Dust Bunnies... Enemy of the PC

Anywhere you have air flow, you'll find dust. It accumulates everywhere and depending on the environment, it can appear very quickly. Aside from taking the sheen and cleanliness from the surfaces of your home, it can suffocate your electronics, most importantly your computers.

Dust accumulation on and inside of your PC can raise temperatures of its components drastically. This occurs because the fans get clogged, restricting air flow and efficient removal of heat, and a blanket of dust on the circuit boards prevents air flow from reaching their surfaces. If left unchecked long enough it "chokes" your computer parts in a blanket of hot air, regardless of how cool the ambient temperature is around the PC.

The images above show how a dust bunny on the outside of the computer can affect air flow and subsequent heat build-up. The image on the left is a plain picture with a lot of dust where the arrow is. The image on the right is of the same area, but with a heat camera. The dust in the same place is causing more heat (it appears whiter)

If you have a laptop, you likely know how warm something on the side of it can get - wherever the exhaust fans are for the processor. If you start doing something that takes a fair bit of CPU power like playing a complex game or running an intense scan on your system, sometimes you can hear that fan start spinning a lot faster, trying to compensate for that extra heat. If any of you use a laptop in bed, your blanket or sheets can get in the way of that air circulation very easily. Sometimes your laptop can turn itself off if that exhaust fan is blocked long enough, due to over-heating or getting hot enough to trigger a threshold action for safety. Dust has the same effect when it gets bad enough.

We have some customers who have not had their computers opened up and cleaned in years. If your computer is located in these conditions, be careful because it's at a higher risk for dust accumulation and/or overheating:

• resides in a household with smokers (especially if the smoking takes place inside and even more so if it takes place directly near the computer)

• is placed on the floor near or on top of carpet or a rug

• is in a corner or nestled somewhere with reduced air circulation, such as in a cabinet or behind a bunch of stuff

• is in a room with poor cooling or prone to more dust, such as in an upstairs bonus room, in a basement, or in a room where a window is left open frequently, allowing particles from unfiltered outside air to get into the PC

Give us a call or send us an email, and we'll stop by and blow all those nasty dust bunnies out of your desktop or laptop. It'll increase its performance and may even save components from failing, costing you more money.

We use the latest technology to scan your computer for overheating issues and can pinpoint poor air circulation areas, or components that require additional or stronger fans.