Using compressed air on a live computer system

[Alpha90]

I was doing some routine maintenance on my system dusting the front and sides off with some canned air while the system was up and running but after thinking about it for a moment I started to wonder could I have damaged the fans while doing so.

Could an angled burst spray of compressed air do damage to 80 mm / 120 mm case fans running at the maximum RPM?

 

[lodders]

No, don't worry about it.

 

[Nymical]

Not a chance. The air could only possibly damage the motor, and the failing point of nearly every fan ever made is the bearing. It may have raised the temperature of the coil a fraction of a percent, but nothing more. Though, you probably shouldn't dust your system while it's running anyways, if only for the reason that some of the blown dust will immediately get sucked into the heatsink on your CPU cooler or graphics card.

 

[badboyrog2]

anyway never clean a running computer with a spray air can
remove the power completely