Alternatives to canned air?

That is a DIY alternative. The other one is to disassemble the case. and pull the fluff out of the fan hpusings

Note: disassembling a laptop is a major cause of damage.

Suck not blow ?

Seriously it doesnt get much easier than this:

I note that it is flammable. Presumably whatever it uses as a propellant.

Cheers

Dave R

Are you planning to open it up? You don't want to blow the dust

You can buy cans of compressed air from pound shops for, er, a pound. But they don't have much in them. Places like B&Q also sell them.

Computer manufacturers strongly advise against using a vacuum cleaner. If you risk it be sure to use very low power and at a sufficient distance to avoid the possibility of static discharge.

-- Richard

Took the back off to investigate. It looked as though the fan wasn't turning. Spun it a couple of times and it is now definitely turning. Quietly, though, so I am not sure if it is running at full speed.

Running Dell Diagnostics just in case.

Thread in uk.comp.homebuilt notes that I have ordered a cooling pad, to see if that helps.

Cheers

Dave R

And don't let a vacuum (or spray can) overspeed the fan.

It's probably best to use something to stop the fan turning at all.

-- Richard

Canned air isn't air, it's a hydrocarbon of some kind (flammable like butane or inflammable like a fluorocarbon).

To use actual air, try a nozzle on a bicycle pump or a syringe with a large gauge needle on it. A balloon could be used as a reservoir of compressed air (blown up with a pump, not by mouth unless you want it covered in saliva).

Battery and 12V powered compressors are also available, eg as tyre inflators. Be aware that some of these include a fine mist of compressor oil in their output - handy for rustproofing the inside of your wheels, less good for coating the inside of your laptop.

Theo

Even 'canned air' is not completely clean, it is no use for cleaning optical surfaces because it leaves an oily residue. Not very much, but on a lens or camera prism, clean means *clean*. Anything at all left behind will cause optical flare, or visible blobs in a microscope camera.

You can get compressed air

Be very careful pulling coolers off the chipsets - they bend easily

Clean all old gunk off the heatsinks and chips and if its liquid metal pray to a local saint.

That 'compressed air' is flammable, according to the MSDS:

"Since the can contains flammable propellant, all possible ignition sources should be removed before application."

Air is hard to hold under significant pressure unless you have a big steel tank, like that used by an air compressor. You expect to get a lot more volume of 'air' out of these tins than the same volume of balloon under moderate pressure. That's why these thin aerosol cans hold a liquid under low pressure that converts to a gas when the pressure is released - the same idea as the refrigeration cycle. Indeed they use refrigerants - either propane/butane/isobutane, or R134a or another HFC.

They call it 'propellant' but I'd be surprised if there is very much oxygen or nitrogen in these cans. It's different from an aerosol paint spray where the liquid to gas phase change is just a medium to dispense the paint: here the 'propellant' is the only thing we are interested in.

Interestingly, some of these 'air duster' type products are 100% R134a (tetrafluoroethane). So possibly a cheap way to regas your old car aircon, much cheaper than buying R134a from Halfords...

Theo