How to Clean Dust out of Inside of Laptop

bryjoered

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Jul 26, 2012
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Hi, I just sent my sick gaming PC in for repairs and I'm busting out the old trusty laptop. It is a XPS m11710 I think. It has this problem where every six months or so the inside needs to be dusted because the fan sucks in a ton of gunk. It literally bottlenecks the whole system, and using compressed air doesn't seem to work. Is there anyway to easily open it up and get to the CPU, I don't want to completely dismantle the whole thing and possibly ruin it. I swear they make laptops so anti-user friendly so you just have to buy a new one, when they break.
 

bryjoered

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Jul 26, 2012
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Ok, but is the CPU like hidden under a bunch of layers? I've had the thing cleaned out professionally twice and both times my CPU was essentially being suffocated by a giant visible tightly compacted clump of dust. After I had it cleaned, both times, the computer's performance in games shot up dramatically.
 
Yep, my son's M1710 had the same problem of overheating and throttling down in games, so I took my Sears 5HP air compressor, dialed the pressure up to 60psi, and blasted through all the air intakes with an air gun (mixes outside air in with the compressed stream). A couple big gobs of dust bunnies later, the laptop ran fine during games.

I use the same setup with my old desktop, just take it out to the driveway and air blast it. My new rig (with a coolermaster HAF case that is essentially holes with some metal :p) is getting a bit dusty as well, so I suspect it'll get the same treatment next spring..

As long as you are careful and don't air blast the computers on a really dry day and thus run the risk of static electricity buildup, it should work fine. Those little cans of compressed air or nitrogen just don't pack enough volume to do the trick IMO..
 

rc3

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Feb 26, 2014
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my question is can I blow compressed air into the vents on the bottom of the laptop - or am I blowing the dust INTO the laptop by doing that - in other words I'd rather not take it apart; if I just buy a can of compressed air, can I blow it into the vents and will that get rid of the dust in the laptop - or is it only going to blow the dust to other parts of the laptop making it worse - sorry if this is a dumb question, but as someone said, they make it so it's difficult to figure this stuff out so you just get a new one - this computer is working, I think I have very soft grinding noise from dust, so I'd like to get rid of the dust as simply as possible - so will blowing compressed air INTO the vents do it, or make it worse? Thanks for help.