How do I go about cleaning my E6400?

I have a two-year-old Dell Latitude E6400. I have installed RMClock on it and it is showing somewhat increased idle temperatures, which I (hopefully correctly) attribute to the machine never being cleaned.

So... has anyone done this? Is there a step-by-step guide (including, say a list of tools required) available for this? I have never cleaned a laptop before.

Thanks to all who reply.

 

Before you tear into the machine, you might try to simply blow out the air cooling vents with a can of compressed air. I've done this on 2 machines (M4300's) and it proved exceptionally effective - lowered temperatures by around 8-10 deg. C. I've only needed to do this about twice a year at the most.

Harvey

 

The E6400 should have a door for pretty much the entire base so access to fan/heatsinks are relatively easy compared to some other notebooks. Make sure you hold down your fan when blowing out all the crud it in, you can ruin your fan bearings by letting it spin AND fans can generate current by spinning them, possibly frying your motherboard.

 

Loosen the one bottom center screw and slip the panel off. The screw is captive so don't remove it from the panel. Then gently remove any built up dust along the ventilation path. Do no harm. Compressed air may help blow dust free. Beware using a vacuum cleaner... they can collect a static charge on the nozzle and then give it up through whatever you might touch.

GK

 

I would first remove the bottom panel and then blow the compressed air through the cooling system from the outside. This should dislodge any fluff that has got trapped. Tweezers and/or a paper clip bent to create a hook also can be useful for removing lumps of fluff.

John

 

I took out the fan and notice it had lot of dust

 

Most of the time if you hit the external fins with air you get a puff of dust out and that was all it took to get it warm.

Ocasionaly a fuzzball gets stuck between the heatsink and the fan.

I gotta give dell credit for making the fan on the E series easier to remove then the D series. I -hated- removing the whole MB and taking the whole laptop apart just to replace a fan with a bad motor.

 

its true, i notice the fan on E series is really easy to remove, and I really like this design.