I do this about once a year, My old Athlon rig sits in the kitchen, behind a panel but with no side on, when the temp gets over 50c its time to whip it apart and clean it out, this drops the temp to about 39c, this is what the cpu heat sink looked like.



This is a pc that is three and a half years old, has never had a problem and has been on since new apart from holidays, I think I have had my moneys worth so as long as it keeps going its a bonus.

Athlon XP 1700 +
Gforce 3 300TI
2* 80 Gb Seagate Barracuda
512 MB crucial ram
Well worn plextor CD writer
DVD writer

Its also gone a bit quieter sounding.

 

in Scotland we call that foost

 

Gawd. Talking about sleeping with the enemy!

 

Try and clean mine out every 6 months. That dust gets everywhere.

 

how do you clean yours (pc that is) Do you use a brush and a hoover???

 

Just removed the Heat sink and fan and used a clean paintbrush to brush the debris out and then hoovered it once it had been loosened, also removed the GFX card and dismantled the fan on there (fiddly), brushed a lot off the memory and chipset fan.

Made me sneeze quite a bit. I know its time to do it cos it registers over 50 c (52 yesterday) and since its been 42 or less.

 

Compressed air tins are good for that sort of thing (not cheap). But make sure you take it outside it blows it every where.

 

I do this about every 18 months. I just pop the side off, take the cpu fan off, leaving the heastsink attached (don't want to disturb too much). Give everything a good blow out using the air gun on my diving reg setup connected upto my bottle. 200 bar makes short work of any dust ;D

 

Where can u buy those compressed air tins from?

Is there a cheaper alternative? Vacuuming never seems to work to well, or too much hassle.

 

PC world and some other outlet places like staples. Not sure where else you can get it from cheaper.

 

Maplins do them too.

 

Cheers Maplins are doin a promotional offer on them £4.99

 

Nice.
Not one too far from where I currently work.