In the newsletter titled Hybrid Hard Drives Finally Come of Age an information week article about cleaning laptops (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60300177&pgno=5&queryText=&isPrev=) was mentioned. I’ve read through this article and noticed a few things:
The article says to use a cotton swab which I agree with but, I add one more thing which is isopropyl alcohol (commonly known as rubbing alcohol). isopropyl alcohol will attract more dust, remove the effects of oxidization (rust) and will dry quite quickly. When building a PCB from scratch we (my class) was taught to use isopropyl alcohol to clean off all sorts of stuff off our boards, especially what I’ll call rust (if memory serves it’s not technically rust when copper oxidizes) which forms quite quickly when heating (soldering) a copper board.
The article also mentions the use of Compressed air. I’ve heard people swear by using compressed air while others say it will completely screw up a system. I’ve not actually tried using compressed air with my system but, I have vacuumed it before (which is what the manual says to do). I’m honestly not sure whether I should try compressed air or not but, I will mention that my laptop uses a single fan which takes air in from the bottom and blows it out the side (it appears to have a heat sink in front of the fan which probably wraps around the fan or something).
In the past I have had issues with my fan but not since I opened my case (or really just removed the keyboard panel) and cleaned it out real good with alcohol and a cotton swab then started using an additional cooling fan which sits under everything but, the fan and provides some lift.
Something I thought the article should have mentioned more about was some environmental aspects that not everyone thinks about (even if they’re common sense). For instance: My grandmothers tablecloth is horrible for my laptop since if I lay my laptop directly on the table the cloth will get stuck in my intake (which again is on the bottom) and may actually melt if I leave it there too long (it’s a plastic type material tablecloth).
Another more obvious problem is areas with heavy dust.
There’s also humid area’s (not mentioned in most manuals) which may not only increase oxidization rates but, also trap heat or even short out a laptop.
Carpet is also quite bad for the same reason as the tablecloth.
Really unless you can provide enough lift to keep your intake off the ground the best solution is probably a polished wood counter (doesn’t conduct heat well and so long as it’s not dusty you don’t have to worry about particles).
Finally, if overheating is a major problem I’d advise a cooling fan attachment. Mine is just a simple USB powered fan that basically fits under half my laptop and keeps my RAM/processor cooler while providing enough lift that my fan isn’t suffocated by carpet or cloth.
Any other tips or opinions on the whole compressed air thing are welcomed.
