Take care of your computer and it will take care of you

As a reminder for everyone to maintain their computers I thought it include this photo of the dust ball I pulled out of an Dell laptop recently. The machine was suffering from random shutdowns and the client complained of it being HOT. I thought it likely that the computer was shutting off automatically after reaching it’s maximum operating temperature. Well it was hot all right, way too hot (like running without water in the radiator for days hot). Don’t let this happen to your computer as well – as you can guess, it’s really bad for it.

This dust ball is the most likely culprit of your computer's failure.

This was an exceptionally bad case of dust-induced overheating. The client, to his credit, had tried to blow out the fan and air intakes and also recognized it was overheating. When I first turned on and analyzed this computer the CPU was operating at nearly 90 degrees Celsius.  I really can’t believe this computer still functions at all and that the whole thing did not just melt down before my eyes.  I turned it off, let it cool, and took it apart.

After digging deep into the cooling system I tracked down the culprit and fished it out of a corner of the fan .  It was a massive dustball that was intermittently getting in the way of the fan blades.   After some more dust flew I reassembled and looked at the temps. Everything was cool and running smooth – at times the CPU was a mere 40 degrees. I tweaked a couple Windows settings and the machine was running great for its vintage.

While not every computer is built with such a poor design as to trap dust in the fan box, its my suspicion that even this machine could have been saved with a regular blast of compressed air through it’s vents.  For those curious about the intricacies of this laptop surgery the picture below shows the likely place for dust collect in these Dell Inspirions.

If your gonna get into this project make sure you read up on the radiator removal process in the Dell Service Manual. Or better yet call Farquhar Tech at 509.315.1144.