Cleaning PC, laptop with electric air blower and portable battery powered vacuum

[yayou]

Hi everybody,

I would like to have your point of vue about cleaning PC and Laptop with those products. In my job we use an electric air blower I find very powerful and noisy and for my Asus G74SX Laptop, i've bought a portable battery powerded vacuum but I've read that they could damage components by creating static electricity. Or do you think that as long that they don't touch any part of the machine, they will cause no problems.

Thanx for having read.

[CatKiller]

Don't do it.

Static electricity is caused by the circulation of dust; you don't need to touch it to fry your computer.

Use a can of compressed air if you want to remove the dust.

[mörgæs]

I wouldn't be afraid of static electricity; in fact I have never seen hardware damaged by that.

However I doubt blowing air is effective. I always take old hardware apart and clean the clogged parts with (gentle) vacuuming.

[yayou]

Thank you for your quickness. CatKiller, I'm not sure to understand what you said. Could you explain the fact that dust circulation cause static electricity? I thought that it was the contact of the nozzle of the cleaner (plastic) and computer components who could damage them. So I said to myself that if I use these products without making them touch any thing from the machine, everything would be alright.

mörgæs, my electric air blower does remove dust, not in depth but if a computer as an awful layer of dust, it would be nice to first use it and them taking a can for the in depth dust removing. What I wanted to know is the possibility that electricity or other dangerous thing (exept making making comp) could be cause just because of the air flow in the component or its power. Do you see my problem?

[mörgæs]

mörgæs, my electric air blower does remove dust, not in depth but if a computer as an awful layer of dust, it would be nice to first use it and them taking a can for the in depth dust removing. What I wanted to know is the possibility that electricity or other dangerous thing (exept making making comp) could be cause just because of the air flow in the component or its power. Do you see my problem?

I don't think there is a problem at all. If you want to test you could find some old worthless hardware and try to blow or vacuum it to death by air with or without dust. I doubt you will inflict any damage

A fan can be blown apart by too much force in the air stream, but that is of course not due to electricity.

[yayou]

I'm not totally agree with you, mörgæs. The reason why I posted this subject in the forum is that I know that things are not always that simple, that's the reason why I went for a better understanding of things. For example, I know that a component could die because of a shock received many days or weeks before. This is why I don't think that testing with other computers wouldn't be sufficient. I already know that there is a real link between static electricity and plastic. So I just need to avoid a contact between the nozzle and the machine. But was it the only thing I should care about? Isn't there a possible problem with the air flow by itself? Do I need to respect a certain distance between nozzle and the computer part? I think that answering thoses questions would allow me and others a more secured usage of these products.

[ppjdee]

I have always used a vacume to clean my comp. Since the compressed air made a bigger mess for me to clean up
Anyways respect the small fragil parts of the mobo. And like morgaes said, watch out "over revving" the fans. Oh and another thing, I always use q-tips on some parts, sometimes with a little rubbing alchol to clean the heatsink and gfx card.

[yayou]

ppjdee are you talking about a standard vaccum or an battery powered one?

[kurt18947]

Desktops I've used an air compressor with the pressure turned down to about 30 p.s.i. (not sure how that translates to other scales). I hold the fans stationary when blowing around them. Crud falls to the bottom of the case then I can vacuum it without static concern. Check all cable seating before replacing the covers.

[ppjdee]

ppjdee are you talking about a standard vaccum or an battery powered one?

Standard