How To Keep Your Computer Clean

In my previous post I showed some pictures of computers that were clogged with dirt and dust. In some cases, so much dust that it was very likely to cause the computer to either burn out or at the very least, to cause intermittent problems.

Now the reason why you want to keep your computer clean isn’t really for aesthetic purposes. The main reason you want to keep your computer physically clean is that dirt and dust causes both a build up of heat as well as potential short circuits as the dust settles into electrical portions of your computer like the power supply, ports, and the motherboard itself.

And once you get a short circuit it’s often a fatal disease. Time for a new computer! That costs a bit of coin, as well as the time and added cost of having to reinstall all your programs and restore your data, provided your hard drive even survived the ordeal.

Now wouldn’t you rather spend that money on a couple of dinners at Mastros instead? OK, at Mastros maybe it’s just an appetizer and one dinner…

So how do you keep your computer clean and free from dust?

The best way I’ve found is to use a can of compressed air or Dust Off.

You should also use some eye protection like safety goggles or eye glasses along with a dust mask. I’ve found that the dust that settles on computers is often a very fine type of dust and it easily gets into your eyes and nose if you aren’t wearing any protection.

When blowing the dust out of the ports, it’s best to use short quick bursts. Also, don’t aim the air directly into the port. Blow the dust out at an angle.

Be careful that you don’t hold that plastic straw nozzle too close to any part of the computer, otherwise it’ll get frostbite and that could damage the components. For best results, hold the nozzle about 3 – 6 inches away from the area that you are trying to clean.

Sometimes people think using a vacuum cleaner is better than the compressed air. A lot of vacuum cleaners come with crevice attachments or other brush heads and the problem is that the plastic can cause a large build up of static electricity which can damage delicate electronic components.

My recommendation is to use the compressed air which is less risky.