Get the Cobwebs Out
Perform regular maintenance on your desktops and/or laptops by removing accumulated dust which can cause a buildup of excess heat. This can degrade performance over time.
Last updated March 2019
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We talked about performing regular maintenance on your equipment in Twin Insight #12. Maintenance for your desktop or laptop is no exception. Over time, dust can accumulate inside the chassis and cause a buildup of excess heat. This happens because the dust acts as a form of insulation and when you don’t clean it out often, the layer gets thicker and traps even more heat.
Why is heat bad for your hardware?
If this heat cannot be dissipated, your hardware begins to suffer, especially your Central Processing Unit (CPU). When the CPU senses that it has reached a high enough temperature, it starts to throttle down the performance to try to cool itself down. It reduces the operating frequency which reduces the power consumption, and thus, reduces the energy in the form of heat. As the frequency drops, you cannot run as many instructions per second compared to running at the maximum frequency. This is why you start to see your programs slowing down.
Each piece of hardware in your computer has a temperature range that it operates at. If it continuously runs at either extremum, this can significantly decrease the lifetime. And if you’re like me, you want your computer to last as long as possible. They’re expensive!
How do you clean it out?
We recommend not using an air compressor due to the moisture that can build up inside the tank. This moisture can eventually work its way through the air hose and onto your hardware. If you get just a tiny droplet of water bridging two pins, this could cause a disastrous short. You could use a dust blower or a can of compressed air. I’ve used both and they are very effective, it just comes down to price. You can use the dust blower for a long time since it uses a motor to compress the air. With a can of compressed air, you have a limited supply and have to keep buying cans when you run out.
What did we learn?
- Clean out the dust with a dust blower or a can of compressed air to prevent a buildup of excess heat.
- Keep your hardware running cool to increase the lifetime.