Can you keep your computer clean?

I keep a can of air in my office and I have one in my tool bag for work. How hard is it to open your case for five seconds and blow out the fans and the fins on the heatsinks? Do it once a week or once a month or every time you open your case to do something. Neglecting preventative maintenance will destroy your box over time.

That is a good idea, I think I might pop that in. Does that come in the 80mm size as well? I just use a can of air, maybe 1-2 months. Nothing major...

~Ibrahim~

That's perfect for getting the bread crumbs out of my keyboard. What will they come up with next?

I only pop the hood and blast it with canned air twice a year (unless I am swapping parts) and there is a slight buildup laying around and on the heatsink.

Cleaning frequency depends on the environment, I recall a coworker had a brand new dell, after 2 years and it died just before the warranty ran out - the cpu heatsink was so clogged with dust / pet hair was way too much for it. Turns out the dog would lay at her feet when the pc was running in the winter and was never cleaned. Luckily Dell replaced the CPU / mobo and the tech even made a service visit to perform the swap out. Well I was glad.

Another cleaning nightmare was a dozen new pc's for a landscape company, similiarly was not cleaned for 3 years and one of them died. The color went from white to beige since they were all smokers and in the case were small piles of every soil product they offered - had to bring it outside and the canned air created a small dust storm. I literally had to wear a mask to do it I could barely see the pc sitting in front of me - was laughing pretty hard about it later since I had to shake out my hair before leaving the site...

i use dust filters on all my fans then just wash them, means it takes twice as long for dust to build up within the system. with my current case though i cant work out how to take out the front filter(its a preatorian cooler Master).

the worst ive seen was in my old highschool the computers would often overheat and crash so the tech guy opened them up to have a look, think dust bunnies the size of your fist lol.

I would suggest getting your computer off the floor if possible to keep it cleaner.My PCs would get dirty pretty quickly when I had them on the floor under my desk area. When I built my newest PC about 7 months ago, I decided to keep it up on a stand about 3 feet off the ground. After 7 months, the only dust you can see in it (it has a window) is right around the back fan; and that is VERY little.

Yes I would guess 90% of the dust is human skin and hair waste.... maybe less but im sure its over 50% !

I clean my PC 3 times a year guaranteed (on my own LANs) and on every LAN I go to (like 2-3 LANs a year) and everytime I open my case for whatever reason.

i just did mine with the vacuum cleaner(dyson, droped temps by 5C the HS was dustier than i thought yet the rest of the system was fine, probably to do witht the whole in the inside of my case that brings air straight to the CPU(only place i dont have a dust filter lol.