Using canned air without opening up laptop?

Hi. My dv4t will be shipped next week, but I need to clean my four-year old laptop. It's unbelievably loud, and its fan is always working.
However, I don't want to open up my laptop. My laptop is the Presario 2100 series

Would shooting canned air directly at the vents help get rid of some dust in the heatsink? I know some companies make CPUs and heatsinks easily accessible, but HP doesn't.

How do you clean the heatsink of your laptop? I searched forums on this website, but most posts say "Open up your laptop", which is difficult for HP and Compaq users.

Would regularly shooting canned air directly at the vents help keep the heatsinnk clean?

Thanks.

 

I'm not too familiar with this model so I could only give you some general tips that I have used.

Only problem I ever had with this is blowing dirty and crap back INTO the unit which annoyed me to great end. If you have access to the fan from the rear or underneath, grab a paperclip and insert it between the fan fins. You want to do this just to hold the fan in place while you blow the dirt off. Some people will tell you that you don't have to do this while others will say block the fan first. I lean towards caution.

 

Thanks for your advice

Does it get rid of a lot of dust if you do it regularly? I think I'll use canned air to clean the heatsink of my dv4t without opening it up.

 

All depends on how dirty the unit is. If you live in an area where there is a lot of dirty, then you'll be cleaning it all of the time. At that point, I would recommend replacing the heatsink and fan assembly. They are inexpensive and pretty easy to install. Usually removing the keyboard screws and then the keyboard gives you access to it.

On my XPS, I do a good cleaning atleast once a week. Simply because I live on a dirt road and I'm in the field at times with it.

 

Thanks for your advice
However, if you have an HP laptop, you have to disassemble the whole laptop to reach the heatsink and the fan. That makes it impossible for me to clean the fan and heatsink properly...

 

My dad has HP 6xxx (forgot the model #). I cleaned his notebook with canned air. HP isn't that hard to open up anyway. For my previous Vaio, I had to open up keyboard first, then palm rest, then flip it back, unscrew like 20 screws, open HD screws, ram screws... lol

 

Did you open up your dad's laptop and used canned air?
I attempted to open up the laptop... I actually succeeded in removing the keyboard. And... guess what... I said to myself, "No, I shouldn't do this until I buy a new laptop!!!" So, I stopped there and put everything back.

 

Yes. If you don't want to risk too much, I think just cleaning w/o opening the back will do for a moment.

 

Hmm.... I bought some compressed gas cans from Costco...

I don't think it is strong enough to remove any dust. Although I can feel more hot air coming out of the laptop, I can't notice any difference...

 

How do other HP users deal with dust in the heatsink and fan?

 

Big honkin air compressor, 120PSI, every Friday.

Been doing this for years on HP laptops (Models: HHsomethings/ZD7000's/DV9500T), without damage. We have several to clean.

FWIW, we blow the whole notebook (keyboard, vents, fans, etc).

J

 

I opened my M2000 and it is about 3 years old. Not much dust to be found.
Was fixing the bad LCD cable.

James