Computer Maintenance -How to clean the inside of a PC and why it should be done?

Computer Maintenance - Intro

Before explaining how to keep the inside of your computer clean I wanted to spend a bit of time explaining not only why it should be done but why it should be done on a regular basis as well as what additional steps you should undertake to keep the inside of your computer clean for longer periods of time.

Computer Maintenance - Maintaining Inside Components of Your Computer System

Why Maintaining Inside of the Computer is Important?Your computer has many electrical components that generate lots of heat but are very easily destroyed by the fraction of heat they produce. For example, a CPU (central processing unit), a brain of your PC as you may call it, has lots of components built of silicone and other heat sensitive elements that will literally burn and melt themselves in as quick as few seconds if not cooled properly.

To further demonstrate the above, a Tom’s Hardware (a web site for computer enthusiast http://www.tomshardware.com) posted a video several years ago comparing the performance and stability of several different brands of CPU. Although I find the video somewhat skewed towards favoring Intel architecture, I still use it as a great teaching prop when I try to demonstrate how sensitive your PC is to heat (in extreme terms). The copy of the video is still available at YouTube’s web site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qr6lZ52-k

And it is not just your CPU that is susceptible to heat. Dusty power supply has also been known to die sometimes with a quite a light show (I’ve seen the power supply blow sparks two feet away). Additionally, a blown power supply can send a surge of unregulated power to the rest of system burning rest of components (I had personally seen a surge from a faulty power supply fry the motherboard, hard drive, memory, all at once rendering the repair job so expensive it was cheaper to buy the new PC).

Computer Maintenance -What’s All The Dust About? To regulate the temperature to a manageable and safe level your computer depends on a steady and abundant flow of fresh air inside and out of it, removing the excess heat out of the computer and cooling it down. Think of it in terms of you running out of the hot room outside on a breezy day and feeling instant relief.

CPU heat sink which prevents your CPU from melting (a big square chunk of metal that was seen being removed in the Tom’s Hardware video), is built of the flat surface that sits atop the CPU with a thin of thermal transfer compound to enhance the heat transfer. By making the area of heat sink larger the heat dissipates from CPU faster. The ribbed fins forming the top portion of the heat sink further help the process.

The fan sitting on top of the ribbed fin area moves the air over it so the entire mechanism stays cool to within safe and tolerable level.If the dust is left to accumulate on the heat sink it will clog the area between the fins reducing the amount of air that travels in between. Also the fine coat of dust will also act as insulator further reducing the effect of air blowing over the metal heat sink (heat dissipation mechanism). Again, in terms of you being hot and stepping out to a breeze of wind, if you were to put a winter sweater before running out the breeze will not be as effective.

Additionally, the fan that is responsible to produce air movement can also fail because of dust. Fine dust particles can find the way inside bearings and cause fan to rattle and eventually seize (fail causing the system to fail because of overheating).

In addition to CPU fan there are many other fans that can meet the same fate if not maintained properly. Power supply has at least one fan with some higher end power supplies having two. Higher end video cards may have a fan, as well, there may be additional system intake and exhaust fans inside your computer, etc.Manufacturer of your PC (or a system builder has strategically installed those to remove heat out of your system. Failed fans can cause severe system failure.Additionally, the fine coat of dust and lint that may settle inside of your PC can also pose a fire hazard (lint may be flammable) although I have not a seen a PC that has set itself ablaze because of to much dust. In most cases the dust and other debris (bugs such as spiders and in occasional case cockroaches can make a cozy home inside of your PC drawn by heat and seclusion of the area).How To Keep Inside of Your PC Clean?Keeping the inside of your PC clean is very simple. Almost all computer hardware stores sell compressed air cans. Those cans have the compressed air in them as well as other chemicals to attack and loosen the dirt that may have got stuck inside your computer. Opening the side panel of your system and blowing the dust off from inside the case and from all components is very simple computer maintenance tip everyone can do and if done regularly will improve the overall health of your PC.Word of caution though. Do this outside as the dust inside your computer very fine and will fly all over place leaving a messy situation if you try to do it inside your living quarters.In absence of the canned air, you can use an air compressor to blast the dust out.Another word of caution. If you use air compressor to blast the dust out, make sure you purge any moisture that often accumulates inside the compressor, simply blast the air out and away from the PC for 30 seconds or so before you use it to blast the dust inside the PC.

I had people asking me if you could use a vacuum cleaner to clean inside PC. Although it will do make the situation better the vacuum cleaner does not have direct contact close enough with the surface to create enough vacuum and suction to effectively suck the dust out. Additionally the clumsy nozzle may hit and break small components like capacitors or other items sticking out of the system board, so I do not recommend using the vacuum cleaner for the job.

Additional Measures to Keep Inside of Your PC Cleaner, Longer.If your computer is sitting in a clean room on hardwood or other hard surface, you will have less dust entering the system but if you have your PC sitting on the carpet this will make situation much worse as the moving air will suck in the fiber on which the PC is sitting. Therefore placing a plastic mat or something of a similar nature under the PC if it is sitting on carpeted surface is a good idea.

Here is another interesting fact that you may find amusing or not depending how you feel about the subject. You have not seen this warning but may very well read. “Smoking Will Kill Your PC”.

If you smoke or have frequently people who smoke being in same room where your computer is, beware, tobacco smoke not only hurts you but your PC to. Tobacco smoke has fair amount of tar and other chemicals inside that are sticky. Just as those things stick to inside of your lungs and clog them, they also stick to fans and inside surface of your PC therefore killing your PC as well.

Ambient Temperature.You may think that the hot cozy room is more comfortable but your computer will disagree. As your computer uses the ambient air to cool itself, the hotter the ambient air is, the harder your PC will have to work (needing to draw much more air in and out to cool itself). So keeping your PC in a colder room is a good idea.

But do not take this to extremes and stick your PC to a freezer so to speak. Although I did not mean literally that anyone will place a PC to a freezer I’ve seen few attempts to hook the air intake of a computer to an air conditioning unit. Bad idea. If the inside of PC gets to cold, the hot surface of components that generate the heat will cause the condensation of the moisture (when the hot air meets the colder surrounding air it gives up the moisture, since the hot air can hold much higher percentage of humidity than cold air simple law of Physics).

When the moisture turns into a condensation, the liquid will eventually find its way to electrical components causing PC to short itself as well as rust to form, effectively killing your PC. As much as extreme heat kills your PC so is extreme cold. Keep it healthy median and your PC will love you.

Additional tip if you are keeping your computer in a cabinet. Make sure you have plenty of room around your computer and on all sides. Pushing computer to close to cabinet walls as well as having cabinet air tight (insufficient flow of air in and out) will obstruct the air flow or cause the same hot air that your system has expelled to be redrawn back in therefore overheating your computer and causing it to fail. Ensure the computer cabinet has plenty of airflow on all sides around your computer as well from the outside of the cabinet. The ambient temperature inside the cabinet must not be much higher than the ambient temperature outside of it.

Replacing Failed Components.Noisy fans, loose or missing filler plates, etc. are not good for your computer and should be replaced. Inexpensive if taken care of at the first sight of the failure, they can be a catalyst to a costly failure if left the way they are when they start showing first signs of failure.

Conclusion.Hopefully at this point, not only you know how to maintain inside of your computer clean but you also understand much better why this is important as an overal computer maintenance regime. This article has also I hope helped you to learn how to go a step further and move beyond just cleaning your computer, by taking additional measures aimed at reducing the amount of foreign debris entering your computer the first place.

Repairing the failure is very important but attacking the root causing the issue to develop the first place is much better approach.Maintaining your computer the proper way will not only extend its life time but also make it operate more reliably while it is working. Just like you maintain your car, your house, boat and any other valuable you have, your computer too needs maintenance.

Keeping the inside of your computer clean and debris free is one very important aspect of that maintenance regime. Yet sadly enough many of us neglect our computers to often until the time when the computer breaks and you find yourself with expensive repair job, loss of data and information that the computer had or perhaps a prospect of having o buy a new computer altogether because you cannot find compatible replacement to a failed component.

Do not let this happen to you.

Copyright © 2008 http://www.SmartBusinessAdvisors.com. All Rights Reserved. Re-published with the permission of the author.

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