How much does dusting out the inside of the computer actually help?

[iboycott]

Does dusting the inside of my computer actually have any effect on performance?

 

[techgeek]

If your heatsinks are full of cruft, it can cause the parts they are cooling to overheat. This can cause many problems. Most CPU's and GPU's will start to throttle their clocks when they reach a predetermined temperature. Overheating can also cause your PC to crash / reboot / BSOD etc.

So in a word yes it can have an affect on performance and stability.

To keep your PC happy, keep out the dust bunnies.

Just a word of caution, if you are using canned air to dislodge the dust from heatsinks and fan assemblies, don't let the fans spin when you are hitting them with the air. The compressed air can get the fan spinning so fast that it can damage the bearing.

 

[boosted1g]

You dont change your oil or replace your thermostat on your car to gain horsepower, you do it so that it does not destroy the engine.

You dust out your fans and the rest of your cooling system works optmally.

 

[iboycott]

thank you. could you also tell me if a lot of dust on my video card fan could cause freezing of the computer?

 

[boosted1g]

As techgeek said, dont let the air spin your fans.
Put a pen or paperclip or something in the grill to just prevent fan from spinning while you blow the air through. This goes for system fans and cpu heatsink fan.

 

[boosted1g]

Dust causes the heatshinks and the fans to not be able to run and cool to their full ability. Thus if you have a lot of dust in your GPU, then yes it will get hot and your display will freeze.

Wont cause CPU or RAM issues, that would be independent.

Irregardless, clean the dust out of your PC.

 

[boju]

All the above and well said.

Just dont let your comp get like this and all will be good. Theres plenty of grubs out there just google computer very dusty

 

[iboycott]

Hmm well it still froze again so maybe I didnt clean it well enough. There wasn't any noticable dust though.