Best way to clean a system out

[emmd]

So my system has plenty of dust now and I wanted to know are there any good cleaning methods for removing dust without damaging the internals?

[Clunk]

compressed air and a soft paintbrush.

[rainbow]

bring it to my shop we will charge you 34.50 for a pc clean up, and what will i do, ill dust it with air, and defrag the hard drive muahahah

[kempez]

Yeah get the compressed air

There are also some pads you can buy that clean up your PC too. I just bosh in some conpressed air tho

[aidanjt]

An old toothbrush and compressed air for those hard to reach places

[jamiecockrill]

be careful with the compressed air though, don't go turning it upside down and squirting liquid whatever-is-in-the-can all over your mainboard. Did that and boom (well, more like a pop really)

on second thoughts, the next time I tried it, I took the whole PSU out and all the cables too, which made it far easier to clean everywhere.

take your CPU heatsink off too and blow the compressed air through it and you'll be surprised how much comes out!

[ajones]

be careful with the compressed air though, don't go turning it upside down and squirting liquid whatever-is-in-the-can all over your mainboard. Did that and boom (well, more like a pop really)

Moral of this story... Pull the power plug out first whenever you're doing stuff inside!

[kalniel]

Yeah - unplugging is obviously a must (though it may have popped when they next turned it on).

Also do the usual static discharging thing whenever you're delving inside case components.

[mike_dowler]

actually, don't pull the plug - just switch it off at the wall. Leaving the plug in keeps the case earthed - so as long as you touch a bare metal part of the case, you are earthed too!

[kalniel]

Good point

[dangel]

A dyson vacuum cleaner Use the brush attachment and it brings up boards like new.. Be careful tho - anything loose will go too (i recently 'accidentally' sucked up a AA battery and it didn't even blink..).

[kalniel]

A dyson vacuum cleaner Use the brush attachment and it brings up boards like new.. Be careful tho - anything loose will go too (i recently 'accidentally' sucked up a AA battery and it didn't even blink..).

You know how much static a vacuum cleaner generates...

[dangel]

You know how much static a vacuum cleaner generates...

...when it's not running it's heads against a nylon carpet? Not much actually lol

[kalniel]

Maybe your dyson's OK then - ours generates huge amounts of static on its own.

[dangel]

Maybe your dyson's OK then - ours generates huge amounts of static on its own.

Hmmm dunno about that then - never had a shock off mine nor has it damaged anything. Big static is usually a result of friction against some charging material like nylon carpets - when using attachments (obviously i'm not hoisting the business end of the upright inside the pc case!) this shouldn't occur (as the heads are suspended away from the carpet). Mine's an old school yellow DC03 upright and i've never had a shock off it even when cleaning nylon carpet. Does yours have moving heads in the attachments or something?
Presumably a plugged in PC is grounded anyway so it's pretty difficult to kill plugged in (soldered etc) components versus when you pick something up from a bag and the only ground is the 1500ohms human body

[autopilot]

Probably obvious, but worth a mention, is when you use an air can take off all the case sides and top pannel. You want to blow the air out of the case, not just around and around inside it just to settle again (in harder to reach places this time). Just because you can see as much dust does not mean its left the case. Most of it ends up under the motherboard in my experience.

Maybe your dyson's OK then - ours generates huge amounts of static on its own.

Yes, they will generate some static on thier own, partly due to the friction from the air running down the tubes (if you dont believe me, leave a vacume cleaner running for a while and feel how the tubes warm up a bit). Not to meantion the large magnetic field surrounding the electric motor which is probably the main issue. Maybe i am stating the obvious, but dont get a running vacume cleaner too close to the base unit. The trick is to use a vacume cleaner, but use it indirectly with an air can...

...get your vacume cleaner running (with the motor well away from the PC) and hold the nozzle a few inches outside the case. Then displace the dust with an air can which the vacume with take away out of the air.

Might sound a bit OTT, but it's both the safest and most effective. This is how the server guys did it at my uni years ago. Works a treat.