Its that time!

How dusty is your pc?

Very dusty, haven't cleaned it in 4 months.

Whats the worst that can happen?

Need some help with a cooling theory. I have an older gaming laptop and I'm in the process of replacing thermal paste/pads today.

There are 2 sets of heat sink fins going to a single fan. One in front of the intake and one in front of the exhaust so its cooling as it draws air in and out.

The fan itself is opened up on the top and bottom which to me seems like that was take air away from drawing through the intake. Should I use something to cover the top and bottom of the fan off so it only draws/exhausts through the proper ventilation openings?

Mind you people can say this is "how companies designed their cooling to be" but this is an older MSI laptop with a generic ass laptop shell that other laptop companies used.

No idea, haven't cleaned it in years and it runs almost 24/7

Not at all, since I took it apart a few days ago to switch out the motherboard and CPU.

Definitely do that.

Would this amount of dust on the fans REALLY make a noticible difference in performance. Or are ppl just peculiar about their standards

The sad part is even if I explained to you how retarded you are, you'd miss the point.

Cover the fan holes.

Think you missed the part that its a laptop fan and not a desktop fan. Its supposed to draw in and expel from the sides. Which is why I don't see why the top and bottom are completely open. I've had older laptops in the way im describing, which is why I was thinking about it. Wanted some input, but you know clearly Sup Forums is so based.

really dusty, haven't cleaned in a year

temperatures are fine

I don't have canned air

All the intakes have filters, so i don't think the situation is that bad. Usually when i clean it i like to oil all the fans too since i have to take it outside to use the air compressor. That's why i don't clean it often.

only place where dust could affect performance is cooling, if the heatsink is covered in an insulating layer of dust

otherwise the dust doesn't matter unless it shorts something out which results in a case of computer doesn't work instead of computer performs worse

Ok. I just looked at the heatsink and i can see the layer of dust through the spinning fans. Better buy some aiir

Serious stuff. To be used by adult men, women and humans ( gotta remember the humans) only

Cleaned a year ago, I think it's still clean enough, got shitty dust filters

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That looks more like skin flakes than anything.

I've had a compressor explode at work (well hose connection) and suddenly I take this warning more seriously

thanks for reading this blog post

you think so?

maybe, dunno how dead skin cells got there but could be just the flashlight making it look like so

I have no fans in my entire computer. I opened it up after 4 months of not cleaning, and it looks like I put it together yesterday.

When I take apart my PC to clean it, how do I avoid dust getting into PCIe slots etc. when blowing the dust?

the fan for the cpu wasn't filthy?

leave the blowing of the dust in the PCle slots till last?

and my temps are 100% the same as they were when my PC was clean

though for some reason core 0 is always a few degrees hotter