P150HM Maintenance

Do any of you do anything special to keep your laptop clean? Or do anything special to extend the life of the laptop?

 

I recommend opening it up and dusting it out every 3 months or so depending on your environment. I also wipe clean my monitor every week.

 

What exactly do you mean by "dusting it out"?

 

How do you clean the heat sink dust without taking it apart (assuming you will have to repaste . . . )

@iMac: dusting it out meaning you clean the dusts that get stuck in the pipes, heatsinks,etc for better ventilation

 

You can blow the vents, then open up the bottom (bays and such) and blow out dust there too. It is easy to get to everything. I do as posted above, open it up (several screws on the bottom) and blow it out with a can of compressed air every couple of months. Dust build up is one of the main reasons for heat buildup and failure in laptops.

 

And when you open it up, you will have access to the heatsinks. Blow them up with air. You don't have to take the sinks off or even loosen them, therefore you don't have to repaste.

 

Most of the time, I think there are more dust in the fan . . .

 

Other than cleaning out the dust, there isn't much I can recommend either. I like to do a Windows reinstall every few months, but that's more to keep things running quickly and to get rid of cruft in the OS.

As far as hardware, you may also want to just wipe the whole thing down with a lint free cloth every once in a while as well- just basic cleaning stuff

 

same with desktops It's more general cleaning.
taking out dust from the fans and making sure the fans are turning properly (no dust build up that will prevent the fans from turning smoothly).

thermal paste application depends on the thermal paste used, if I used arctic silver before I'd usually repaste after a year, ICdiamond i believe wouldn't need a repaste for 2 years i think.

and repaste if I removed the heatsink from the cpu or gpu.

aside from this is reformatting the O.S. if it already feels cluttered or slow.

 

how do you actually clean the dusts from where the air comes in without taking the heatsink off the CPU/GPU. Like in the picture here, the red part where I drew red on is where I want to clean as much as the fan itself (by simply unscrew the 3 or 4 screws on top of the fan cover).

 

With a standard compressed air canister. You can dust out the vents like others have said or unscrew the laptop to get access to heat sinks and blow it out that way.

 

oh and make sure to remove any static electricity before you do this, otherwise it can fry some of the components inside.

also make sure to hold down the fan when you're blowing compressed air into it to prevent static electricity build up if the fans are turning.
(and don't blow the dust with your mouth lol, moisture could corrode components of your lappy/mobo)

 

You can remove the entire fan assembly itself and not only the cover simply by unscrewing the surrounding black screws that are holding the fan housing down.

Both fans do not even need to be unplugged as the cables are generally just long enough to give you enough space to maneuver around and access the heat sink fins directly. But it's a simple plug and play affair if you want to remove the fans anyway.

Then just blow the dust out (from within the laptop) using compressed air.
This is what I use: Datavac

 

My point is how can you clean the heatsink in the red area without lifting the whole copper pipe up (which will mess up the thermal paste)

 

What does my method of removing the entire fan enclosure not allow you to clean? It's really as far a disassembly as you can go without messing with the thermal paste and grants you the most access to the many individual cooling fins where the air exits without the fan shroud blocking you.

Alternatively, you could always put the entire laptop in a dishwasher, followed by a few spins in the washing machine

 

Okay thanks for all the recommendations guys. Does anyone have a particular preference with maintaining the screen?

 

Wipe it down once in a while with a microfiber cloth. That's about it. I think some people here like some sort of cleaning wipes though.

 

Yep the cloth is all you need unless maybe your screen is seriously smudged up. I bought a 2 pack of cloths from Staples for $5 and they're perfect. As for the insides, I'm generally too lazy to clean them unless temps start rising. A can of air and some cotton swabs come in handy