X201 meets milspec for dust resistance- no need to clean fan?

Hi,

i work in an office which is dustier than normal, because we deal with fabrics and when you cut fabrics threads and fluff generally accumulate very fast, so fast that even cleaning every day dosent really help much.

my M4400's heatsink gets clogged very fast and i have to clean it every 1-2 months or it starts operating hotter than normal

i took a look at the X201 hardware manual and it seems like quite a big pain to access the heatsink/fan.


can someone who has actually done it before chip in and let me know how difficult it really is or am i being too cautious?

one more point- lenovo touts the X200 series to meet 8 milspec tests, one of them is dust. when i physically look into the exhaust vent, the spacing seems bigger between the fins on my dell, does this mean particulates will not accumulate significantly? on my dell its a good 5mm thick almost like a carpet of dust ......that i have to "peel" off every 2 months

 

nope. it'll merely work in dusty environments. over time you will still need to clean out the fan. Yes I have taken the X201 and X200 apart to re-apply thermal paste on the cpu and it's quite time consuming, but not difficult. There are so many screws and things to remove. In my old Asus the cpu was located under a servicable panel. Two screws - pluck the cpu out instantly.

But I can say that disassembling the x201 is nothing too problematic. Don't worry.

if you work in such an environment, I know it's possibly too late but perhaps it is possible to buy a low powered laptop with NO fan at all. The tiny Vaio P is passive-cooled isnt it? Keep a cheap 19" monitor at work and hook it up to that.

I suppose the programs you run and general usage might not work for a tiny device though.

 

yea i need a bit more power than something like that can provide. the hardware manual looked pretty finicky.... and like you said, time consuming. this could be a pain if i have to take it apart every 2 months. i've only had it for about a month, lets see if the temps rise a lot. hopefully they dont

p.s in your experience, how fast does the X200 series get clogged? over on the dell forum, it seems even others with "normal" conditions reported that their M4400 equivalent E series get clogged pretty fast too

 

Just take off the keyboard to clean out the fan. A total disassembly is required if you want to take out the heatsink/fan part.

 

do you reckon just cleaning the fan should be enough? also, what if i try to blast compressed air through there, does it look like the dust will come out through the vent or will it just scatter

 

As long as there's no big chunks of dust in there, it should be fine. You'll want to hold the fan stationary when you're spraying it, though.

 

This. And if there are larger chunks of dust, you may be able to use a tweezers to remove them, assuming blowing them out through the vents doesn't work.

 

if your work environment is extremely dusty, i would opt for a Fully rugged Toughbook, otherwise you would be cleaning the fan alot.

 

its not that dusty. its not an industrial location but dusty enough to need occasional cleaning. i mean come on....normal users never clean their systems over the 3-5 year lifespan. anyway i think i've already got my answer.

 

I suppose it should be fine even if you let it build up for a while. I played through Doom3 on an X61 that would overheat if I let it run at max clocks... When I finally opened it up, there was a dime sized chunk of dust in the fan chamber. O_O

 

yea, i'll only consider this if temps start to be noticable. the "intake" on the x201 also seems to be pretty small compared to my precision, so hopefully it dosent clog as fast

 

I suppose by the same token it's possible for the intakes to get clogged faster; there's less cross-sectional area.

 

smaller intake, bigger exhaust compared to the M4400

also i just thought of this, the fan on the X201 runs so slowly all the time compared to the M4400 running pretty fast

probably has less sucking power, might not clog as fast too....but time will tell!

 

or use a dryer sheet to filter the air going in.....

or next time you go to the grocery store, as a butcher for a couple hair nets....thats even thinner, and more
air can go through it.....just cut to fit the intake side....tape or find some way to stick it on there

 

Ahh, just get some secondhand pantyhose from the missus and tape a few pieces over the vents.