People start asking themselves how to clean a laptop fan after it gets noisy, ventilates the dust out of the laptop, or even overheats.
How To Clean Laptop Fan
You can clean a laptop fan is with the help of a canned compressed air which is efficient and yet won’t harm a laptop’s components. If you don’t have one handy, you can use either: soft small brush or fiber cloth.
Accessories You Would Need
The must-have accessory in order to clean your laptop’s fan the most efficient way (and also the easiest way) is definitely a canned compressed air.
It’s a specialized type of air that is in most cases made for use on electronics, which means that you can’t get your laptop damaged.
Other than canned compressed air, you can use:
- Soft small brush
- Fiber cloth
- Any type of air
Step By Step to Clean Laptop Fan
Step 1: Get Your Laptop Ready
Turn off your laptop (unplug it from charger) and let it cool down if you’ve used it previously.
Step 2: Get Canned Compressed Air Ready
Have your compressed air (in a can) ready for the start of your fan cleaning session.
Step 3: Locate the Laptop’s Intake and Exhaust Spots
Every laptop has one or more intake spots where it takes cool air inside the laptop and one exhaust spot where it pushes the hot air out of the laptop.
Step 4: Start With the Exhaust
The first spot you will clean the fan from is the exhaust and you will do it by decompressing the canned air into the exhaust at more than 2 spots.
Step 5: Use Intake Spots to Clean the Fan
Depending on the intake type and placement, you can directly help clean the fan but also the laptop’s interior too.
Step 6: Go Back to Exhaust
After you blew compressed air into the intake spots, you should go back to exhaust and blow more compressed air to completely clean any dust that has been pushed from the intake spots.
Step 7: Clean the Ports
While you’re cleaning the fan, it’s a good idea to clean the ports at the same time since it doesn’t take any extra time but it proves to be valuable.
How to Clean Dust from Laptop Without Compressed Air
If you can’t get your hands on compressed air or you prefer not to use it to clean your laptop’s fan and your laptop in whole – there are quite a few other ways to do it.
When you are still sticking to not opening your laptop – believe it or not, the best option would be a vacuum cleaner. Most people go for the hair dryer which isn’t a great fit since it doesn’t create a lot of pressure and the air can’t acquire a necessary speed.
On the other hand, the vacuum cleaner is a great way to clean laptop’s dust but only in case, you do it quite often. What vacuum cleaner won’t deal well with is the stubborn dust that has been sitting and laying in your laptop and around the fan.
But if you’re looking to open your laptop and get every single piece of dust out – you’ll be able to do it without compressed air. Of course, you’ll need additional accessories such as fiber cloth and a very soft sponge or a brush.
However, if you are staying away from compressed air for certain reasons and you’re looking forward to having a certified technician clean your laptop – keep in mind to note them not to use compressed air. Most professional technicians rely mostly on compressed air instead of any type of suction force.
Vents aren’t always easy to clean without compressed air, so even if you take your laptop apart, you’ll still have to spend a bit of time on the vents.
Additional Advice You Should Know
If you’re cleaning the fan with the help of compressed air, make sure you don’t blow the air only in one port of the exhaust.
The exhaust consists of a few different ports which are located next to each other in a line. The most efficient way to clean as much dust as possible from the outside is to act quickly when blowing the air in the exhaust.
This means you should blow the air and quickly change the vents so you don’t make your fan spin endlessly – yet create a balance that will help get the most dust out of the fan.
Also, when you’re done with exhaust and you’re about to blow the air intake spots – make sure you know where your speakers are.
Most laptops have speakers installed at the bottom of the laptop and if you mistake them for an intake port – you might damage or even destroy them with the compressed air.
What many people don’t know is that some laptops come with intake air spots just under the keys of the keyboard, so if that’s your case – don’t be afraid to blow the air around the keys.
In fact, it’s a necessary way to clean such types of intake air spots.
Conclusion
No matter the laptop type, intended use or even the amount of time spent using it – every laptop has a cooling system in place.
Most of the time, fans are a part of the cooling system and other than replacing them after a few years – they require regular cleaning (considered as maintenance).
We’ve mentioned the problems that a fan which hasn’t been cleaned regularly can cause. Yet a can of compressed air and a few hours of your afternoon – and you can easily clean the fan and even a bit of the interior of your laptop without taking it apart.
Dario is a writer at NetbookNews.com. He is at the same time an avid technology addict that loves reviewing gadgets & devices, and then writing useful reviews.