You carry your laptop everywhere—from air-conditioned boardrooms to open public spaces. Like any other possession of yours, your laptop is prone to attracting dust and dirt. From fans and vents to spaces between keys, you can see traces of dust everywhere with a keen eye. The buildup of dust is inevitable. However, the impact of dust on your laptop can be threatening if you don’t prioritize regular cleaning.
Let’s check out the detrimental effects of dirt accumulation along with how to keep dust out of your laptop.
What is the Impact of Dust on Your Laptop?
Dust is a pollutant consisting of tiny particles such as dirt, pollen, allergens, and so on. Over time, your laptop’s external and internal components can trap dust. This might sound harmless unless you are aware of the impact of dust on your laptop.
Let’s have a broad view of how dust and dirt can interfere with your laptop’s functionality.
1. Preventing Heat Dissipation
Your laptop is a champion until its airflow remains unhinged. The moment it starts facing issues with the airflow or heat dissipation, you are more likely to witness an overheating issue with laptops. Interestingly, dust and dirt can be the villains here.
For example, dust can cover up vents. Thus, your laptop vents fail to pass the hot air generated by major components such as the graphics card and processor. In addition, with layers of dust and dirt, the fan blades make it difficult to move freely. As the impact of dust and dirt on your laptop, your device experiences challenges with expelling hot air and drawing in cool air.
2. Overheating and Performance Strain
Does your laptop feel like it’s on a fever? Then, your laptop suffers from overheating and this is an impact of dust on your laptop. As you already know, hot air is trapped inside your laptop with clogged vents and dust-covered fans. Now, the temperature of your laptop is likely to rise and may often exceed the safe operating range for internals.
As a defense mechanism, your laptop might slow down CPU processes. Indeed, laptops are designed to throttle performance when the temperature is too high. Hence, you might experience lags, slowdowns, and even extreme sluggishness while handling everyday tasks.
On the other hand, same-day laptop repairs have reported random shutdowns, unexpected crashes, and permanent hardware damage due to overheating induced by dust buildup.
3. Hardware Damage
Is it possible to experience hardware damage as an impact of dust on your laptop? Yes, the negative effects of dust can include irreversible hardware damage. Delicate internal components such as the motherboard, graphics card, and CPU can suffer due to long-term overheating.
With dust buildup, fans struggle to spin to their full potential. When they try to spin, they might operate at higher speeds to expel the hot air. As a result, you might come across laptop fan issues. For instance, the fans can be louder or go through wear and tear.
However, dust buildup can cause short circuits. This is rare, but there’s a thin chance that dust accumulation can generate a conductive connection between electrical components.
4. Respiratory Problems and Allergies
You are aware of the impact of dust and dirt on your laptop. Apart from affecting your laptop, dust buildup can raise health concerns among users. Dust consists of pollen, fabric fibers, soil, mold spores, dead skin cells, and more.
So, using a laptop with too much dust buildup can be a risk to people suffering from respiratory conditions and allergies. Indeed, dust and dirt can trigger and cause the following conditions:
- Coughing and sneezing
- Itching eyes and throat
- Runny nose and congestion
- Worsened asthma symptoms include difficulty breathing.
5. Dust Mites and Bacteria
Dust mites are commonly seen in warm, humid environments and they feed on dead skin cells. If your laptop, chair, or desk accumulates dust, then dust mites can easily breed there. They don’t bite but their body parts and feces can act as allergens.
Hence, they can surely trigger asthma. Like dust mites, harmful bacteria can find their breeding ground on your laptop due to dust and dirt buildup. If you work and eat side by side, then you might get sick.
Signs Your Laptop Needs a Dust-Off
Gradually, your laptop captures dust and dirt. How do you keep dust out of your laptop? Before we answer that, you must know whether it’s time to clean your laptop. Here are the telltale signs of whether your computer requires dusting or deep cleaning.
- See if there’s a visible layer of dust around the vents.
- Inspect whether the spaces between keys have a buildup of dust, crumbs, and hair.
- Are you comfortable opening the chassis of your laptop? Then, you can examine the internal components, such as fans and heatsinks for signs of dust buildup.
- Additionally, a louder fan noise often indicates dust accumulation.
- Do you get a scraping or rattling noise? Then, your laptop fans rotate unevenly because of dust buildup.
- If your PC has slowdowns, lags, crashes, or blue screens, it may need a cleanup.
How to Clean Your Laptop to Make It Faster?
Yes, you can improve both your laptop’s health and performance with regular laptop cleaning. Here’s how to clean your laptop to make it faster.
1. Cleaning the Display and Body
How to keep dust out of your laptop? Try to keep your laptop clean as much as possible. Here’s what you need to follow to clean its display and body:
- Turn off your laptop and disconnect it from the power source.
- Next, use a microfiber cloth to dust the surface.
- If you notice stubborn stains and smudges, you can dampen the cloth lightly. Then, use the cloth in gentle and small circular motions. Alternatively, you can use electronic wipes.
- Use a dry cloth to absorb excess moisture from your laptop.
2. Keyboard Cleaning
Your laptop’s keyboard captures oils and crumbs from your hands. Hence, it’s important to practice regular cleaning for your keyboard. It will help you minimize the impact of dust on your laptop.
- Start by shutting down your laptop. Also, disconnect it from charging accessories.
- After that, use a can of compressed air to blow small bursts at the spaces between keys.
- For deeper cleaning, you can dampen a cloth with isopropyl alcohol.
- Then, use the damp cloth to wipe keys and their surrounding areas.
- Finally, use a dry cloth to soak up excess moisture.
Also, you can escape the whole cleaning process with a keyboard-cleaning slime or gel.
3. Cleaning Fan and Vents
How do you keep dust out of your laptop? Make sure your laptop fan and vents are clean to avoid overheating consequences.
- Power off your laptop first.
- Locate the vents of your laptop.
- Blow short bursts of compressed air to get dust out of the vents.
- If you are comfortable with disassembling your laptop, then you can clean the fan blades from the inside.
However, make sure you refer to your laptop’s user manual before attempting that. You might void the warranty if you open up the chassis.
How to Keep Dust Out of Your Laptop?
Apart from the above-mentioned cleaning procedures, you can invest in air purifiers around your workspace. Also, maintain proper ventilation by using exhaust fans. Practice regular cleaning and avoid smoking indoors. Contact a same-day laptop repair shop if you need further assistance with intensive computer cleaning.
Additionally, they can resolve fan issues. To prevent overheating, you can use a cooling pad. With effective cleaning and maintenance, you can reduce wear and tear and get a higher resale value.
