Does Dust Affect Cooling?

Mackass

Mackass

Mackass

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My computers almost a year old, and it's currently quite dusty inside. Recently, my CPU temperatures have reached an astonishing 45*C at certain times, where as a year ago, when everything was new, my CPU only ever reached temperatures of around 38*C maximum. I know there's been a heat wave recently, however this was roughly the same last year, so I was wondering, will cleaning out the PC give me any substantial improvements in temperature readings? Also, my AMD CPU fan, will taking it out and clearing the dust interfere with the layer of thermal paste?
 
You shouldn't take the heatsink off if you don't need to. Go to a hardware shop / some office shops and get a can of compressed air (an air duster they may call it). Point and shoot :) (advisable to be outside, as it'll get pretty dusty). You can certainly improve your temps doing this - maybe 5C depending on how bad it is.
 
Does the compressed air reach the dust in those hard to reach places, like really further in? And is it okay to spray it on other places, like the motherboard and graphics card etc without causing any damage?
 
Got to point out that my CPU heatsinc was filled with the dusty stuff, and my temps started to increase.

Took everything off, cleaned it, and put it back together and my temps dropped again.

Dust certainly makes a difference if its in the right place
 
I can beat that. On Saturday after the boy was complaining of spontanious shutdowns. I noticed in windows his cpu temp was 68c :eek: . So I hoovered the intake fan and filter, and blow out the cpu heatsink. 45c on reboot 48c after an hour.

Never underestimate the badness that is a fuzzed up heatsink!
 
KangooVanMan said:
I can beat that. On Saturday after the boy was complaining of spontanious shutdowns. I noticed in windows his cpu temp was 68c :eek: . So I hoovered the intake fan and filter, and blow out the cpu heatsink. 45c on reboot 48c after an hour.

Never underestimate the badness that is a fuzzed up heatsink!
Click to expand...

My dads old Tbird900, it was three years old and it was hitting 90°C and crashing (they could handle the heat the old Tbirds) when i opened the case up there was so much dogs hair and dust between the heatsink and the fan that NO air could flow from the fan into the heatsink. Removed said heatsink, removed fan, hoover and paintbrush treatment and walla, 35°C idle :)
 
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