consider supporting our work with a contribution to wikiHow. All Rights Reserved. Don’t aim the air directly at the fan and give it a long blast. How to Enable Noise Cancellation for AirPods Pro on Mac, How to Turn Your TV Into a Virtual Fireplace, How to See an Alphabetical List of All Your iPhone Apps, How to Wirelessly Sync Photos Between Windows 10 and Android, © 2020 LifeSavvy Media. It's not advisable to use water, as you could seriously damage your computer. RELATED: What You Need to Know About Upgrading Your Laptop's Hardware. Kim shows you how to clean … Get a can of compressed air, point it at the laptop’s cooling vents, and give them a few short bursts of air. All tip submissions are carefully reviewed before being published. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Whether you want to upgrade your laptop’s hardware or just dust it out, manufacturers don’t want you to open most laptops. Learn more... You might not think about it too often, but the inside of your laptop does get dusty and dirty over time. We put our laptops through a lot on a day-to-day basis. wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. So, aim to clean it out every 6 months to a year. When it comes to the life span and performance of a laptop, cleaning it regularly does make a difference. Wipe down the touchpad with small circular motions to remove any oil from your fingers. Prepare your microfiber cloth with an appropriate cleaning solution. Cleaning the inside of a laptop computer … Ensure you’re blowing the dust out of the laptop’s case, not just moving it around inside. If you really canât stand to see another ad again, then please consider supporting our work with a contribution to wikiHow. Your laptop’s fans may also run at full blast, draining your battery. Take your compressed air can, aim it at a RAM slot, hold the trigger, and move it down the entire slot. Once it’s completely dry, reassemble the pieces and reconnect your spruced up mouse to your computer. Use the owner's manual for your computer to see how to open the case. Here's how to defeat dust, gunk, and other unmentionable material that gets lodged inside your desktop system. Use a can of compressed air to blow out the internals of your laptop. Amid the current public health and economic crises, when the world is shifting dramatically and we are all learning and adapting to changes in daily life, people need wikiHow more than ever. When your laptop regularly travels with you, you find yourself working in airplanes, cars, trains, and even the local internet café, you realize that just about everywhere you go poses a new threat to your laptop's safety. Your laptop may have a bottom panel (or several bottom panels) you can unscrew to access the internals. Even if you can’t open your laptop, you can still attempt to dislodge some of that dust. Before you resell, recycle, or donate an old laptop, learn how to wipe a computer clean and protect your personal data with this Consumer Reports guide. On a desktop PC, you’d power down your PC, open the case, blow it out with a can of compressed air, and close the case. He's written about technology for nearly a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. The best bet for your laptop's survival is to follow these 10 steps to clean up the spill and protect your laptop from further damage. The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. If you’ve had your laptop for a year or two, it may be full of dust. Repeat this for every slot in your computer case. Compressed air is best. Let’s not forget that a unclogged vent means a more silent fan for a more efficient cooling performance. Here's how: Step 1: Turn off your computer and unplug it … We use cookies to make wikiHow great. Remember to avoid applying the cleaning solution directly to your screen. Image Credit: nick@ on Flickr, Rick Kempel on Flickr, Although on Wikimedia Commons, Cheon Fong Liew on Flickr. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read more than 500 million times---and that's just here at How-To Geek. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. It’ll run cooler, and its fans should spin up less often. Please help us continue to provide you with our trusted how-to guides and videos for free by whitelisting wikiHow on your ad blocker. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. Learn from a financial expert: How to Raise Your Credit Score. But dust does build up inside a laptop, whether you can open it yourself or not. Your laptop is clean — unless it was truly too gross and it needs a proper industrial clean. There’s a lot to doing a good cleaning, but it can go very quickly. Every day at wikiHow, we work hard to give you access to instructions and information that will help you live a better life, whether it's keeping you safer, healthier, or improving your well-being. Next, we move inside the computer case. Turn off the laptop and remove the battery. How often you need to clean your laptop depends on the laptop itself and how dusty your environment is. You can remove a good amount of this dust, even if you can’t open your laptop. wikiHow is a âwiki,â similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. How often should I clean my laptop? Afterward, use the vacuum again to clean out any eraser stubble between the keys. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. Ensure you’re blowing the dust out of the laptop’s case, not just moving it around inside. Purchase a can of compressed air (available at most computer retailers) and blow the particles out of the vents. Cleaning internal laptop components. Your laptop may even reduce its performance to stay cool. This presents a serious problem. Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 31,497 times. To help keep your computer running cool, clean the inside of your computer every 6 to 12 months. Chris has written for The New York Times, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami's NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Step 5: Once the screen is clean, wait for it to dry and close the laptop. While the air may clear away the debris, it may also blow it deeper into the laptop. {"smallUrl":"https:\/\/www.wikihow.com\/images\/thumb\/5\/57\/20151201_185039.jpg\/460px-20151201_185039.jpg","bigUrl":"\/images\/thumb\/5\/57\/20151201_185039.jpg\/728px-20151201_185039.jpg","smallWidth":460,"smallHeight":259,"bigWidth":"728","bigHeight":"410","licensing":"
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