Cleaning laptop

[thecoalman]

My brother has a laptop that's turning off on him after a while, I'm presuming it's overheating. He can't open it without voiding the warranty. So how would he go about removing the dust, just blow the air in and hope it works....

Otherwise he'll have to send it back to be repaired.

Is ther specific monitoring tools for laptops or will any monitoring tool work? Any suggestions?

[jackal70058]

It might not be good idea to blow the dust in, it will just go futher into your computer.

I wouldn't know how to get dust out without opening the machine.

Maybe you could put the vaccum hose against the opening and hope it sucks some the dust out.

[redwudz]

The vacuum cleaner idea might work if you were to put the suction on the exhaust ports and blow air into the intake. I would put a small piece of plastic into the fan, (With the computer off, of course and left to sit long enough for everything inside to cool down to avoid thermal stress) to keep from damaging the fan bearings due to overspeeding or wrong direction. You could reverse this and blow from the exhaust to the intake also, just hold the fan as before. Turn the laptop upside down and vacuum the keyboard area also.

[ZAPPER]

Call me stupid if you like. But it may be time to take it to the shop. Does it have to go back to the manufacturer or can you just take it to a local autherized service center? How new is it and what does the warrenty actually say about serviceing it? I am worried about dust in a laptop my self. I got a new one for X-mas and after only like an hour of use on the jobsite I noticed a light film on the surface. I am hoping that a can of air is OK for light cleaning before I put it away at the end of work.

[Roundabout]

If it is in warranty and is shutting down, it may not be dust causing the problem, it may be a borderline/defective component. Of course, dust could be a cause, but usually dust alone won't cause it to shut off completely. Look how many TV's work for years with tons of dust inside, and they run much hotter than the average laptop.

My guess is that there are other problems than dust. Since it's in warranty, send it back for repair and let them fix it, IMO. Why mess with it?

BTW, my IBM laptop is four years old this week, and I've never had to clean dust out of it, and it doesn't have any heat related problems. I suppose that if it were in a very heavily dusty environment it could make a difference (mine's not).

Just my opinion.

[thecoalman]

If it is in warranty and is shutting down, it may not be dust causing the problem, it may be a borderline/defective component. Of course, dust could be a cause, but usually dust alone won't cause it to shut off completely. Look how many TV's work for years with tons of dust inside, and they run much hotter than the average laptop.

Thanks for the advice but the most common cause of a computer just shutting off is usually caused by by an overheating CPU, it's supposed to do that. Dust buildup on the heatsink prevents the heat from being dispersed. It's a high end laptop too so the CPU is going to heat up quite a bit if not properly cooled.

The reason we don't want to send it back is because it's a simple matter of opening the case and blowing it out. It's simple and probably won't take more than a few minutes. The trouble is that it will void the warranty and it wasn't cheap.

I think we may just try the vacum cleaner idea or just say screw it and open it up.

@Zapper it's 6 months old and would have to be shipped across the country...2 weeks minimum unless you pay the overnight shipping. They'd probably pick up the tab if you bitched enough, they are a pretty good company. If your using that in a work enviroment I'd bet a god dose of air once in a while isn't going to hurt. My brother is going to start doing that once it's fixed so the dust doesn't get a chance to accumulate and stick to stuff.

[gummyAvenger]

My sister has an HP laptop that was doing that. She took it in and they took off the heatsink, reaplied the thermal goo, then put it back on. I don't think she's had problems with it since.