Wow, now underestimate cleaning your heatsink and changing the thermal paste

[Grooveriding]

I clean my system out with compressed air once every two months. More frequently than before since radiators seem to clog up quite a bit and need to be cleared. We also have two cats and live in an older home that is quite dusty.

Always know it's time for a clean as temperatures are about 10C higher on the video cards once the radiators are caked with dust/cat hair.

 

[Zodiark1593]

I take compressed air to my laptop about once every few months, more frequently during Summer. A complete dissassembly (what a pain) once a year for deep cleaning. A good amount of dust gets trapped even with frequent dustings.

 

[2is]

It's one of the reasons I turn my computer off if I'm not going to use it for an extended period of time. Far less dust, lower electric bill and with SSD+UEFI booting, it only takes a few seconds to get to your windows desktop anyway.

 

[MustISO]

I keep my PC's on desks and they get very little dust inside. I clean the front filters every few months but that's it.

 

[gradoman]

powerder coat dust is style!!!!

:ROFL:

Oh Christ, a compressor would clear 90% of that crap in seconds. Just be sure to have a proper mask on with decent filters and some goggles. Hahahaha.

I used to be SUPER ANAL about keeping my PC clean, but that died down after the first year of having my own custom-built rig. Now it's like once every 3 months or so and I just swiffer the top and front every so often in between.

 

[jvroig]

Even just dusting could give a significant temp decrease. My experience was on a video card, though. Noticed my Radeon 4770 was basically semi-idling in Linux at 70C (the linux sensor is about 10C higher, never bothered to re-calibrate since I understood what it really meant). Once I got around to doing nothing more than just dusting off the video card and putting it back in, temps went down to 60C.

I don't go crazy with cleaning out the dust though. I might manage twice a year (or more often if I tinker with the machine a lot, as I take the opportunity to also remove dust), even though it gets quite some dust. Until the temps become unmanageable, I don't really spend time cleaning it beyond the usual once every several months

 

[MrPickins]

fab softs....what a genius idea

I find that Swiffers work pretty well also.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

...kerosene space heater in the house which liked to malfunction and start spewing black smoke...

Lucky the sooty heatsink was all you had to deal with!

 

[JimmiG]

My previous system used to get filthy very quickly. Negative air pressure and no fan filters. The last few months I ran it with the side panel removed. This actually resulted in less of the fine powder dust.

With the new system, I went with positive air pressure (3x intake, 2x exhaust) and made sure all fans have dust filters. Still looks like new inside after 2 months, even though I have a large dog and a cat that both like to sleep in the computer room