using the Fractal Design Define 7 XL - mesh on top (not really relevant as I blow air upward there), bottom (supremely important as I blow in air from there) and in front (also important as I blow air in from there).

I don't clean this nearly as often as I used to clean older, pre-filter cases, but even my last case, the ThermalTake Level 10 GT, with filters in the same three places, still needed to be cleaned roughly once a year.

And the places that need the most cleaning are radiator fins and fan blades. that is where the buildup occurs fastest in filtered cases, and radiator cleaning (especially on my GPU and AIO CPU cooler) are necessary to maintain adequate cooling.

pparks1 said:

These days, I have a case window and can see that there isn't much dust in my case. I can pull off my front and PSU filters and they usually have a pretty decent layer of dust on them. I usually just blow them off with my little air blower and usually just wash them off in the sink and dry them with a towel. Inside of my case though, is always remarkably clean.

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Looking won't show you everything, especially in radiator fins as well as fan blades. You know the case I have, if you're using the Meshify, and it's not what you can see that is the problem - it's what you cannot see that still affects the performance of components that is.

So, sorry, I have to disagree with you on this. Just because it looks clean doesn't mean it actually is.

pparks1 said:

This is my wife's computer. It will be 3 years old in February. So, 2.5 years old. I've never once opened it to clean the inside. Does it have dust inside, yep sure does......enough to impact anything.....nope.

Here is the front of the case, filter is behind here, and it's pretty dusty.
View attachment 72311
Moving to the inside, there is a bit of dust on the front intake fans.

View attachment 72312

Here is some dust on the video card.

View attachment 72313

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And that is exactly too much dust, especially on the inside over the GPU and on the fan blades. If she doesn't use the computer for much, great.

But for high powered development, VM usage, etc., what she has would be completely unacceptable for me. Mine is 3 years old, been blown out once completely, and it 100x cleaner than that. And yet I still know it needs cleaning again.

johnlgalt said:

And that is exactly too much dust, especially on the inside over the GPU and on the fan blades. If she doesn't use the computer for much, great.

But for high powered development, VM usage, etc., what she has would be completely unacceptable for me. Mine is 3 years old, been blown out once completely, and it 100x cleaner than that. And yet I still know it needs cleaning again.

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But is there a benchmark i can run to prove it? I will run a test, in fact a handful of tests, and i could run the tests, gather the numbers, then completely clean it and make it as pretty as the day it came off the assembly line and then rerun the tests. Would I really see a difference?????

That's 2.5 years old and never cleaned. I usually clean mine out every 12 to 18 months. I just don't mess much with the wife's.

I don't think you're being facetious, as you, I'm pretty sure, know what radiator fins are used for in cooling, and thus benchmarking how well a cooler operates before and after cleaning should be trivial.

Also, I am an active gamer, and heat dissipation is one of the key things I have to deal with. With summer temperatures like we've had this year in the Northern hemisphere, the ability to keep my components cooler with less energy usage is tantamount. And even though I live in one of the hotter regions of the US, it's not even been as bad here as it has been many other places both in the US and abroad.

But, again, I'm not saying you have to do as *I* do. I'm saying if it was my machine, it would never get to that state.

johnlgalt said:

I don't think you're being facetious, as you, I'm pretty sure, know what radiator fins are used for in cooling, and thus benchmarking how well a cooler operates before and after cleaning should be trivial.

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I'm not. I think if my fans were truly gunked full of crud, it would hamper my temperatures. The small amount of dust shown there is my worst case (pun intended) scenario for a computer completely neglected. I don't think if I tore it down, and cleaned it top to bottom every 2 months it would drop my temps, lower my power consumption or increase my performance over what it would benchmark right here, in this state.

johnlgalt said:

But, again, I'm not saying you have to do as *I* do. I'm saying if it was my machine, it would never get to that state.

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And that's fine. My machine gets cleaned out more regularly. Once a year or maybe 18 months. I'm not attempting to persuade YOU from cleaning your machine less....but I'm trying to convey to others who are on the fence that maybe cleaning it repeatedly and completely tearing down and rebuilding isn't exactly necessary either.

For example, this here will cause a substantial issue.



Or this.

johnlgalt said:

And that is exactly too much dust, especially on the inside over the GPU and on the fan blades. If she doesn't use the computer for much, great.

But for high powered development, VM usage, etc., what she has would be completely unacceptable for me. Mine is 3 years old, been blown out once completely, and it 100x cleaner than that. And yet I still know it needs cleaning again.

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Yeah, that's the other factor...PC usage. I use mine everyday as it's both my work and entertainment PC. In fact, the fact that's it used every day at least 12 hours a day also speak of the build and why I keep it clean. It's been running like that since 2019. My backup PC has virtually no dust as it's not used, and thus I don't open it often other than to swap parts.

I find it interesting the high degree to which there needs to be qualifier on why one doesn't dust when others say they do. It's like me having to justify why I was my car once a week when others post all the reasons, they don't wash theirs. OK, do you, and I'll do me

pparks1 said:

I don't think if I tore it down, and cleaned it top to bottom every 2 months it would drop my temps, lower my power consumption or increase my performance over what it would benchmark right here, in this state.

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I just checked the entire thread, and only one person is saying anything more frequently than every 4 months.

And I'm positive I didn't mention anything along that time frame either.

So, I'm still not sure of where this is all going. The only people who need cleaning more often are those without case filters, everyone else here is at the 4 month or longer time frame for cleaning, with most of those saying 'light cleaning'. No one ever in this thread said that is a mandatory cleaning regimen for a PC in this day and age.

Dru2 said:

Yeah, that's the other factor...PC usage. I use mine everyday as it's both my work and entertainment PC. In fact, the fact that's it used every day at least 12 hours a day also speak of the build and why I keep it clean. It's been running like that since 2019. My backup PC has virtually no dust as it's not used, and thus I don't open it often other than to swap parts.

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Agreed. Mine gets closer to 16 hours of usage per day, except when I am not actually at home, as I work from home. So, on average, I'm right there with you on the 12 hours a day.

And I built mine just a year after, in summer of 2020, so it is just past the 3 year mark for me, with me only having done one full cleaning of it thus far - the filters have probably been cleaned 5 or 6 times, as they are easy to take down.

johnlgalt said:

I just checked the entire thread, and only one person is saying anything more frequently than every 4 months.

And I'm positive I didn't mention anything along that time frame either.

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I just pulled a number of months out of thin air. I wasn't saying anybody here is cleaning every 2 months.

johnlgalt said:

So, I'm still not sure of where this is all going. The only people who need cleaning more often are those without case filters, everyone else here is at the 4 month or longer time frame for cleaning, with most of those saying 'light cleaning'. No one ever in this thread said that is a mandatory cleaning regimen for a PC in this day and age.

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Not every post goes somewhere. Just friendly banter on the topic of cleaning the PC regularly.

pparks1 said:

I just pulled a number of months out of thin air. I wasn't saying anybody here is cleaning every 2 months.

Not every post goes somewhere. Just friendly banter on the topic of cleaning the PC regularly.

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I typically clean mine every Month, usually last day of the Month for my Thermaltake V200 TG RGB, trying to keep the Front Fans as clean as possible, GPU Fans, and CPU Tower Cooler and Exhaust fans

As well as PSU Filter underneath the Power supply

Is Every Month too much? Maybe, but does make me feel better that system is as clean as it can possibly be mostly, though do have to get more Glass Cleaner for the Tempered Glass currently outta that, so i may wait til do this dust clean out til get that, or i might just do it anyways on Scheduled day and when i get more glass cleaner do it again fully.

It seems most responders are talking about desktop computers. I suspect laptop computers especially gaming ones are more prone for dust buildup. That means they would be affected by overheating even more than desktop ones.

The problem with laptop computers is that many of them especially the thin-and-light ones are hard to take apart. The one like that are probably never taken apart and cleaned. My old laptop is that way. The only time I took it apart was to upgrade the SSD. It takes 15-20 minutes or more to take it apart. My newest laptop is an ASUS Tuff Gaming which has high speed fans and big vents to cool it. Fortunately, I can remove the back cover in a few minutes. It is a year old now so I should probably check to see if there is any dust buildup.

My Gaming Laptop HP Omen 15_ce019dx is a major pain to take apart,

The screwdriver i had the first time i tried it--worked fine for all 9 of 10 screws it seemed lol, got to the 10th Screw, and somehow stripped it, and now darn thing won't come out at all.

Options now are get it to local shop and pay money to have them get it open, use it til it dies, then purchase replacement guess is second option, or 3rd maybe try again sometime.

**Do have a Ifixit kit nowadays*, but still won't budge lol--unless i try one of the other bits sometime to see if it fits it, sadly don't own a drill to obtain a screw extractor to get stupid thing out**

My next Gaming Laptop i hope is an Asus Tuf Gaming one, like i originally wanted when got this in 2017 lol

MisterEd said:

It seems most responders are talking about desktop computers. I suspect laptop computers especially gaming ones are more prone for dust buildup. That means they would be affected by overheating even more than desktop ones.

The problem with laptop computers is that many of them especially the thin-and-light ones are hard to take apart. The one like that are probably never taken apart and cleaned. My old laptop is that way. The only time I took it apart was to upgrade the SSD. It takes 15-20 minutes or more to take it apart. My newest laptop is an ASUS Tuff Gaming which has high speed fans and big vents to cool it. Fortunately, I can remove the back cover in a few minutes. It is a year old now so I should probably check to see if there is any dust buildup.

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I've had several premium Dell XPS 15 laptops in the past 20 years. I've never had the back cover off any of them. I suppose I don't keep a laptop long enough for dust to be a problem. Kate has allergies so the HAC system has Hepa filters, and all our floors are either ceramic tile or hardwood. I'm sure that makes a difference too.